Construction and evolutionary pattern of the coupling relationship network of regional sustainable development in China

Climate change poses a serious threat to the survival and development of humankind. Accordingly, sustainable socioeconomic transformation has become a major global concern. This study quantitatively assesses the process and speed of regional-level sustainable development in China, as well as the degree of coupling and the degree of coupling coordination among Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end, based on regional development and data monitoring in China, we construct a regional sustainable development assessment system containing 111 indicators, which combines existing sustainable development assessment indicators with the indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. On that basis, using network topology construction and modal transformation, we propose a framework for analyzing the coupling relationships and evolutionary patterns of regional sustainable development. The study found that the score for SDGs at the national level increased from 50.80 in 2010 to 60.86 in 2020, showing a good development trend and the differences between provinces and regions was gradually reduced. The development speed of regional sustainable transformation shows a change from decreasing to increasing. In recent years, there is a significant change in the acceleration of regional sustainable development in China, with the vast majority of provinces having positive acceleration and only three provinces having negative acceleration. China's regional sustainable development shows that mutual coordination and promotion among provinces was higher in the eastern area than in the central region, which was higher than in the western area. The sustainable processes of each region and the coordination of sustainable development steadily increased toward a high level of coupling, all achieving coordinated development. The degree of coupling coordination and the SDG scores in each region were positively correlated with economic development, reflecting the role of economic development in the promotion of sustainability. However, this positive correlation showed a tendency of strengthening and then weakening. The correlation of the evolution patterns in the eastern-central, eastern-western, and central-western regions over time presented a trend of first weakening, then strengthening, and then weakening. Although the process of promoting sustainable development in western and central regions over time is weak synergistic consistency with that in eastern regions, overall, China's regional sustainable development presents a development model of multi-province linkage and multi-goal coordination.