Improving ecological well-being performance (EWP) is the essential requirement of green transformation development and ecological civilization construction. With the help of a network DEA model and threshold panel regression model, this study evaluated urban ecological well-being performance to explore the evolution process, impact, and optimization path of urban ecological well-being performance in the Yangtze River Delta from 2001 to 2017. The findings are as follows: (1) The ecological well-being performance of all cities in the region had been steadily improving since 2001, most cities had realized the transformation from a low performance level to a higher performance level, and there was an obvious spatial mismatch between urban economic development level and ecological well-being performance. (2) A regional urban ecological well-being performance development mode was constantly optimized, sustainable urban development ability was improved, and the number of high-high (HH) mode cities was gradually increasing while the number of low-low (LL) mode cities was gradually decreasing. (3) Under the influence of threshold variables of population density, industrialization level, and environmental regulation, the impact of urbanization on ecological well-being performance had different threshold characteristics. Economic growth, industrialization, and government macro-control had significantly negative restraining effects, while consumption level, industrial structure upgrading, energy efficiency, and technological innovation had significantly positive driving effects.

In the context of ecological priority and green development strategy, accelerating the upgrading of tourism structure and promoting the development of ecotourism is an important guarantee to achieve green and low-carbon economic growth and high-quality development. On the basis of constructing comprehensive evaluation indicators of tourism development (TD) and green development efficiency (GDE), this study analyzed the impulse response relationship between TD and GDE and the impact effect of TD on GDE in the Yangtze River Delta region from 2000–2018. Findings showed that: (1) During the study period, TD generally exhibited a W-shaped fluctuating upward trend and GDE showed a staggered evolution of upward and downward fluctuations, while both regional gaps of TD and GDE continued to decrease. (2) Most cities had made a leap from low to medium, high, and higher levels of tourism development, with tourism development levels decreasing along the Yangtze River basin to the north and south of the delta. The overall green development efficiency was relatively low, showing a spatial pattern of high value in the southern delta and low value in the northwest delta. (3) There was a one-way Granger causality of TD on GDE, and the impact of TD on GDE showed a significant positive cumulative effect. (4) TD exhibited a significant inverted U-shaped impact on GDE. The economic development level and government intervention had a significant positive impact on GDE. The proportion of secondary industry, energy consumption intensity, and foreign direct investment had a significant negative driving effect on GDE. While the impact of environmental regulation on GDE was insignificant positive. This study has great practical significance to alleviate the problems of urban resources and environment, and to realize a green economy and high-quality life.

The equalization of healthcare supply is not only related to the people's need for a better life, but can also provide a strong guarantee for the high-quality and sustainable development of the Yangtze River Delta integration. By using exploratory spatial analysis techniques, this study analyzed the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics and heterogeneous influence effects of the supply level of healthcare service in the Yangtze River Delta from 2007 to 2019. It was found that the supply level of healthcare service in the Yangtze River Delta had improved significantly. The differences in the supply level of healthcare service between cities had tended to narrow without polarization, and the supply level of healthcare service generally showed a high spatial pattern in the south delta and low spatial pattern in the north delta. The higher the supply level of healthcare service was, the weaker the interannual variability was. The supply level of healthcare service in the Yangtze River Delta region presented obvious spatial association and differentiated tendency of local high and low spatial clusters. The relative length and curvature of the supply level of healthcare service in the Yangtze River Delta generally presented a spatial pattern with low values in the northeast and high values in the southwest. Population density and urban-rural income gap generally exhibited negative spatio-temporal impact on the supply level of healthcare service across most cities. On the other hand, urbanization level and per capita disposable income generally had positive spatio-temporal impact on the supply level of healthcare service across most cities. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) showed an increasingly positive spatio-temporal impact on the supply level of healthcare service across most cities. While per capita fiscal expenditure exhibited significantly negative impact on the supply level of healthcare service across most cities in space.