Assessing the Spatiotemporal Development of Ecological Civilization for China’s Sustainable Development

Abstract

The ecological civilization strategy in China has accelerated its national sustainability. However, few systematic evaluations of Chinese Ecological Civilization Construction (ECC) have provided detailed and timely information regarding estimations of the sustainable development levels. Here, we combined indicators and policies of the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) with Chinese ecological civilization and built an integrated assessment system with mixed indicators for evaluating the sustainable development levels in five dimensions (i.e., economy, society, ecology, culture, and institutions). Based on the acquired sustainability index from the system, we revealed the spatiotemporal transitions at the national and provincial levels from 2005 to 2019 in China. Specifically, both the national and provincial ECC temporally increased in this period, while spatially, the development performance of ECC was differentiated across provinces and regions. In particular, sustainable trajectories in east China and coastal regions presented better than the west and inland. Moreover, we identified the different dimensional contributions between the top and bottom provinces in ECC development. The results showed that the institutional, social, and cultural dimensions created more effects than the economic and ecological dimensions. By analyzing the provincial development patterns, we recommend the comprehensive development of ECC across the five dimensions and suggest that addressing weak dimensions is a priority. The proposed system will elevate the sustainable development strategies and pave the way for the broadening of the framework’s application to other regions and countries in the future.