Achieving the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a critical global challenge. Ensuring the sustainable utilization of water resources has long been a key policy priority for the Chinese government, balancing economic growth with ecological conservation and advancing ecological civilization. Taking China’s sustainable development agenda innovation demonstration area Chenzhou as the object, this work focuses on SDG6 and examines the progress in sustainable water resource utilization from 2015 to 2022, evaluating three dimensions—water quantity, water environment, and water ecology. A comprehensive evaluation index system closely related to SDG6 was constructed to assess the sustainable development progress. Furthermore, the interactions between SDG6 and related SDGs were analyzed. The results show that (1) from 2015 to 2022, the SDG6 composite index has significantly increased over time, with the establishment of the demonstration area (2019–2022) more than twice compared to before (2015–2018), particularly in water environment and water quantity; (2) the SDG composite index and individual SDG indexes have shown a fluctuating upward trend, with an increase of about 89.74% after the establishment of the demonstration area (2019–2022) compared to before (2015–2018), with the most significant progress in the society dimension; and (3) there were significant synergy effects between the improvements in SDG6 and related SDGs. For each unit increase in SDG6, the overall level of related SDGs increased by 0.73 units, specifically, with particularly strong synergies between SDG2, SDG7, SDG9, and SDG11. This study not only provides scientific guidance for water resource management and policy optimization in Chenzhou and similar water resource-based cities but also offers valuable localized case studies, methodologies, and data to support the monitoring of urban sustainable development at a global scale.

The quality of urban human settlements (UHSs) directly affects the city’s livability and the well-being of its residents. Scientific monitoring and assessment of UHSs, their progress toward sustainable development, and impacts they experience from rapid urbanization can accelerate the implementation of the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the field of human settlements. This study focuses on Chenzhou City, an innovation demonstration zone for China’s Sustainable Development Agenda. It develops a sustainable development evaluation index based on SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and other relevant SDGs, with the objectives of residential stability, facilitated mobility, safety of residents, comfortable environment, and low-carbon development. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) methodology was utilized to assess the progress of sustainable development in Chenzhou City from 2015 to 2022, focusing on the evaluation of UHS indicators, targets, and sustainable development index (SDI) scores. The geographic detector techniques were employed to investigate the impact of new urbanization on the UHSs. The analysis found the following: (1) After the demonstration zone was established (2019–2022), the scores for the five goals and the SDI increased by over 50% compared to the pre-establishment period (2015–2018), with a highly significant difference between the two periods. (2) Among the 35 indicators measured, the proportion of those that reached or nearly reached their targets increased from 57.1% in 2018 to 71.4% in 2022. As of 2022, there has been positive progress toward the goal of residential stability, while efforts toward the other four goals have made some progress but require further acceleration. (3) China’s new urbanization process had a notable impact on the SDI, with most influencing factors positively correlated with the SDI and the interactive effects of population, economic, social, and spatial urbanization factors demonstrate strong explanatory power. The findings provide decision-making support for the sustainable development of the demonstration zone’s UHSs and offer a reference for evaluating the sustainable development of UHSs in similar cities.

As interactions between global environmental change and socio-economic development become increasingly complex, research on social–ecological system (SES) resilience has become a core domain for addressing diverse socio-environmental risks. Based on 4705 publications indexed in the Web of Science from 1997 to 2025, this study employs bibliometric methods to systematically trace the intellectual evolution of SES resilience research. The results show that: (1) the field has undergone three distinct developmental stages, evolving from early theoretical exploration, through the integration of interdisciplinary frameworks, to a phase characterized by methodological innovation and quantitative modeling, and has now developed into a mature and rapidly growing interdisciplinary research area; (2) global knowledge production in this field remains dominated by developed countries, with institutions and collaboration networks in the United States and Europe occupying central positions, while emerging countries, particularly China, are becoming increasingly influential,, reflecting a dynamically evolving global research landscape; (3) research hotspots have expanded from ecological management to a broader spectrum involving social psychology, urban infrastructure, and adaptive governance, while frontier directions are shifting toward multi-scale assessment, institutional governance, and the integration of socio-technical systems; and (4) Based on the bibliometric results, this study further develops a conceptual SDG-oriented “resources–social–ecological system resilience” (R-SESR) framework to synthesize the links among social vulnerability, ecological stability, and key resource security.