| Author: | Xiao, Huijuan |
| Title: | Navigating Chinese cities to achieve 17 sustainable development goals : progress evaluation, interaction analysis, and scenario-based projection |
| Advisors: | Ren, Jingzheng (ISE) Lee, Carman (ISE) |
| Degree: | Ph.D. |
| Year: | 2023 |
| Subject: | Sustainable development -- China Sustainable living -- China Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering |
| Pages: | xvii, 275 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | Achieving the 17 United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) in China largely depends on the transition of cities towards sustainable development. While most goals specifically indicate the responsibility of national governments for localization and implementation of SDGs, local governments (e.g., cities) are responsible for providing most of the needed progress. The Sustainable Development Solutions Network estimated that 65% of SDG targets will not be fully reached without proper engagement of, and coordination with cities. Understanding the status of each city regarding the SDG index (an aggregated score that is used to evaluate where each region stands with regard to achieving 17 SDGs) is the preliminary step to monitor the progress towards the SDGs and determine priorities for early action. However, comprehensive information regarding the SDG index of China at the city scale is still lacking. The first part of this PhD thesis quantified the performance of 17 SDGs and the SDG index of 285 Chinese cities during 2005-2016. Results show that the SDG index of the Chinese cities increased by 33.97% during 2005–2016, from 37.93 to 50.82 (target score 100), showing Chinese cities are halfway towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda and significant further progress is required to finish the second half. In the context of globalisation, one area's SDG progress is affected not only by the local situations but also by its adjacent areas through transboundary environmental and socioeconomic interactions, such as exchanging elements, products, knowledge, and information. However, these transboundary impacts on SDG progress are rarely studied. Here, this study included 285 Chinese cities as an initial survey to assess how transboundary interactions affect cities' SDG progress. Interestingly, results show that transboundary interactions between cities generated synergistic effects to promote the progress of SDG in these cities. On average, a 10% increase in the SDG progress of adjacent cities could contribute to a 4.28% improvement in the SDG progress of focal cities. In particular, megalopolis cities figured prominently in promoting the holistic achievement of SDGs and regional coordinated development, which exerted an 86.21% stronger synergistic effect than non-megalopolis cities. To promote SDG progress and national equality, more efforts are needed to construct well-developed transport and communication networks between cities to enhance inter-city synergistic effects. However, the achievement of the SDGs is not simply about ticking off targets one by one. The SDGs are presented as significantly interacted (e.g., supportive and conflicting relationships). Exploring the interactions among the SDGs is critical to realizing the full potential, and guaranteeing that progress gained in some SDGs does not undermine the achievement of other SDGs. Yet most studies only investigated the direct interactions of SDG targets, and few studies take the indirect interactions, i.e. the interlinkages transmitted through one or more mediums, into consideration, which can cause inaccurate estimation and even mislead policy decisions. This study first made a methodological contribution by proposing a plus-minus decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory model, which can consider not only the direct synergies and trade-offs but the indirect ones. Then, based on this proposed method, this study navigated the complicated network across 150 SDG targets considering both direct and indirect interactions, find out the key interactive ones with a visually directed graph, obtain the weights of each SDG, and define the best governance structures to capitalize on synergies and minimize trade-offs. Results show that, when incorporating indirect interactions, the share of synergy effect of SDGs dominates the influence, taking up to 98.33%, suggesting that the achievement of the 2030 Agenda can be facilitated through interactions. Although all SDGs should be equally addressed by 2030 suggested by the UN, equal importance across 17 SDGs does not mean we have to make the same efforts in achieving each SDG, and SDG 4 and SDG 13 are the top priority to tap into these interaction potentials. Most studies only evaluated the past progress of SDGs and did not answer whether Chinese cities can achieve the 17 SDGs by 2030 and how can paths be simulated to achieve these goals by 2030. Studies on the simulations of 17 SDGs and the SDG index up to 2030 under various scenarios are still absent for China. Therefore, the last part of this PhD thesis simulated pathways to achieve the 17 SDGs for 285 Chinese cities by 2030 under various scenarios. This study first made a methodological contribution by proposing a scenario-based projection model to simulate the SDG index and 17 SDGs until 2030 with scenarios representing various improvement paths. The proposed projection model is not limited to a specific country and can be applied to other member states of the UN to predict SDGs under various scenarios. Results showed that Chinese cities, which continued their past paths, achieved an average of only five SDGs by 2030. To promote the joint achievement of all SDGs, the study designed different paths for all SDGs of each of the 285 cities and simulated their SDG index until 2030. Under the scenarios, 216 Chinese cities (75.79%) could achieve 9 to 13 more SDGs and the overall SDG index can improve from 74.57 in 2030 to 97.49 (target score 100) by adopting a more intensive path adjustment. This study lastly determined a cost-effective path for each SDG of each city to enhance sustainability by 2030. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | open access |
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