Conflict or coordination? Assessment of coordinated development between socioeconomic and ecological environment in resource-based cities: evidence from Sichuan province of China

The relationship between socioeconomic and ecological environment becomes a significant factor influencing the regional sustainable development of resource-based cities (RBCs); how to coordinate the relationship between socioeconomic growth and ecological environment is the key problem to achieve sustainable development goals of RBCs. A comprehensive evaluation indicator system was constructed to research the coupling coordination level of RBCs in this paper; the dynamic DM model and the CCD model were adopted to measure the comprehensive level of the coupling coordination degree between socioeconomic and ecological environment of the 9 resource-based cities from 2008 to 2018 in Sichuan province. The results showed that the coupling coordination level was not ideal. Only two cities were located to the moderate coordination, and other cities were located to the primary coordination or tiny coordination. In addition, there was a significant difference between SE and EE, and the comprehensive evaluation score of SE was lower than that of EE in eight RBCs, which accounts for 88.89%. Based on this, we analyzed the reasons for the backward development of the socioeconomic system of the resource-based cities in order to provide relevant references for the transformation of the RBCs. Finally, the policy suggestions for the sustainable development of different types of RBCs were provided, involving improving the policy and financial support for enterprise transformation, promoting high-new technology to improve production efficiency, strengthening government guidance on industrial layout, stabilizing employment, and improving the social security system. This study offers a model of China’s experience that might be beneficial for achieving sustainable development goals (SGDs) of other cities and countries.