Dynamic simulation and assessment of the coupling coordination degree of the economy–resource–environment system: Case of Wuhan City in China

The environmental and resource issues that accompany rapid economic growth have attracted the attention of the government and the public. Multiple non-linear and complicated interactions exist between the economy, resource and environment subsystem. Accordingly, understanding the operating mechanism of the economy–resource–environment (ERE) system and evaluating its coordination level are of immense significance for sustainable urban development. This study uses system dynamics (SD) to build a dynamic model of the ERE system. Furthermore, a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) that focuses on the coordination of the ERE system is established using data from 2000 to 2015 for Wuhan City, China. Four typical scenarios (i.e., current, economy, resource and environment scenarios) are designed and simulated by the constructed SD model. Coordination assessment results based on the CCDM show that the coordination of the economy scenario performs the worst, the environment scenario performs best in the short term and the resource scenario is considerably effective for the coordinated development of the urban ERE system in the long term. We suggest that improvements in the energy structure and the natural environment are prior choices for sustainable urban development.