The rapid prosperity of China's Pearl River Delta from the perspective of social-ecological coupling: implications for sustainable management.

ABSTRACT: Systems theory and complex science, especially knowledge of social-ecological interdependencies, are urgently needed in planning and decision-making on sustainable urban development due to the intensification of the contradiction between human development and nature conservation. Here, we present an analytical framework, the "social-ecological coupling trajectory", that integrates the social-ecological coupling, multi-stability, causal feedbacks and sustainable management through understanding the evolution of the urban social-ecological system (SES). This framework is applied to a typical urban SES, i.e., China's rapidly prosperous Pearl River Delta (PRD). Our results indicate that the SES evolution in the PRD is a phased process, which is accompanied by a continuous decline in major ecos

SUBMITTER: Li T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11358524 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature