Examining the coordination between common prosperity and ecological environment using coupling and spatial analyses: Evidence from the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in China

Abstract

Abstract The Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle(CEC) contributes significantly to China’s economic growth. Using coupling coordination degree models and spatial autocorrelation methods, this article examines the spatio-temporal characteristics of the coordination between common prosperity༈CP༉ and ecological environment (EE) of 16 cities in CEC from 2005 to 2020. According to our results, the overall degree of coupling coordination between CP and EEis not high and grows slowly. It has experienced three stages of coordination, namely primary, low, and moderate coordination, indicating that the coordinated relationship of CP and EEis improving as a whole. The CP of this region lags behind the EE, hindering the improvement of its degree of coupling coordination. The plain economic region of Chengdu presents the best coupling-coordinated development and has more significant differences compared to the other two regions. Moreover, the southeastern Sichuan area has the lowest degree of coupling coordination; the regional difference in coupling coordination degree between northeast and southeastern Sichuan is relatively small, and tends to narrow. A strong spatial correlation exists between coupling coordination development of CP and EE, which has the characteristic of ‘north high and south low’.