Assessment of the comprehensive carrying capacity of the central plains urban agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin, China

The Central Plains Urban Agglomeration in the Yellow River Basin boasts a strategic geographical location and abundant natural resources, making it a crucial area for implementing sustainable development strategies. This study comprehensively utilized the integrated multi-dimensional model of “vertical and horizontal leveling method-global entropy weight-TOPSIS” based on combined thinking, kernel density analysis and spatial data analysis to analyze the sustainable capacity of urban green development, and explored the dynamic evolution mechanism of the coupling and coordination of the comprehensive carrying capacity system. The main findings of the study are: (1) The comprehensive carrying capacity of this urban agglomeration exhibited “N” shaped and “W” shaped fluctuations from 2011 to 2019. Among them, the ecological environment subsystem makes the greatest contribution, while the public service subsystem has some shortcomings that need to improve for the green sustainable development of the region. (2) The subsystems within the urban agglomeration are barely coordinated. The ecological environment subsystem and the public service subsystem are both synchronized with the social development subsystem, but they are not synergistic with each other. (3) The degree of coordinated development within the integrated carrying capacity system is low, with nearly all cities operating at a basic level of coordination. Finally, policy recommendations for promoting sustainable development of this urban agglomeration are proposed from four aspects: optimizing top-level design, strengthening policy differentiation, promoting coordinated development, and focusing on flexible regulation.