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Assessing the resilience of the belt and road countries and its spatial heterogeneity: A comprehensive approach

Author

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  • Shuai Zhang
  • Fan Zhang
  • Chengxin Wang
  • Zhaohan Wang

Abstract

Regional resilience refers to the resilience of a country or region against the ecological environment, social economy, and other internal and external natural factors and human factors in the process of development. When this resilience is lower than a certain critical threshold, the country or region will be in a fragile state. The comprehensive embodiment of ecological resilience, social resilience, and economic resilience of a country or region is regional resilience. Due to the wide range of countries along “the Belt and Road”, differences in natural background conditions and stages of economic and social development among different countries lead to different degrees of vulnerability, and the improvement of resilience is conducive to reducing vulnerability. At the same time, the research on the measurement and differentiation characteristics of regional resilience is of considerable significance to solve the weak foundation of environmental management and the lack of ability to deal with climate change of “the Belt and Road” countries. In this study, by using entropy weighting method and multi-index comprehensive evaluation method, 24 specific indicators are selected from three different dimensions: ecology, economy, and society, to construct a comprehensive evaluation index system about “the Belt and Road” countries resilience, and to evaluate the comprehensive resilience and spatial heterogeneity characteristics of China and 64 countries along “the Belt and Road”, and use multiple linear regression analysis to identify the main influencing factors of comprehensive resilience and analyze its influencing mechanism. According to the research, the overall resilience level of “the Belt and Road” countries shows prominent differentiation characteristics of “extreme difference”, the countries with low and low recovery status account for the vast majority; and the spatial differentiation characteristics of the levels of ecological resilience, economic resilience, and social resilience of countries along “the Belt and Road” are quite different. In countries with high levels of economic development, their comprehensive resilience is significantly higher than that of countries with low levels of economic development. There is no inevitable connection between a country’s economic growth rate and its comprehensive resilience level. At the same time, the relationship between resource richness and comprehensive resilience of countries is not apparent, but for those countries that are over-dependent on resources, the level of resilience is generally below. There is a certain degree of correspondence between urbanization rate and comprehensive resilience, that is, the comprehensive resilience will increase with the increase of urbanization rate. When the urbanization rate rises to a certain level, the level of comprehensive resilience does not change much. In this study, it provides scientific guidance for enriching regional resilience and national sustainable development theory, solving the fragile ecological environment foundation of “the Belt and Road” countries, speeding up the transformation of economic growth mode and dealing with a series of social problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Shuai Zhang & Fan Zhang & Chengxin Wang & Zhaohan Wang, 2020. "Assessing the resilience of the belt and road countries and its spatial heterogeneity: A comprehensive approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0238475
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238475
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Chi Zhang, 2017. "Population in China," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 69(8), pages 1333-1334, September.
    2. Juan R. Cuadrado-Roura & Andrés Maroto, 2016. "Unbalanced regional resilience to the economic crisis in Spain: a tale of specialisation and productivity," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 9(1), pages 153-178.
    3. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Charles van Marrewijk, 2015. "Regional resilience across Europe: on urbanisation and the initial impact of the Great Recession," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 8(2), pages 225-240.
    4. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2015. "On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42.
    5. Fan Zhang, 2018. "The Institutional Evolution of China," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16489.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Zhihui Li & Jia Wu & Xiaolin Cui & Zhaojuan Mi & Lu Peng, 2022. "Assessment and influencing factors analysis of economic system vulnerability of the Belt and Road Initiative countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, January.
    3. Zhuola Zhang & Shiyuan Lin & Yingjin Ye & Zhao Xu & Yihang Zhao & Huiru Zhao & Jingqi Sun, 2022. "A Hybrid MCDM Model for Evaluating the Market-Oriented Business Regulatory Risk of Power Grid Enterprises Based on the Bayesian Best-Worst Method and MARCOS Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, April.

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