Impacts of changing urban form on ecological efficiency in China: a comparison between urban agglomerations and administrative areas

Abstract

This paper explored the impacts of the changing urban form on the ecological efficiency of administrative areas and urban agglomerations in China under different regional scales using the slack-based measure of efficiency model. It also measured the morphological characteristics of cities across several regions using the Largest Patch Index (LPI), Patch Density (PD), and Fractal Dimension (FD). Using the threshold regression model, the impact mechanism of urban form on ecological efficiency was examined. Results show that the ecological efficiency of the regions show an “N” type change over time. LPI and PD show a significant impact in promoting ecological efficiency while FD inhibits ecological efficiency but is not significant until the regional scale reaches 1,352 km². We conclude that the development of urban agglomeration is more conducive to improving regional ecological efficiency, which will give policymakers some inspiration in developing a regional development strategy.

Keywords:

• ecological efficiency
• urban form
• threshold test
• urban agglomeration
• administrative area
• DEA

Acknowledgements

We thank Associate Professor Yan Liu of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Queensland for her help in writing and language. Constructive suggestions and comments on the manuscript from the reviewer(s) and editor(s) are appreciated.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Funded Projects for Distinguished Young Scholars [grant number 41501141], [grant number 41501136]; Major program of the Chinese National Social Science Foundation [grant number 18ZDA040]; China Scholarship Council (CSC) Project [grant number 201806270084], [grant number 201706250116], and [grant number 201706275035]; Wuhan University Research Fund for Young Scholar Teams in Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number WHU2016024]; Wuhan University Humanities and Social Sciences Independent Research Project [grant number 2018QN089]; China Association for Science and Technology High-end Science and Technology Innovation Think Tank Doctoral Program [grant number CXY-ZKQN-2019-052].