Ecological intercorrelation in urban-rural development: an eco-city of China

This study reveals that ecological intercorrelation in urban-rural area is a key role in changes of unobserved environmental effects of urban pollution, energy use inefficiency, and cultivated land loss. In a deductive model, we find that inequivalent economic growth in urban-rural area results in the variability of eco-efficiency of industrial production in urban area, which increases the risks of environmental effect to adjacent suburban and rural area, and directly affects changes of unobserved environmental effect spatial-temporally. Through ecological intercorrelation, both observed and unobserved environmental effects in this dynamic mechanism are formed, consequently intensify the regional inequality of environmental pollution, and frustrate the future coordinative development of regional economy. By employing the data of case study area of Gaoyou in China, estimations show that observed eco-efficiency is getting better but unobserved eco-efficiency is getting worse until this place becomes an eco-city. This study has proved that ecological intercorrelation in some extent sustains unobserved environmental effects to affect regional environmental degradation.