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A Social-Ecological Resilience Assessment and Governance Guide for Urbanization Processes in East China

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  • Chen Zhang

    (State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023 China)

  • Yangfan Li

    (Key Laboratory of Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems (Ministry of Education), College of the Environment & Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China)

  • Xiaodong Zhu

    (State Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of the Environment, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023 China)

Abstract

This article presents a social-ecological resilience assessment and attempts to explicitly examine the impacts of urbanization on resilience, with a view to explore how to strengthen social-ecological governance of the resilience of urban ecosystems. We use a combined Grey-Fuzzy evaluation model to discuss a case study of the Su-Xi-Chang city cluster, a metropolitan area in East China, in which total social-ecological resilience scores generally exhibited an upward trend, from 0.548 in 2001 to 0.760 in 2013. In the same period, resilience increased in relation to deterioration of environmental quality, pollution discharge, and landscape and ecological governance change, but decreased in relation to social-economic development. Besides, different contributions of indicators to their related resilience values reveal the heterogeneity of the resilience in terms of various disturbances. In addition, several scenarios are posited in an attempt to detect the relationship between social-ecological resilience and urbanization with the goal of improving urban governance. The results suggested that rapid urbanization under rigid and vertically organized forms of governance would cause the social-ecological system to lose resilience, or even to bring it near collapse. When the growth rate of urban land expansion reaches 16%, disturbances caused by urbanization would push the social-ecological system over a particular threshold, where the way it functions changes. However, it is found that adaptive and collaborative governance, incorporating increases in both public participation and the efficiency of environment administration, would strengthen social-ecological governance of resilience to provide the urban system with a wide operating space, and even with accelerated urbanization ratios.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen Zhang & Yangfan Li & Xiaodong Zhu, 2016. "A Social-Ecological Resilience Assessment and Governance Guide for Urbanization Processes in East China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(11), pages 1-18, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:11:p:1101-:d:81591
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Kunjie Peng & Xiaorong He & Chunxiao Xu, 2023. "Coupling Coordination Relationship and Dynamic Response between Urbanization and Urban Resilience: Case of Yangtze River Delta," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-25, February.
    2. Xiaotong You & Yanan Sun & Jiawei Liu, 2022. "Evolution and analysis of urban resilience and its influencing factors: a case study of Jiangsu Province, China," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 113(3), pages 1751-1782, September.
    3. Cristina González-Quintero & V. Sophie Avila-Foucat, 2019. "Operationalization and Measurement of Social-Ecological Resilience: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Maomao Zhang & Weigang Chen & Kui Cai & Xin Gao & Xuesong Zhang & Jinxiang Liu & Zhiyuan Wang & Deshou Li, 2019. "Analysis of the Spatial Distribution Characteristics of Urban Resilience and Its Influencing Factors: A Case Study of 56 Cities in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-22, November.

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