Identifying resource and environmental carrying capacity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China: the perspectives of spatial differences and sustainable development

The resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) is an important foundation and support for a city or region, and determines the direction of regional sustainable development. Identifying the RECC in basin economic belts aids the understanding of overloaded regions and development shortcomings. Based on the human–environment coupling system theory, in combination with the pressure–state–response relationship, we have built a theoretical framework of RECC applicable to the basin economic belt. Taking the area of the Yangtze River Economic Belt as a case area, an RECC index system was constructed and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method used to evaluate the RECC and its subsystems for prefecture-level cities. We found that cities with better RECC are mainly located in urban agglomeration areas and neighboring cities. Among them are cities with more coordinated subsystems that are not only located in large cities but also in some provinces, showing obvious critical effects. We also found that the geographic location of the river basin and the stage of economic development cause differences in the level of urban subsystems. Furthermore, the backwardness of environmental governance and resource-saving technologies, and insufficient human feedback from government intervention are key constraints on the RECC. We propose that the optimization of the layout of the chemical industry and the innovative development of a competitive model are important means for solving the development dilemma of the basin. This research can help inform sustainable development policies of river basin economic zones worldwide.