The concept of high-quality development has become the current theme of China’s economic construction. High-quality development requires maintaining a healthy and cyclical approach to economic development, which is a challenge in the original development approach. Yet, a great deal of evidence suggests that there is a strong interrelationship between economic development and the ecological environment, and developing a method to quantify this interrelationship is important for studying the extent of high-quality development. Here, we propose a new indicator system using the coupling degree model and the coupling coordination degree model to assess the coupled coordination of economic development and the ecological environment in the Yellow River basin as a whole and in each province. We found that: (1) the economic development and ecological health of the Yellow River basin exhibit a slowly increasing trend; (2) the coupling degree of the economic development and ecological environment is high, indicating that the interaction between the economy and ecology is very strong; and (3) the increasing degree of coupling and coordination reflects the trend of continuous improvement and coordination in the relationship between the economy and ecological environment, and the level of high-quality development in the basin has continuously increased. The results of this study indicate that to continue to strengthen the high-quality development in the Yellow River basin, the contradiction between the economy and ecology should be alleviated, and coordinated development of both should be achieved.

Many cities worldwide face decline due to mineral-resource exhaustion, with mining-induced subsidence and land degradation posing urgent land use challenges. At the same time, carbon neutrality has become a global agenda, promoting ecological restoration, emissions reduction, and green transformation in resource-exhausted cities. However, empirical evidence on how carbon neutrality strategies drive land use transition remains scarce. Taking Xuzhou, China, as a case study, we integrate the GeoSOS–FLUS land use simulation model with a Markov chain model to project land use patterns in 2030 under three scenarios: natural development (ND), land recovery (LR), and carbon neutrality (CN). Using emission factors and a land use carbon inventory, we quantify spatial distributions and temporal shifts in carbon emission and sequestration. Results show that LR’s rigid recovery policies restrict broader transitions, while the CN scenario effectively reshapes land use by enhancing the competitiveness of low-carbon types such as forests and new-energy land. Under CN, built-up land expansion is curbed, forests and new-energy land are maximized, and emissions fall by 4.95% from 2020. Carbon neutrality offers opportunities for industrial renewal and ecological restoration in resource-exhausted cities, steering transformations toward approaches that balance ecological function and carbon benefits. Long-term monitoring is required to evaluate policy sustainability and effectiveness.

Mining often generates large amounts of inefficiently used land. Clarifying the multifunctional characteristics of mined land and its spatial and temporal evolution is important to environmental protection and promoting the economic and social benefits of mined areas. This article analyzed the conditions of mined land in Jiawang, Jiangsu province, China. The InVEST model was used to assess landscape functions, including those related to water and soil conservation, productivity, habitats, carrying capacity, recreation, and carbon sequestration, to explore the multifunctional changes and trade-off–synergy relationships of the landscape from 2005 to 2020. The results show that (1) ecological restoration of the mined land significantly improved the regional landscape multifunctionality during the study period, with each function enhanced more obviously after restoration was completed in 2012, and (2) the trade-offs and synergistic relationships for landscape multifunctionality varied during the study period because the time series evolved; some trade-offs gradually transformed into synergistic relationships. This study establishes a set of effective systems useful in evaluating the multifunctionality of mined land, and initially evaluated the trade-off–synergistic relationships among eight landscape functions. This will provide ideas supporting the management and restoration of mined land and help in the formulation of spatial planning strategies for ecological restoration.

Introduction: Coastal social-ecological systems face climate change, resource exploitation, and fragmented governance. Hazard-specific assessments cannot fully represent their capacity to cope with uncertain disturbances, while connections between nationally consistent screening and fine-scale local diagnosis remain limited. Methods: Drawing on general resilience theory, we developed a three-tier, ten-attribute framework linking a national baseline with a nested assessment in Rongcheng. Coastal land and marine subsystems were evaluated using a nominal 2025 temporal window that incorporated the closest reliable products for slowly updated variables. The analysis included indicator standardization, scale-specific weighting, composite assessment, Jenks natural breaks classification, and spatial autocorrelation analysis. Results: The mean general resilience capacity indices were 0.359 for national coastal land and 0.470 for national coastal waters. Low and relatively low classes accounted for 39.75% of national coastal land, whereas moderate and relatively high classes accounted for 65.48% of national coastal waters. In Rongcheng, moderate and relatively low classes jointly represented 68.30% of coastal land. Relatively low and relatively high classes accounted for 56.33% of coastal waters, with a coefficient of variation of 0.282, indicating pronounced intra-bay heterogeneity. Discussion: The national assessment provides a consistent baseline for broad-scale screening, whereas the Rongcheng assessment identifies bay- and shoreline-scale units for future field verification. Because the assessments differ in indicators, weights, and spatial supports, their results should be interpreted within their respective scales rather than compared directly. Scale-matched monitoring and governance feedback can connect national screening with local diagnosis.