Coupling coordination degree measurement and spatiotemporalheterogeneity between economic development and ecologicalenvironment ——Empirical evidence from tropical and subtropicalregions of China


Along with the rapid economic development, China’s ecological environment is becoming an increasingly severe issue with strong negative externalities accelerating the spatial spillover. This paper usesGeographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) to measure and analyze the coupling coordination and spatiotemporal heterogeneity between economic development and ecological environment of 17 tropical and subtropical regions in China from 2003 to 2016. The results show that: First, thereis a significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity between economic development and ecological environment; Second, economic development and ecological environment are in an intermediate coupling coordination stage, relative more regions belonged to economic lag type; Third, the ecological lag typemainly lies in developed areas in the east, while the economic lag type is mainly in the central andwestern regions. Fourth, the spatial relationship and agglomeration effect of economic development areboth positive, and the spatial relationship of ecological environment also tends to be positive. Fifth, theinteraction relationship between economic development and ecological environment tends to converge.The negative interaction effect of the economic development and ecological environment tends toconcentrate in central and eastern developed area, while the positive interaction effect tends toconcentrate in central and western developing area. Finally, the paper puts forward corresponding policyrecommendations.