Analyzing sustainability of Chinese coal cities using a decision tree modeling approach

Coal is the most important energy in China, and sustainability of Chinese coal cities is critical to the socioeconomic development and energy security of the country. Identifying the characteristics and patterns of coal city sustainability is of great importance to promoting the sustainable development of coal cities. After constructing an Indicator System for Coal City Sustainability (ISCCS) and collecting data from 55 prefecture-level coal cities, we analyzed the patterns and characteristics of sustainability of Chinese coal cities by using a data-mining method – decision tree modeling. Through comprehensive analysis of the models, we not only attained an overall understanding on the patterns and characteristics of sustainability of Chinese coal cities, but also discovered some novel, implicit, and previously unknown patterns and characteristics of sustainability: most mature coal cities present signs of resource curse, while declining coal cities present two obviously different development patterns: resource curse and resource blessing patterns; northeastern coal cities have relatively good sustainability, the environmental quality, especially air quality, of northern coal cities is bad, northwestern coal cities have rapid economic growth but undeveloped economy conditions and the fragile environmental carrying capacity is ignored. To promote the sustainability of Chinese coal cities, it is necessary to change the traditional conception of urban decay with mineral depletion, to make and implement effective plans of sustainable development for coal city from the early development stages, and to pay more attention to coal cities' regional characteristics and differences.