Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Promoting Urban

Sustainability Assessment in China, Taking Xiamen as an Example

Yuwei Zhao

School of Architecture and Urban Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, 361000, China

Keywords: Sustainable Development Goals, Urbanization, Environment, Coupling Coordination Framework, Xiamen.

Abstract: As achieving sustainable urban development is vital to the future of the world, there is much focus on

promoting urban sustainability assessment in Chinese cities. This study presents a set of adaptive models, an

assessing framework, and the indicator systems for measuring the two goals of urban sustainability in

China, taking Xiamen, for example. The study promotes the urban sustainability assessment by modifying

the coupling coordination framework and applying the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The

findings suggest that the cosmos model is suitable to refine the coupling coordination model. Additionally,

the framework and indicator systems built in this study promote urban sustainability assessment as they can

detect potential problems, develop urban characteristics, and effectively utilize SDGs' advantages. In

closing, compared with previous studies, this paper offers a practicable approach for research institutes,

urban managers, and the public to measure urban sustainability, thereby promoting urban sustainability

through the adjustment and development of urban planning, construction, and management.

1 INTRODUCTION

For the long-term prosperity of man and the planet,

achieving sustainable urban development has

become a global concern in the past several decades.

China has experienced a dramatic urbanization

process, which has brought serious challenges of

environmental degradation (

Shen, et al. 2017

Therefore, Chinese cities need to achieve sustainable

development. Because the environmental carrying

capacity restricts social equity and economic

efficiency (

Giddings, Hopwood, O'Brien 2002

the goals of urban sustainability can be interpreted

as the transformation of environment pressure from

positive growth to zero or negative growth and the

realization of positive growth in the economy and

society. Since economic and social development is a

process of urbanization, and urbanization is an

economic and social phenomenon the evaluation of

the sustainability of urbanization is the evaluation of

the sustainability of the economy and society.

However, the achievement of urban sustainability

acquires more than goals. It also relies on evaluating

the sustainable progress because the evaluation can

detect deviation of development when it occurs and

help cities develop in the sustainable direction. Thus,

an assessing framework and adequate indicators that

can reflect the implementation status of two

sustainability goals are vital to Chinese cities.

17 sustainable development goals (SDGs),

proposed by the UN in 2015, have been authoritative

criteria for evaluating urban sustainability because

of their possibility of providing more balanced and

integrated indicators (

Zinkernagel, Evans, Neij

2018

). Applying the SDGs to create an assessing

framework and indicators is a common strategy.

SDGs have low operability, and scholars have

solved it in two ways: building complementary

frameworks (

Costanza, et al. 2016, Vanham, et al.

2019

) and integrating or dismantling the SDGs

(

Griggs, et al. 2014, Kynclova, Upadhyaya, Nice

2020

). However, the economy and society

sustainability goals of cities have rarely been

evaluated directly. This is due to the integrity of

SDGs. One SDG usually guides the sustainable

development of economic, social, and environmental

dimensions simultaneously, so the indicators derived

from SDGs often simultaneously reflect the

sustainability status of three dimensions.

Consequently, the description of the two goals of

urban sustainability is often vague.

Besides, the two goals of urban sustainability

have an interaction effect, so scholars have

researched to accurately reflect the relationship

between the two goals. One of the most popular

Zhao, Y.

Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Promoting Urban Sustainability Assessment in China, Taking Xiamen as an Example.

DOI: 10.5220/0011767400003607

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology (ICPDI 2022), pages 765-771

ISBN: 978-989-758-620-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

765

models is “the coupling coordination model” (

Fang,

Wang 2013, Wang, Ma, Zhao 2014

), in which the

relationship between urbanization and environment

is interpreted as simultaneously mutual restraint and

promotion (

Fang, Wang 2013

). Due to its

comprehensiveness, this model can strongly reflect

the interaction effect of urbanization and the

environment. However, the main research method is

to calculate urbanization and environment index

based on indicators rarely related to sustainability

and to use the indexes to analyze the coupling

coordination relation. Few previous studies have

investigated the evaluation of sustainable

development of urbanization and the environment.

This paper aims to promote the urban

sustainability assessment in Chinese cities. The

study analyzes and summarizes the current

assessment approaches to achieve the following

objectives: (1) identify the suitable models for urban

sustainability assessment in Chinese cities, (2) build

a compatible assessing framework and the following

indicators for measuring sustainable development.

Based on the existing approaches, the paper builds

the assessing framework and indicators that can

accurately describe the two goals of urban

sustainability and their implementation situation.

These can fill the research gaps and promote the

urban sustainability assessment. Furthermore, the

paper can provide a good reference of practicable

framework and indicators for research institutes,

urban managers, and the public to monitor the

development status, thereby urges the cities to

develop sustainably.

2 METHOD

2.1 Overview

The study focused on improving the assessing

approach to achieve sustainable urban development

in China. After analyzing the existing approaches,

this paper selected the cosmos model as the research

basis and modified the coupling coordination model

to build the assessment framework. Furthermore, the

study applied SDGs to generate indicators, then used

CRITIC and entropy methods to determine the

weight of each indicator. Because the Xiamen

government actively improved urban sustainability

through planning, construction, and management,

meanwhile the existing information was relatively

complete. Thus, the study chose Xiamen as the

research object, the location of which is shown in

figure 1.

Figure 1: Location and range of Xiamen, China..

2.2 Model and Framework for

Assessing Sustainable Development

Status

Table 1 presents two widely-used models for

describing the three dimensions of sustainable

development – economy, society, and environment.

Table 1: Two models of sustainable development.

(Synthesis from the literature (

Mebratu 1998

)).

Models (with figures) Description

Environment

Economy Society

Sustainable

Development

Crossin

model

This model describes the

three dimensions as three

circles interconnected with

each other equally.

Environment

Economy

Society

Cosmos model

This model suggests that

since environmental

carrying capacity restricts

social equity, which restricts

economic efficiency, the

relationship among the three

dimensions should include

each other.

The cosmos model conforms to the core concept

of sustainable development, “developing under the

environmental carry capacity”. This model can best

reflect the urban sustainability of China since, in

recent years, China has paid more attention to the

ICPDI 2022 - International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology

766

Figure 2: Modification of coupling coordination model.

Figure 3: Methods used for selecting indicators.

environmental carry capacity when evaluating

sustainable urban development. Therefore, this study

used the cosmos model to analyze the relationship of

economy, society, and environment.

In addition, because the coupling coordination

model can accurately reflect the interaction effect of

urbanization and the urban environment, the study

chose this model to build the framework. However,

the model neglected the sustainable development

status of urbanization and the environment, so the

study modified the classic coupling coordination

model as figure 2 displays.

The classic coupling coordination model

contained one indicator system with two dimensions

– urbanization and environment. It limited the

number of indicators to not fully reflect all aspects

of urbanization and the environment. Therefore, the

study split it into two indicator systems.

Furthermore, the modified framework needed new

indicators that can reflect the implementation of

sustainable developments.

2.3 Criteria for Selection of Indicators

Figure 3 illustrated the methods used for selecting

indicators. The study combined the modified

coupling coordination model with SDGs to build a

complementary assessing framework, then

consolidated and dismantled SDGs to generate

indicators.

The paper firstly summarized frequently-used

indicators from the existing sustainability

assessments of urbanization and the environment.

Secondly, according to the urban characteristics of

Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Promoting Urban Sustainability Assessment in China, Taking Xiamen as an Example

767

Xiamen and the older indicator systems Xiamen has

used, the study determined the required SDGs when

building the indicator systems. Then the study built

the two indicator systems based on the above

research. In addition, the study added the missing

aspects of sustainable urban development in the

classic model based on the SDGs. When applying

the SDGs, the paper consolidated and dismantled

SDGs to generate indicators. Some official SDG

indicators have low operability, so the paper used

authoritative indicators from existing sustainability

indicator systems to replace them.

2.4 Method for Calculating Weight

1) Data normalization. To eliminate the impact to

assessment caused by different dimensions of the

indicators, the study used forward processing for

positive indicators and reversed processing for

reverse indicators. Thus, the normalized values of all

indicators are within the range of [0-1].

2) Endow weight method. The study firstly

applied the CRITIC method to determine the weight

of the indicators. CRITIC method calculated the

weight based on the contrast intensities (represented

by standard deviation) and conflicts (represented by

correlation coefficient) between the indicators.

Secondly, the study used the entropy method to

calculate another weight for each indicator. The

entropy method determined the weight according to

the information entropy of the indicators. The

greater the information entropy, the more

information the indicator could provide, which

means the more important the indicator would be in

the assessment. Therefore, the greater the index

weight is. Finally, the study calculated the

arithmetic means of weights of the CRITIC method

and the entropy method and obtained comprehensive

weights, which gave weights to the indicator

systems.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 The Assessing Framework and the

Following Indicators

This paper applied the cosmos model and modified

the coupling coordination model to build the

indicator systems of sustainable development of

urbanization and the environment, as shown in Table

2 and Table 3. In each table, the column “target

direction” shows whether the value of indicators

increases or decreases when urban sustainability

promotes. The column “corresponding SDGs”

represents the SDGs each indicator derived from.

3.2 Explanation and Inference

The study built two indicator systems based on the

classic coupling coordination model and SDGs to

promote the assessment for sustainable urban

development in Xiamen. Building two indicator

systems ensure that each system has sufficient

indicators to represent all the related aspects of

urban sustainability. By using the classic coupling

coordination model, the two indicator systems can

Table 2: The indicators of sustainable development of urbanization.

Subgoals Indicators

Target

direction

Corresponding

SDGs

Weight

C1 economic

urbanization

(0.412)

C3 The annual growth rate of GDP per capita (%) + SDG8.1 0.057

The ratio of the added value of the secondary and

tertiary industries in GDP (%)

+ SDG8.2 0.048

C5 GDP per capita (Yuan) + SDG8.1 0.062

C6 Population density (persons/km

) + SDG11.3 0.077

The ratio of the urban population in total

ulation

(

)

+ SDG11.3 0.078

C8 The gross output value of tourism (billion Yuan) + SDG8.9 0.090

social

urbanization

(0.588)

C9 The ratio of total retail consumption in GDP (%) + SDG8.4 0.096

C10

The ratio of land consumption rate to the

ulation

rowth rate

(

)

- SDG11.3 0.128

C11 Number of hospital beds per 10,000 people + SDG3.8 0.053

C12 Urban road area per capita (m

/capita) + SDG11.2 0.082

C13 Urban drainage pipe length per capita (m/capita) + SDG11.5 0.054

C14 Green space area per capita (m

/capita) + SDG11.7 0.091

C15 Public vehicles per 10,000 people + SDG11.2 0.084

ICPDI 2022 - International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology

768

Table 3: The indicators of sustainable development of the environment.

Subgoals Indicators

Target

direction

Corresponding

SDGs

Weight

Environment

endowment

(

0.136

)

E5 Water resources per capita (m

/per capita) + SDG6.4 0.088

E6 The ratio of good air quality (%) + SDG11.6 0.048

environment

elements

(0.325)

E7 Green coverage rate in built-up areas (%) + SDG15.2 0.063

The total quantity of marine fishery products per

year (tons)

- SDG14.4 0.086

E9 The volume of total surface water resources (m

) + SDG6.6 0.095

E10 The volume of total groundwater resources (m

) + SDG6.6 0.081

environment

respond

(0.307)

E11 Harmless disposal rate of domestic garbage (%) + SDG11.6 0.129

E12 The volume of wastewater disposal per year (m

) + SDG6.3 0.057

E13

The volume of domestic garbage disposal per

year (tons)

+ SDG11.6 0.066

E14 Average annual concentration of PM2.5 (μg/m

) - SDG11.6 0.061

environment

pressure

(0.232)

E15

The volume of industrial wastewater discharge

er ca

ita

(

tons/ca

ita

)

- SDG9.4 0.068

E16 SO

emissions per capita (kg/capita) - SDG9.4 0.041

E17 Industrial dust emissions per capita (kg/capita) - SDG9.4 0.047

E18 The ratio of acid rain incidence (%) - SDG6.3 0.076

assess the implementation status of the two goals of

urban sustainability in China, as the indicator

systems respectively output the comprehensive

indexes of sustainable development of urbanization

and environment. Furthermore, by corresponding

each indicator with an SDG, the indicator systems

can reflect the sustainability status of urbanization

and the environment, avoiding the withdraws of the

classic coupling coordination model. Hence, the

framework and the following indicator systems built

in the study are practical and advantageous to assess

the urban sustainability of Xiamen.

3.3 Comparison

When comparing the results to older indicator

systems, whether from older studies or practices of

indicators by research institutes or urban

administration committees, it must be pointed out

that the indicator systems in this study state an

academic superiority as below.

1) Superiority in finding the problems in

sustainable development progress. Firstly, while the

older indicator systems could not assess problems

that occurred in sustainable urban development

progress (

Shen, Zhou 2014

), the ones proposed in

this study are good at detecting them. For example,

in Xiamen’s urbanization process, a major obstacle

in urban construction is the “urban villages”, which

are rural areas left behind in the process of rapid

urbanization. They impede further urbanization

because their social and spatial structures do not

allow them to participate in economic and social

development. Therefore, the study set “The ratio of

the urban population in total population (%)” in the

urbanization indicator system to monitor the

changes in the population of urban villages,

reflecting the speed of the transformation of urban

villages. In addition, there are indicators assessing

surface and underground water resources in the

environment system, as water-deficient has been a

long-term environmental management problem in

Xiamen. The environment system also includes

“The ratio of acid rain incidence (%)”, an

uncommon indicator among older studies. Although

acid rain has been under control in many cities, it

still is a problem in Xiamen, as the ratio of acid

incidence in 2020 is 60%, far above the normal

levels of 20%. These indicators can draw the

government’s attention to Xiamen’s problems,

which is an advance in measuring urban

sustainability.

2) Superiority in embodying urban

characteristics. Secondly, major older studies often

give standard indicator systems, whereas this study

considers urban characteristics. In the urbanization

system, since Xiamen concentrates on the

development of the sustainable tourism industry and

urban public transport such as BRT, the study

chooses indicators like “Public vehicles per 10,000

people” and “The gross output value of tourism

(billion Yuan)”. In the environment system, as

Xiamen is “a model city for beautiful China”, the

indicators aim to reflect land and water ecological

Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Promoting Urban Sustainability Assessment in China, Taking Xiamen as an Example

769

restoration status, which leads to the choice of

indicators like “Green coverage rate in built-up

areas (%)” and “The total quantity of marine fishery

products per year (tons)”. Concentrating on

demonstrating urban characteristics, the indicator

systems in the study can help improve Xiamen’s

distinctiveness, which prevents Xiamen from

developing homogeneously. In brief, this superiority

promotes the assessment and the development of

urban sustainability in Xiamen.

3) Superiority in applying the SDGs. In

addition, the indicator systems in the study are more

effective in exploiting the advantages of SDGs to

the full than older studies. The study uses two

approaches to achieve that. First, the study utilizes

the practicable and advanced indicators SDGs

framework brought about. For example, scholars

tend to use traditional indicators like “Urban area

per capita (m2)”. However, this study uses

SDG11.3.1 “The ratio of land consumption rate to

the population growth rate (%)”. SDG11.3.1, which

demonstrates sustainable urbanization and capacity

for participatory, is more advanced and precise than

traditional indicators. Second, this study uses part of

the SDGs rather than all SDGs. While the SDGs

interact with each other (

Pradhan, et al. 2017

using all SDGs may make the assessment results

ambiguous and confusing. In the study, only SDG3,

6, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15 are used in building indicator

systems, making the indicator systems clear and

comprehensive. In short, applying SDGs provides

Xiamen with more advanced indicators. As a result,

it has advantages in helping Xiamen realize the

international urban sustainability standards.

In conclusion, contrary to the older indicator

systems, the indicator systems in this study are more

applicable to Xiamen and are better at measuring

urban sustainability. Therefore, the indicator

systems in the study can promote sustainable urban

development in Xiamen.

3.4 Interpretation

As discussed above, the indicator systems in the

study can be applied to various circumstances to

improve the sustainable urban development of

Xiamen. Research institutes can use the framework

and indicator systems to produce objective

assessment reports. An official report may be

confusing in China as the report states that the

development is sustainable and positive. At the

same time, the phenomena observed in the city

suggest it is not the case. This is because the

government prefers to choose indicators that can

highlight development achievements, neglecting the

potential problems that occurred during

development. A report from research institutes can

reduce issues like these, expose the problems

Xiamen has, and objectively reflect urban

sustainability status.

Consequently, the framework and indicator

systems can provide accurate data for the city

managers, which has significance for promoting the

urban sustainability of Xiamen. With these data, city

managers can manage urban resources effectively,

formulate better urban planning, and guide the

upgrading of Xiamen’s urban construction (

Wang,

Ma, Zhao 2014

). Furthermore, the assessment

produced by the framework in the study let the

public know the urban sustainability status of

Xiamen. In general, China has a low public

engagement of participating the sustainability

supervision (

Shen, Zhou 2014

), result from the

asymmetric information between the public and the

government. The assessment report based on the

framework in the study can compensate for the

information gap, enhance public participation, and

provide favorable suggestions for the realization of

urban sustainability from the perspective of urban

planning, construction, and management.

4 CONCLUSION

This paper promoted urban sustainability assessment

in China by structuring an adaptive assessing

framework and the following indicator systems. In

summary, the study used the cosmos model and the

coupling coordination model to redevelop an

assessment framework and indicator systems of

urbanization and the environment for Xiamen. The

assessing framework and indicator systems

compensate for the withdraws of the old ones –

inadequate indicator number and deficiency in

evaluating the two goals of urban sustainability.

Compared with the older ones, the framework and

indicators proposed in the paper promote the urban

sustainability of Xiamen in three ways, namely

improving the capability of detecting problems,

embodying urban characteristics, and utilizing the

advantages of SDGs. Furthermore, by improving

urban sustainability assessment, the study urges

Xiamen to develop sustainably. It is because these

findings are practicable for research institutes to

provide assessment reports and urban sustainability

data. These data are crucial for urban managers and

the public to enhance urban sustainability, because

they use the data as the reference to improve urban

ICPDI 2022 - International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology

770

resource management, urban planning, and urban

construction.

Future research should be devoted to developing

urban sustainability assessment, and how the

evaluation results can improve sustainable urban

development. On one hand, future research should

test the framework with empirical studies, and use

the methods of generating indicators in this paper to

carry out researches on other cities. On the other

hand, future investigations should explore methods

of using assessment results to improve

sustainability. For example, urban managers can

incorporate some particular indicators’ values into

the performance management system of urban

construction. In summary, the benefit of improving

urban sustainability assessment is evident, and

structuring an assessing framework and indicators is

an effective way to promote sustainable urban

development.

REFERENCES

Costanza, R., et al. (2016) Modelling and measuring

sustainable wellbeing in connection with the UN

Sustainable Development Goals. Ecological

Economics, 130: p. 350-355.

Fang, C.L., Wang, J. (2013) A Theoretical Analysis of

Interactive Coercing Effects Between Urbanization

and Eco-environment. Chinese Geographical Science,

23(2): p. 147-162.

Griggs, D., et al. (2014) An integrated framework for

sustainable development goals. Ecology and Society,

19(4).

Giddings, B., Hopwood, B., O'Brien, G. (2002)

Environment, economy and society: Fitting them

together into sustainable development. Sustainable

Development, 10(4): p. 187-196.

Kynclova, P., Upadhyaya, S., Nice, T. (2020) Composite

index as a measure on achieving Sustainable

Development Goal 9 (SDG-9) industry-related targets:

The SDG-9 index. Applied Energy, 265: p. 12.

Mebratu, D. (1998) Sustainability and sustainable

development: Historical and conceptual review.

Environmental Impact Assessment Review, Volume

18(Issue 6): p. Pages 493-520.

Pradhan, P., et al., (2017) A Systematic Study of

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Interactions.

Earths Future, 5(11): p. 1169-1179.

Shen, L.Y., et al. (2017) Dynamic sustainability

performance during urbanization process between

BRICS countries. Habitat International, 60: p. 19-33.

Shen, L.Y., Zhou, J.Y. (2014) Examining the

effectiveness of indicators for guiding sustainable

urbanization in China. Habitat International, 44: p.

111-120.

Vanham, D., et al., (2019) Environmental footprint family

to address local to planetary sustainability and deliver

on the SDGs. Science of the Total Environment, 693.

Wang, S.J., Ma, H.T., Zhao, Y.B. (2014) Exploring the

relationship between urbanization and the eco-

environment-A case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei

region. Ecological Indicators, 45: p. 171-183.

Zinkernagel, R., Evans, J., Neij, L. (2018) Applying the

SDGs to Cities: Business as Usual or a New Dawn?

Sustainability, 10(9).

Towards Sustainable Urban Development: Promoting Urban Sustainability Assessment in China, Taking Xiamen as an Example

771