Objectively evaluating the decoupling status of water resources utilization and economic development is an important sign of judging the sustainability of regional economic development. From the perspective of water footprint (WF), this paper expands the scope of water resources accounting by assessing agricultural blue WF, green WF and gray WF. The Tapio decoupling index was used to explore the decoupling status of agricultural WF and economic development in Gansu Province from 2006 to 2015, and the logarithmic mean divisor index (LMDI) decomposition model was used to identify the main driving factors of agricultural WF changes and explore the degree of divergence between agricultural economic development and water resources utilization. The results showed that agricultural economic growth was a main factor for the increase of WF; the improvement of agricultural production technology had a restraining effect, and the population effect and structural effect had a lesser effect. During the research period, the relationship between agricultural WF and economic growth in Gansu Province changed from weak decoupling to strong decoupling, and the contributing factors to decoupling were in descending order: economic, technological, structural and population. Finally, this paper puts forward suggestions on optimizing planting structure, improving agricultural technology and economic development mode to promote the sustainable development of local agriculture.

At present, various contradictions in most coal-energy cities have become increasingly prominent, which has become a disharmonious factor restricting the optimization and upgrading of coal-energy cities. Since the turn of the century, taking effective improvement and protection measures and promoting the economic transformation of cities reliant on coal as an energy source has been the primary job of departments at all levels in order to secure the sustainable growth of cities. In this paper, the economic transformation and sustainable growth of coal-energy cities are included in the enhanced TOPSIS economic transformation evaluation model based on the proposed entropy weight. This study examines the industrialization of cities that rely on coal energy resources, assesses the industrial efficacy of coal energy using the DEA technique, and proposes a plan for the industrialization of cities that rely on coal energy resources. This paper summarizes the industrial transformation process of coal-energy cities and designs an evaluation method for the industrial economic transformation of coal-energy cities. This paper determines a set of evaluation index systems suitable for the economic transformation of coal-based energy cities; constructs an evaluation model for the economic transformation of improved TOPSIS coal-based energy cities based on entropy weight; and, finally, calculates and analyzes the industrial economic statistics of a city over the years. It is found that, at the economic structure level, the transformation score of driving forces increases from 0.606 to 0.871; at the level of social economic structures, the transition score of the pressure system increases from 0.476 to 0.779, and the transition score of the state system increases from 0.401 to 0.699; at the level of urban construction structures, the transformation score of the pressure system increases from 0.467 to 0.568; and at the level of comprehensive transformation structures, the transformation score affecting the system increases from 0.611 to 0.716. This shows that, in the process of transformation, the driving force of industrial and economic development in coal-energy-based cities is sufficient, while the pressure of social and economic transformation is great. In the process of transformation, we should strengthen infrastructure construction and protect the urban environment.

In the context of China’s economic transformation, the consumption of mineral resources plays an important role in its economy’s sustainable development, and so improving mining efficiency is regarded as the basis of industrial development. However, in the pursuit of mine exploitation, the destruction of land resources has attracted greater attention by government and society, with many scholars focusing more on land rehabilitation in recent years. Thus, from the perspective of climate change, this research synthetically analyzes the two stages of mining production and land rehabilitation, by applying mining employees, fixed assets’ investment stock, production of non-petroleum mineral resources, accumulated destruction of land area, rehabilitation investment, rehabilitation of land area, and average temperature to the dynamic two-stage directional-distance-function data envelopment analysis (DEA) model under exogenous variables for 29 provinces in China. The results show that the overall efficiency of mining-production-land rehabilitation in most provinces fluctuates around 0.5 and spans a large range of improvement. The efficiency of the mining production stage fluctuates around 0.55 and is relatively flat over four years. The efficiency of the land rehabilitation stage fluctuates during the four years, with it being higher in 2014, but lower in 2015. Generally speaking, the efficiency of the land rehabilitation stage is higher, promoting the improvement of overall efficiency, but the efficiencies of some provinces’ land rehabilitation stage are quite different, as some provinces still need to improve their overall efficiency level. There are also differences in the efficiencies of each decision-making units (DMU)’s variables. In sum, China should initiate corresponding policies according to specific situations, promote scientific mining in each province, and coordinate the development of mining production and land rehabilitation.

Environmental pollutant emissions have become increasingly serious, and the resulting human health problems have become the focus of social attention. In this study, 30 provinces in China were selected as the object of study, SO₂, NO_X (nitrogen oxide), and PM2.5 were taken as undesirable outputs, and a meta-frontier dynamic data envelopment analysis model was adopted to avoid the disadvantages of static analysis. In this paper, energy efficiency, environmental pollution efficiency, and human health efficiency were incorporated into a unified analysis framework by constructing a two-stage model of the production and health stages. The study shows that the total efficiency score of nine provinces and cities, including Beijing, is 1. However, the score of two-stage efficiency in most provinces, such as Anhui, is less than 1, and the score of production efficiency is higher than that of health efficiency. In the second stage, the average efficiency of health expenditure and medical staff input is low, so it is necessary to make targeted improvement. In this regard, it is necessary for the government to increase health expenditure to improve the overall level of health efficiency.