Urban resilience evaluation based on entropy-TOPSIS model: a case study of county-level cities in Ningxia, Northwest China

In the process of rapid urbanization, any unexpected event will harm the stability of the city. Strengthening urban resilience construction will effectively respond to unexpected events. Taking 22 counties (cities, districts) in Ningxia, Northwest China as the research object, 20 indicators are selected from four aspects of economic, social, infrastructure, and ecological resilience to construct an urban resilience evaluation index system. The entropy-TOPSIS model (consisting of the Entropy method and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution method) is used to comprehensively evaluate the resilience and comprehensive resilience of various dimensions of county-level cities. The results show that: (1) There is a significant spatial differentiation in the economic, social, infrastructure, and ecological resilience of county-level cities in Ningxia, resulting in a higher comprehensive resilience of cities in the northern region compared to those in the southern region, and comparatively high and high resilience is distributed in the central districts and counties of the northern and southern regions. (2) Low, comparatively low, medium, comparatively high, and high resilience cities account for 13.64%, 31.82%, 31.82%, 18.18% and 4.54% of the total number of county-level cities in Ningxia, respectively. Among them, Xingqing District has the highest comprehensive resilience and Jingyuan County has the lowest comprehensive resilience. The research findings can provide a basis for the dynamic assessment of resilience in county-level cities in Ningxia, the analysis of the impact of geological environment changes on urban resilience, and thus a theoretical and practical basis for the sustainable development of county-level cities in Ningxia and the enhancement of their ability to respond to emergencies.