Assessing the regional sustainability of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration from 2000 to 2015 using the human sustainable development index

Abstract

Sustainability assessment can analyze the challenges of regional development from societal, economic, and environmental dimensions and provide an important baseline for regional planning. Recently, the rapid socio-economic development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration has inflicted great pressure on the regional environment. Therefore, this paper evaluated the sustainability dynamics of the BTH urban agglomeration from 2000 to 2015 at the city scale using the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) and discussed the major drivers of the changes in regional sustainability. The results showed that the overall sustainability of the BTH urban agglomeration increased from 2000 to 2015, with the HSDI increasing by 10%. Among the three dimensions, the economic sustainability indicators grew the fastest, with a growth rate of 42%, while the environmental sustainability indicators declined by 8%. The decline of environmental sustainability played an important role in limiting regional sustainable development. Specifically, the optimization of the energy structure in six cities, e.g., Tangshan, Langfang and Cangzhou, was relatively weaker than that in the remaining seven cities. In the future, the BTH urban agglomeration must further optimize the energy structure to build a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society.