School of Economics and Management, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710054, China.
School of Economics and Management, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710054, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Aug 15;730:139095. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139095. Epub 2020 May 1.
One difficulty in protecting historical and cultural cities in developing countries is the need to improve both the level of urban sustainable development and the rational use of historical and cultural resources. Currently, the city development index (CDI) ignores the fact that urban resources are being consumed at a rapidly increasing rate, and it is further unable to measure the coordination between urban development and ecosystems. The case study selected Xi'an, and calculated its CDI and ecological footprint per capita (ef), carbon footprint per capita (cf) and water footprint per capita (wf) in 2007-2017. A decoupling analysis was applied. The results showed only an 18.29% increase in the CDI, while the increase in the per capita values of the footprint family indicators are 38.97%, 44.41%, and 42.95%, respectively, which characterize the conflict between developing cities and maintaining urban ecosystems. There is no real decoupling between the CDI and the footprint family indicators, reflecting the dynamic reciprocal characteristics of "strong decoupling, expansive decoupling, weak decoupling, recessive decoupling" and indicating a very unstable situation. The analysis confirmed that the changes in the CDI and the footprint family indicators are the same as the left half of the inverted "U" of the "Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC)" that has not yet reached its "inflection point". This discovery helps to focus attention on the role of restoring urban ecosystems to support urban development. To this end, policy suggestions are proposed to improve urban land use efficiency, encourage low-carbon energy structure to improve energy use efficiency, improve urban carbon sequestration capacity, and implement differential water prices. This study compensates for the inability of the CDI to express the state of urban ecosystems and helps enhance the understanding of the inclusive sustainable development of cities in developing countries, which embodies human well-being.
在发展中国家保护历史文化名城面临的一个困难是，既要提高城市可持续发展水平，又要合理利用历史文化资源。目前，城市发展指数（CDI）忽略了城市资源正以极快的速度消耗这一事实，并且无法衡量城市发展与生态系统之间的协调关系。本研究选取了西安市作为案例，计算了 2007-2017 年西安市的 CDI 及其人均生态足迹（ef）、人均碳足迹（cf）和人均水足迹（wf），并进行了脱钩分析。结果表明，CDI 仅增长了 18.29%，而足迹家族指标的人均值分别增长了 38.97%、44.41%和 42.95%，这反映了发展中城市与维护城市生态系统之间的冲突。CDI 与足迹家族指标之间并未真正脱钩，体现了“强脱钩、扩张性脱钩、弱脱钩、衰退性脱钩”的动态互反特征，表明这种状态极不稳定。分析证实，CDI 和足迹家族指标的变化与“环境库兹涅茨曲线（EKC）”的左半部分相同，尚未达到其“拐点”。这一发现有助于关注恢复城市生态系统以支持城市发展的作用。为此，提出了提高城市土地利用效率、鼓励低碳能源结构以提高能源利用效率、提高城市碳汇能力和实施差异化水价等政策建议。本研究弥补了 CDI 无法表达城市生态系统状态的不足，有助于加强对发展中国家城市包容性可持续发展的认识，体现了人类福祉。
