Evaluation of resources and environmental carrying capacity and its spatial-temporal dynamic evolution: A case study in Shandong Province, China

Optimizing human activities, resources, and the environment is an important basis for socially sustainable development. Nevertheless, it appears that a serious unbalanced crisis of resources and the environment is hidden behind the rapid urbanization in China, which has resulted in multiple urban symptoms. Then, this study designs a framework for illustrating the coordinated characteristics and spatial-temporal dynamic evolution when evaluating RECC. Based on the determination of the indicator weights by calculating the interaction among indicators, an MCDM-based approach to evaluate urban RECC is introduced. Taking Shandong Province as an example, the Markov chain is employed to explore the spatial-temporal dynamic evolution of RECC. The results suggest that, from 2013 to 2017, RECC in Shandong Province performed poorly (average value: 0.7994) and experienced a substantively decline (growth rate: -14.44%). Furthermore, the RECC of Shandong Province showed the gradient distribution pattern of decreasing from the northeast (led by Dongying) to the southwest (centered on Heze), which demonstrated a significant “club-convergence” phenomenon. Besides, the environmental pollution in PMCC and social security in SMCC is the primary obstacle to RECC. Meanwhile, the spatial heterogeneity of different factors is obvious. These findings provide a constructive significance to effectively realizing sustainable urban development.