Context: The establishment of an ecosystem health assessment framework from a human–environment view is vital to landscape sustainability. Although several studies have improved the assessment framework by integrating ecosystem services (ESs) supply or demand, consideration of the sustainable supply of ESs is lacking. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to improve the current methodological framework by integrating ecological integrity and the sustainable supply of ESs to establish an ecosystem health assessment framework. Methods: An improved assessment framework, including four indicators, vigor, organization, resilience, and ecosystem services supply rate, was established from the perspective of human–environment systems. Then, the performance of the improved assessment framework was demonstrated in a case study in China from 2000 to 2020. Results: From 2000 to 2020, the overall spatial pattern of ecosystem health values in China was high in the southern and southeastern coastal regions, and low health values were mostly located in the western region, parts of Inner Mongolia, and metropolitan areas, with a descending trend from southeast to northwest. The imbalance between the potential and actual supply of ESs greatly contributed to the deterioration of regional ecosystem health. During the study period, the regional ecosystem in China was found to be in a more unhealthy state than in traditional Vigor-Organization-Resilience-Ecosystem services (VORES) evaluation. Conclusions: The improved assessment framework that incorporates the ecological integrity and sustainable supply of ESs provides a new perspective for understanding the complex inherent characteristics of ecosystems and the regional human-nature connectedness in coupled human–environment systems. Our results could serve as a scientific reference for practical landscape governance in a changing world to achieve landscape sustainability.

Given the rapidly developing processes in the housing market of China, the significant regional difference in housing prices has become a serious issue that requires a further understanding of the underlying mechanisms. Most of the extant regression models are standard global modeling techniques that do not take spatial non-stationarity into consideration, thereby making them unable to reflect the spatial nature of the data and introducing significant bias into the prediction results. In this study, the geographically weighted regression model (GWR) was applied to examine the local association between housing price and its potential determinants, which were selected in view of the housing supply and demand in 338 cities across mainland China. Non-stationary relationships were obtained, and such observation could be summarized as follows: (1) the associations between land price and housing price are all significant and positive yet having different magnitudes; (2) the relationship between supplied amount of residential land and housing price is not statistically significant for 272 of the 338 cities, thereby indicating that the adjustment of supplied land has a slight effect on housing price for most cities; and (3) the significance, direction, and magnitude of the relationships between the other three factors (i.e., urbanization rate, average wage of urban employees, proportion of renters) and housing price vary across the 338 cities. Based on these findings, this paper discusses some key issues relating to the spatial variations, combined with local economic conditions and suggests housing regulation policies that could facilitate the sustainable development of the Chinese housing market.

Quantitative research on the impact weight and impact of regional heterogeneity of urban spatial structure elements on carbon emissions efficiency can provide a scientific basis and practical guidance for low-carbon and sustainable urban development. This study uses the megacity of Chengdu as an example to measure and analyze the spatial carbon emission efficiency and multidimensional spatial structure elements by building a high-resolution grid and identifying the main spatial structure elements that affect urban carbon emissions and their impact weights via the Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR). The spatial heterogeneity of the impact of each element is also explored. The results show that the overall carbon emission efficiency of Chengdu is high in the center and low on the sides, which is related to urban density, functional mix, land use, and traffic structure. However, the influence of each spatial structure element is different in the developed central areas, developing areas of the plain, mountainous developing areas, underdeveloped areas of the plain, and mountainous underdeveloped areas. Thus, it is appropriate to form differentiated urban planning strategies based on the characteristics of the development of each zone. The findings provide inspiration and a scientific basis for formulating policies and practice to the future low-carbon development of Chengdu, while provide a reference for other growing megacities.

The escalation of urbanization in Sichuan Province has resulted in irrational land use and excessive resource exploitation. These developments have consequently diminished the functionality of ecosystem services and exacerbated landscape fragmentation in the region. These challenges pose significant threats to the ecological security of the area. In this study, we computed the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index of Sichuan Province from 2005 to 2018. We analyzed the spatial autocorrelation between the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index, constructing a framework for landscape ecological risk assessment and zoning control based on ecosystem service value. The results show the following: (1) Between 2005 and 2018, the total value of ecosystem services in Sichuan Province increased from CNY 10,261.17 × 10⁸ to CNY 10,310.43 × 10⁸, with forest land and grassland being the primary contributors to the ESV. (2) High- and higher-risk areas within the landscape ecology of Sichuan Province are expanding, forming a pattern of high-level risk concentration from west to east. (3) There exists a negative correlation between the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index in Sichuan Province. (4) In the ecological conservation zone, the principle of low-impact development must be upheld. In the ecological cultivation zone, adjusting the proportion of land use types is necessary to enhance the rationality of the land use structure. The ecological agricultural zone should fully utilize the advantages of agriculture, while the ecological improvement zone requires focused attention to ecological restoration and land remediation.

The development of urbanization and the protection of the ecological environment are important aspects of sustainable development in urban agglomerations; thus, their coordination and synergy are crucial. Scholars in both China and other countries have conducted extensive research on the relationship between urbanization and the ecological environment from the perspective of coordinated development. However, there is a lack of research on the synergistic effects of urbanization and the ecological environment. Taking the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration as an example, this study uses the Haken model to analyze the synergistic evolution mechanism, development patterns, and future trends of urbanization and the ecological environment. This study draws the following conclusions: (1) while a synergistic development mechanism has been established between urbanization and the ecological environment, the current system is still in a stage of low-level synergy, and the control system’s parameter for the direction and path of evolution is urbanization. (2) From 2001 to 2020, the level of synergistic development between urbanization and the ecological environment was relatively low, mainly moving from low-level synergy to medium–low-level synergy to medium-level synergy. (3) There is a significant spatial disparity in the levels of synergistic development, for which the leading region centers on Chengdu and Chongqing in the northwest and southeast, respectively, and the lagging region comprises the eastern part of the urban agglomeration, mainly represented by Dazhou, Kaizhou, and Yunyang. (4) The future trend of synergistic development between urbanization and the ecological environment in the Chengdu–Chongqing urban agglomeration is promising but requires increased infrastructure construction in mountainous urban areas, enhanced cooperation and circulation in transportation, logistics, information and other aspects, and balanced improvements in the level of synergistic development between urbanization and the ecological environment. The study of the synergistic development effect of urbanization and the ecological environment in urban agglomerations is of great significance for reducing the negative impact of urbanization on the ecological environment, increasing the positive interaction between the two, and promoting sustainable development in urban agglomerations.

Urban agglomerations are emerging as new regional units for national participation in global competition and the international division of labor. However, they face increasingly severe resource and eco-environment pressures during urbanization. The coordination of the relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment has attracted global attention. In this study, we used Coupling Coordination Degree and Vector Autoregression models to examine the dynamic evolution, coupling relationships, coordinated development patterns, and interaction mechanisms between urbanization and the eco-environment. The results indicate that: (1) The level of urbanization in the Chengdu-Chongqing Urban agglomeration was relatively low, and the region showed a good eco-environment background. However, rapid urbanization is gradually straining the carrying capacity of the eco-environment. (2) A close and stable coupling relationship exists between urbanization and the eco-environment, which has reached an advanced coupling stage. The status of coordinated development among cities differs considerably, and multiple stable forms may exist simultaneously. (3) Urbanization has a substantial impact on environmental changes, whereas the restrictive effect of the eco-environment on urbanization development is not particularly notable. (4) Various interactive relationships exist between the urbanization and eco-environment subsystems, including positive promotion and negative constraint effects. The positive promotion effect mainly manifests between the economic, social, and ecological response subsystems, while the negative constraint effect is most evident in the mutual coercion and inhibition between the regional urbanization, economic urbanization, ecological status, and ecological pressure subsystems. These findings have important policy implications for decision makers exploring the path of coordinated and sustainable development in urbanization and the eco-environment in Urban agglomerations.