Territorial Resilience of Metropolitan Regions: A Conceptual Framework, Recognition Methodologies and Planning Response—A Case Study of Wuhan Metropolitan Region

Abstract

As the key link and spatial form of urbanization in China, metropolitan region development has become a strategic frontier issue in the field of regional planning and territorial resilience. This paper defines the essence of territorial resilience of metropolitan regions, analyses the capacity of the system and its elements, and builds a regional planning framework. An evaluation indicator system is constructed to evaluate the territorial resilience level and identify the limiting factors in the Wuhan metropolitan region by utilizing the grey correlation model and the obstacle degree model. The results show that the resilience of Wuhan metropolitan region forms an overall pattern of one core area and four sub-regions in the east, west, north and south. According to the different limiting factors of resilience, cities can be divided into three types: cities limited by both policy and spatial resource factors, cities with lagging socioeconomic factors, and cities with insufficient innovation factors. This paper proposes planning response strategies to enhance resilience from two spatial levels. At the regional level this can be done by building a gradually balanced urban system, establishing three areas based on the degree of resilience factor agglomeration, while at the urban level it can be accomplished by maintaining ecological security, promoting economic agglomeration development and constructing innovation networks.