Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Interaction between urbanization and the eco-environment in the

Pan-Third Pole region
Yuxue Feng a,b, Sanwei He c,⁎, Guangdong Li a,b,⁎⁎
a
Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), 11A Datun Road,
Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
b
College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
c
School of Public Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• The Pan-Third Pole is undergoing an ac-

celerated urbanization stage.
• The eco-environment has changed from
ecological reserve to ecological deficit.
• There are 4 coupled types of interac-
tion for urbanization and the eco-
environment.
• A noteworthy “path dependence”
was found in the coordinated
relationship.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Due to the high ecological vulnerability of the Pan-Third Pole region and the complexity of its ecological process,
Received 22 September 2020 the impact of urbanization on the ecological environment (eco-environment) in this specific region attracts
Received in revised form 12 April 2021 global attention. Here, we established an effective framework to evaluate the coupling coordination process of
Accepted 20 May 2021
urbanization and eco-environment, and investigated the spatial distribution and dynamic evolution of this cou-
Available online 25 May 2021
pling coordination. Results showed that the Pan-Third Pole is undergoing an accelerated process of urbanization.
Editor: Kuishuang Feng Meanwhile, the overall eco-environment has profoundly changed from an ecological reserve to an ecological
deficit. The coupling degree between urbanization and eco-environment shows an upward trend, and the
decoupling process dynamically changes between various types. Regional convergence is remarkably embodied
Keywords: in the coupling and decoupling types. We found four coupling categories and three decoupling categories for the
Urbanization interaction between urbanization and eco-environment. Among them, the first coupling category contains 35
Eco-environment countries, which maintained a basically coordinated pattern with eco-environment lag. The initial urbanization
Coupling level of the first category was higher than 35%, indicating that countries with higher urbanization levels were
Spatio-temporal pattern
more likely to achieve coordinated development between urbanization and eco-environment. There was a note-
The Pan-Third Pole
worthy “path-dependence” in the evolution of the coordinated relationship between urbanization and eco-
environment in the Pan-Third Pole. These findings will have important policy implications for decision-makers
to explore coordination and sustainable development path for urbanization and eco-environment conservation.
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

⁎ Corresponding author.
⁎⁎ Correspondence to: G. Li, Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy
of Sciences (CAS), 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
E-mail addresses: hesanwei@zuel.edu.cn (S. He), ligd@igsnrr.ac.cn (G. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148011
0048-9697/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
1. Introduction
The Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding regions, partly located in
Central Asia, are collectively referred to as the Third Pole (Li et al.,
2016). The core of the Third Pole, along with the regions affected by it,
such as East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, and Central and
Eastern Europe, is termed the Pan-Third Pole (Yao et al., 2017). The
Pan-Third Pole plays a pivotal ecological role in Asia, the Northern
Hemisphere, and even the globe (Qiu, 2008). Moreover, it provides
water, food, and other ecological services for more than 1.5 billion peo-
ple (Qiu, 2008). More importantly, the eco-environment changes of the
Pan-Third Pole will influence Asia, the northern hemisphere, and even
the globe on long time scales and large spatial scales (Yao et al., 2015).
Meanwhile, the Third Pole region is highly vulnerable to human activity
and environmental changes (Liu et al., 2018c). Currently, the Third Pole
region is encountering extraordinary changes, including faster climate
warming, glacial retreat, increase in lake number and river runoff (Yao
et al., 2012a), growth of net primary productivity of grassland (Lamsal
et al., 2017), soil erosion, desertification in the middle and upper
reaches of some rivers (Cui and Graf, 2009), and frequent flood disasters
(Elalem and Indrani, 2015). Moreover, the ice avalanche disaster chain
poses a continuous threat to the “Asia water tower”.
According to World Urbanization Prospects from UN, Pan-Third Pole
region is an area of rapid urbanization, which had the fastest growth
in urban population in the world (UN, 2015). Therefore, it is inevitable
that there will be many intense human activities. Given the critical eco-
logical status and ecological vulnerability of the Pan-Third Pole region,
the relationship between human activities and the eco-environment
in this region has drawn global attention. The impact of human activities
on the eco-environment is mainly reflected in atmospheric pollutants,
anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, and land-use change. First,
anthropogenic pollutants, including carbon aerosols, lead fouling, and
the dust (Huang et al., 2007), have been detected in the Pan-Third
Pole glacier area (Du et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020; Yao et al., 2012b).
Second, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are generally consid-
ered as the main inducing factor for accelerating warming in the Pan-
Third Pole region. Population growth leads to more energy consump-
tion, and the Third Pole region is a global climate change “sensor”
(Schwalb et al., 2008). As a result, the warming of the Pan-Third Pole
is more severe than the rest of the world (Duan et al., 2006). Third,
human activities in the Pan-Third Pole region have changed the original
land cover and land use. For example, over-grazing causes grassland
degradation and land desertification (Cui and Graf, 2009). Logging and
clearing cause forest degradation and severe soil erosion (Bhardwaj
et al., 2019). The construction of transportation infrastructure disturbs
the pattern and function of the ecosystem (Qiu, 2007), threatening
species diversity (Yu et al., 2017).
In addition, the eco-environment of the Pan-Third Pole sets certain
constraints on human activities. First, the economic development foun-
dation is weakening due to constraints of eco-environment in the Third
Pole. The environment constrains agriculture and livestock husbandry
development in Tibetan Plateau (Lin et al., 2018), especially the water
and calorific condition (Du, 2004). Second, frequent natural disasters se-
riously threatened the Third Pole region's social and economic activities
(Pandey and Bardsley, 2015). Finally, the low ecological capacity limits
the population and economic growth in this region (Madsen, 2016).
Although numerous studies have examined the interaction between
human activities and eco-environment across various scales and
regions, there are still some limitations in previous research. In the as-
pect of human activity, there is a lack of research from the perspectives
of urbanization. As the world's most densely populated region (Huang
et al., 2007) that is highly coincident with the core area of the Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI) (Yao et al., 2017), the Pan-Third Pole region inevi-
tably experience the urbanization process. After the implementation of
China's BRI, the urbanization process continues to advance. Urban pop-
ulation growth speeds up (Liu et al., 2018b; Luan and Xin, 2021), urban
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Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011
infrastructure construction gets improved (Gao et al., 2019), and urban
built-up areas are augmenting and will continue expanding in the
future (Pan et al., 2019). Therefore, the coordinated development of
urbanization and eco-environment is of considerable significance to
this region, and can provide an essential scientific basis for the sustain-
able development of this region. As a result, it is necessary to study the
interaction between urbanization and eco-environment in the Pan-
Third Pole. Besides, in terms of scale, more studies focused on basic
geographical units, such as the Tibetan Plateau and the Third Pole or
individual countries in the Pan-Third Pole region, but did not consider
all the countries as a whole, particularly not being able to reveal the
long-term changes in spatial-temporal patterns of this interaction.
This study aims to fill existing research gap in three major aspects.
First, we analyzed the interaction between urbanization and the eco-
environment in the Pan-Third Pole region and uncovered the long-
term evolutionary process of its spatio-temporal pattern. Second, we
established a comprehensive framework to reveal the interaction
between urbanization and the eco-environment from two aspects
of coupling and decoupling, and further explained the coupling
mechanism. Third, we analyzed the spatial pattern of the coupling coor-
dination process between urbanization and the eco-environment in
the Pan-Third Pole region to investigate the existence of path depen-
dence. To reduce the redundant information and potential collinearity
with the traditional index system method, here we used two core
indicators—urbanization rate and ecological footprint—to characterize
the long-term interaction between urbanization and eco-environment
for the period of 1961–2014.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Study area and data source
The Pan-Third Pole region is a westward extension of the third pole
with the Tibetan plateau as the main body, covering the Tibetan plateau,
Pamir's plateau, Hindu kush, Tianshan mountain, the Iranian plateau,
Caucasus mountains, Carpathia, and other mountains. The Pan-Third
Pole comprises 65 countries and regions, including China, Russia,
India, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar, Singapore, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, to name a few.
This study used 54 years of urbanization and eco-environment data
from 1961 to 2014. Urbanization data was obtained from the World
Bank Open Data (https://data.worldbank.org.cn/) in 2018. The urbani-
zation rate (urban population proportion) was used to represent urban-
ization level. Eco-environment data was derived from the Global
Footprint Network, including ecological footprint per capita and
biocapacity per capita (https://www.footprintnetwork.org/resources/
data/). The ecological footprint measures the ecological assets that a
given population requires to produce the natural resources for its con-
sumption, including plant-based food, fiber products, and other forest
products, space for urban infrastructure, and absorbing its waste, espe-
cially carbon emissions. Biocapacity represents the productivity of its
ecological assets. The difference value between biocapacity and the
ecological footprint was used to represent the eco-environment state.
If ecological biocapacity is greater than the ecological footprint, we call
this biocapacity reserve. Otherwise, we name it as the biocapacity
deficit.
2.2. Coupling coordination degree model and decoupling model
This research uses coupling coordination degree model and
decoupling model to connect the coupling and decoupling processes
and identify the dynamic and complex relationship between urbaniza-
tion and the eco-environment. The coupling model can explore the
current state of the dynamic relationship between urbanization and
eco-environment, whether it is coordinated or not. The decoupling
model can further test the future trend of current coupling state. For
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

example, if a country's coupling type is coordinated while its urbaniza- where Et and Et-1 are the eco-environment level index in year t and year
tion and eco-environment decoupled, then such coordination will not t-1, respectively. Ut and Ut-1 denote the urbanization level index in year
be sustainable. t and year t-1. DIt is the decoupling index of year t. Table 2 shows
As a physical concept, coupling originally refers to the phenomenon the identification criteria of decoupling of urbanization and eco-
that two (or more) systems affect each other due to various interactions environment.
between themselves and the outside world. Because of the similarity in
the coupling relationship among systems, coupling coordination degree 3. Results
can be used to measure the interaction relationship between urbaniza-
tion and eco-environment. The calculation formulas are as follows: 3.1. Spatio-temporal evolution of urbanization rate and eco-environmental
status in the Pan-Third Pole
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
UE
C ¼2 ð1Þ Considering the specific time period of development in the Pan-
ðU þ EÞ2 Third Pole region, we chose seven time nodes (i.e., 1961, 1973, 1980,
1992, 2000, 2008, and 2014) for analyses. For example, the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1992, and the subprime crisis broke out in 2008.
T ¼ aU þ bE ð2Þ
Combining urbanization and eco-environmental development trend
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi with important time points, we can further understand the process of
D¼ CT ð3Þ coupling coordinated development in Pan-Third Pole.
The Pan-Third Pole's average urbanization rate experienced an ac-
where U represents the urbanization rate, E describes the level of eco- celerated process from 28.1% to 57.7% between 1961 and 2014
environment. C depicts the degree of coupling coordination. T repre- (Fig. 1). The gap between countries became widened from 1961 to
sents the overall level of urbanization and eco-environment. a and b 1980 and narrowed slightly after 1992. Prior to 1992, the countries
represent the weighting of urbanization and eco-environment, respec- showed a relatively balanced distribution (Fig. 1). After 1992, countries
tively. Considering that urbanization is equally important as the eco- below the median of urbanization have occupied a large proportion. In
environment, we set a = b = 0.5. According to the degree of the 2008, the countries above and below the median tended to be equal
coupling coordination, the coordinated development of urbanization again, indicating that the overall national urbanization level presents a
and the eco-environment system was divided into four classes and convergence trend. From 1961 to 1973, the total distribution of the ur-
twelve subclasses (Table 1). banization rate was relatively balanced. There was a slightly visible
The decoupling model represents the blocking between variables, peak of the urbanization rate at 25%. In 1980, after the relatively bal-
which is generally used to depict the relationship between eco- anced development, the urbanization index's kernel density curve be-
environment pressure and economical driving force. Tapio improved came gentle. Then, the shape of the kernel density curve has a distinct
this method based on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and change from 1992 to 2008. Two peaks appear in the ranges of 25– 50%
Development (OECD) and proposed a more comprehensive and and 50– 75%, which indicates that high-urbanization countries and
detailed model, introducing the concept of elasticity to measure the low-urbanization countries were gradually clustered. Since then, the
sensitivity on incremental values (Tapio, 2005). Beyond the coupling low-urbanization countries have continued to rise, and the high-
coordination degree model, we used this method to describe the com- urbanization countries have grown slowly. The urbanization rate of
plex relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment in countries was getting closer to each other, and the curve shape has be-
each coordinated development stage. The specific calculation formula come flat.
is as follows: According to the Global Moran'I index, the Z value increased from
1973 to 1980, indicating a strengthened agglomeration (Table 3). In
ðEt −Et−1 Þ=Et−1
DIt ¼ ð4Þ 1991, the Soviet Union's collapse disintegrated the original pattern,
ðU t −U t−1 Þ=U t−1
which showed a random distribution due to newly established coun-
tries. In 2000, it again appeared as an agglomeration pattern (Fig. 2).
There existed two prominent clusters. First, the Middle East countries
maintained a high-high cluster for a long time. It may become a hot
Table 1 spot for urbanization in the future. Second, South Asia countries
Identification criteria of coordinated coupling of urbanization (U) and eco-environment
(E).
changed from insignificant to a low-low cluster, indicating that these
countries still had specific development potentials for urbanization.
Classes U-E Subclasses The overall fluctuation of eco-environmental status across countries
Superiorly coordinated U-E > 0.1 Superiorly coordinated pattern with was relatively low (Fig. 3). However, the mean value of eco-
(0.8 ≤ D < 1.0) eco-environment lag environmental status changed gradually from positive to negative,
|U-E| ≤ 0.1 Superiorly coordinated
which indicates that about half of countries changed from ecological
E-U > 0.1 Superiorly coordinated pattern with
urbanization lag
Basically coordinated U-E > 0.1 Basically coordinated pattern with
(0.5 ≤ D < 0.8) eco-environment lag
|U-E| ≤ 0.1 Basically coordinated
E-U > 0.1 Basically coordinated pattern with Table 2
urbanization lag Identification criteria of decoupling of urbanization (U) and eco-environment (E).
Basically uncoordinated U-E > 0.1 Basically uncoordinated pattern with
Decoupling Index ΔE ΔU Decoupling states
(0.3 ≤ D < 0.5) eco-environment lag
|U-E| ≤ 0.1 Basically uncoordinated DI < 0 <0 >0 Strong decoupling
E-U > 0.1 Basically uncoordinated pattern with 0 ≤ DI ≤ 0.8 >0 >0 Weak decoupling
urbanization lag 0.8 ≤ DI ≤ 1.2 >0 >0 Expansive coupling
Seriously uncoordinated U-E > 0.1 Seriously uncoordinated pattern with DI > 1.2 >0 >0 Expansive negative decoupling
(0 ≤ D < 0.3) eco-environment lag DI < 0 >0 <0 Strong negative decoupling
|U-E| ≤ 0.1 Seriously uncoordinated 0 ≤ DI ≤ 0.8 <0 <0 Weak negative decoupling
E-U > 0.1 Seriously uncoordinated pattern with 0.8 ≤ DI ≤ 1.2 <0 <0 Recessive coupling
urbanization lag DI > 1.2 <0 <0 Recessive decoupling

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Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

Fig. 1. Temporal dynamics of the urbanization index among countries in Pan-Third Pole. (a) Box-plot of the urbanization index; (b) kernel density of the urbanization index.

Table 3 reserve to ecological deficit (Fig. 4). Meanwhile, there were a large
Global Moran'I value of the urbanization rate among countries in the Pan-Third Pole. number of abnormal points. Among them, the eco- environmental
status of Mongolia decreased sharply, with a substantial drop as high
Year Global Moran'I Z value Pattern
as 39.8. The eco-environmental status of the United Arab Emirates
1961 0.1223 2.3361 Clustered
(UAE) was less than −10 between 1992 and 2008. Qatar's eco-
1973 0.1130 2.1812 Clustered
1980 0.1682 3.0841 Clustered
environmental status has decreased, and fallen to the most significant
1992 0.0515 1.1148 Random negative value in 2014, surpassing the UAE. The ecological deficits in
2000 0.1358 2.5211 Clustered these countries were the most serious. The kernel density curve shows
2008 0.1460 2.6986 Clustered that the number of negative values is gradually increasing. The area on
2014 0.1841 3.3360 Clustered
the right side of 0 is getting smaller and smaller. Ecological deficit coun-
tries gradually established the leading position, indicating that the eco-
environment in this region has deteriorated severely.

Fig. 2. Local Moran'I value of the urbanization index among countries in Pan-Third Pole.

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Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

Fig. 3. Temporal dynamics of the eco-environmental status among countries in Pan-Third Pole. (a) Box-plot of the eco-environmental status; (b) kernel density of the eco-environmental
status.

According to the global Moran'I index, the eco-environmental
status showed significant spatial autocorrelation, except for the
random distribution between 1980 and 1992 (Table 4). The increase
in Z value was gradually distinct after 2000. The spatial agglomera-
tion state after 1992 was more significant than before. Fig. 5 shows
that China and its surrounding areas have always been a low-high
cluster. China maintained an ecological deficit state for a long
time. However, Mongolia, Myanmar, and Laos have always been
an ecological reserve. The eco-environmental status in this region
shows substantial differences. Russia has always been an ecological
reserve and is adjacent to eastern European countries. Conse-
quently, this region formed a high-high cluster. The Middle East re-
gion is a low-low cluster after 2000. There existed a noticeable
ecological deterioration trend, which indicates that the Middle
East needs additional attention in the future to respond to the
exhibiting aggravated ecological deterioration. We also found the
most Eastern European countries have changed from the low-low
cluster to not-significant state.

Fig. 4. Spatial pattern of the eco-environmental status among countries in the Pan-Third Pole Region.

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Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

Table 4 Pan-Third Pole is at an intermediate level, indicating that both the ur-
Global Moran'I value of the eco-environmental index among countries in the Pan-Third banization and eco-environmental status were not high and needed to
Pole.
be further improved. Besides, the subclass reflected the contradiction
Year Global Moran'I Z value Pattern between eco-environmental status and urbanization. In general, coun-
1961 0.0278 1.8183 Clustered tries with low initial coupling levels have maintained an upward
1973 0.0361 1.8718 Clustered trend. All countries have transformed to the basically coordinated, ex-
1980 0.0408 1.5903 Random cept for Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Nepal. The future cou-
1992 0.0240 0.8193 Random
pling trend will continue to be optimized.
2000 0.1873 3.9855 Clustered
2008 0.3349 6.7467 Clustered Fig. 8 further revealed the spatio-temporal changing trend of the
2014 0.4111 8.3111 Clustered coupling type in the Pan-Third Pole region, First, the change was not ap-
parent from 1961 to 1973. Initially, the basically coordinated accounted
for 52% of all countries, and there was only one country, Nepal, that was
seriously uncoordinated. The Asian countries were dominated by the
basically uncoordinated, while the state of urbanization lag disap-
3.2. Coupling coordination degree between urbanization and eco- peared. The basically coordinated took the lead in European, and the
environment in the Pan-Third Pole subclass changed to eco-environment lag. Second, the proportion of ba-
sically coordinated rose to 56% in 1980, but Nepal had not changed. The
The average value of coupling degree between urbanization and eco- changes in Southeast Asia countries were more apparent than other re-
environment in the Pan-Third Pole continued to increase and stabilized gions. It is that the lagging characteristics of the urbanization develop-
at around 0.6 after 1992, while the range of coupling coordination de- ment have disappeared. Third, in 1992, the proportion of basically
gree became narrowed. Mongolia had the maximum value in 1961 coordination categories rose rapidly to 75%. After the disintegration of
that was close to 0.8 (Fig. 6a). Due to the severe deterioration of the the Soviet Union, a large number of new countries were founded.
eco-environment, this value started to fell and dropped to 0.7 in 2014. These new countries mainly belonged to the basically coordinated.
The abnormal point in 2014 was Qatar, and the coupling coordination Therefore, the proportion of basically coordinated significantly in-
degree became the lowest limit. The density curve shows that the cou- creased. However, it was hard to identify whether it is the same as the
pling coordination degree is mainly distributed between 0.3 and 0.6, previous coupling type due to missing data. There are only three coun-
with a chunky curve from 1961 to 1980 (Fig. 6b). The shape of the tries—Pakistan, Thailand, and Indonesia—that changed from the basi-
curve transformed from chunky to tall-thin type and centralized around cally uncoordinated to the basically coordinated. There is no more
0.6 from 2008 to 2014. seriously uncoordinated up to this time. The European countries per-
There were only three types, including basic coordination, basic in- formed basically coordinated pattern with the eco-environment lag as
coordination, and serious incoordination. Among them, the basic coor- a whole. Southeast Asian countries have changed to a basically coordi-
dination type has the most occurrences (Fig. 7) and the main subclass nated successfully but showed a lag in urbanization again. There have
was the eco-environment lag. It shows that the coupling type in the been no obvious variations in East Asia and South Asia. Fourth, in

Fig. 5. Local Moran'I value of the eco-environmental status among countries in the Pan-Third Pole Region.

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Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

Fig. 6. Temporal dynamics of the coupling coordination degree among countries in Pan-Third Pole. (a) Box-plot of the coupling coordination degree; (b) kernel density of the coupling
coordination degree.

Fig. 7. Transition of the coupling types among countries in Pan-Third Pole Region.

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Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011

Fig. 8. Spatial difference of the coupling types among countries in Pan-Third Pole.

2000, the proportion of basically coordinated reached up to 78% and
only the South Asian region still was basically uncoordinated pattern.
Finally, from 2008 to 2014, the proportion of basically coordination
has reached 90%. Only five countries (i.e., Afghanistan, Cambodia,
Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan) were basically uncoordinated. Notably,
only Qatar has shown a seriously uncoordinated pattern. Fifty countries
in the basically coordinated patterns show lagged state in the eco-
environment, accounting for 87.8%. This result indicates that ecological
deficits have begun to restrict the coordinated development of the
Pan-Third Pole's urbanization and eco-environment.
From 1961 to 2014, these countries were divided into four categories
based on the changing trends of coupling types. The first class, which in-
cluded 35 countries, was maintaining the basically coordinated pattern
with the eco-environment lag. The second class included ten countries,
though the types maintained basically coordinated, the subclass
changed from urbanization lag to the eco-environment lag. The third
class converted the low-level coupling into the high-level coupling,
including 16 countries. Opposed to the third class, the fourth one trans-
formed the high-level coupling into the low-level coupling, only includ-
ing two countries, namely Tajikistan and Qatar.

Fig. 9. Types of the coupling among countries in Pan-Third Pole.

8
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
The spatial distribution maps of the four types of countries were
shown in Fig. 9. Type 1 and 3 were the main types, indicating that the
coupling degree's future development in the Pan-Third Pole tends to
be optimized, but the constraints are also more severe. They are cur-
rently stuck in the primary coordination type and cannot break through
high-quality coordination types. Type 2 and 4 show regional aggrega-
tions in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, indicating that these regions
have encountered major coordinated development problems. More
protective measures for the eco-environment need to be considered in
the future. Type 4 countries need to find out the key antecedent for
low coupling and develop targeted measures.
3.3. Changes of decoupling index in the Pan-Third Pole
According to the growth rate of urbanization and eco-environmental
status, 62 countries corresponded to various decoupling types. Mosaic
heat map showed a sudden change of decoupling types (Fig. 10). Ac-
cording to the change trends of decoupling types, 62 countries can be di-
vided into three types (Fig. 11).
In the first class, strong decoupling is the dominant type. These
countries have maintained strong decoupling for more than half the
Fig. 10. The heat map of the decoupling types among countries in Pan-Third Pole.
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Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011
time, which implied that their eco-environmental status declined.
Their urbanization would encounter severe environmental constraints
in the future. The number of countries in this category was the lowest,
including only nine countries, namely Afghanistan, Myanmar, East
Timor, Cambodia, Laos, Yemen, Indonesia, Mongolia, and Vietnam.
Yemen and Indonesia showed a sudden change between great and
weak decoupling in the later period. This demonstrated that the pres-
sure on the eco-environment has alleviated to a certain extent. In
Mongolia, from 1990 to 1999, there was a transition between strong
and weak negative decoupling. The urbanization growth rate also de-
clined during this period, indicating that severe environmental prob-
lems have restricted its urbanization progress.
In the second class, there was a transition between the strong and
weak negative decoupling. Countries in this type were opposite to the
first type, which shows that the level of urbanization has declined,
and the eco-environmental status changed between an increasing
trend and a decreasing trend. The urbanization development of these
countries was blocked for some reason, and there is ample space to im-
prove the urbanization level. This type includes 16 countries, namely
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania,
Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Sri Lanka, Czech Republic,
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
Fig. 11. Types of the decoupling among countries in Pan-Third Pole.
Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Macedonia, and Slovenia. Among these coun-
tries, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tajikistan, and Russia moved to the first
category in the later period, suggesting a rebound pattern in the urban-
ization level of the three countries.
In the third class, there is a transition between strong and weak
decoupling. Countries that belonged to this type did not show a single
long-term trend, indicating that its eco-environmental status is not a
long-term decline. Urbanization exerted a negative impact on the eco-
environment, but this negative impact can still be restored. There
were 37 countries that belonged to the third class, which occupied the
highest proportion among all countries. It shows that there is already
a conflict between eco-environmental status and urbanization in the
Pan-Third Pole, but it can still be alleviated. In terms of specific coun-
tries, Egypt, Romania, Oman, UAE, Bhutan, Bahrain, and China all expe-
rienced short-term negative decoupling changes. The Philippines and
Poland maintained their negative decoupling status for a long time.
In terms of spatial distribution, countries in the first category were
mainly located in Southeast Asia. The second category was mainly com-
posed of countries that were founded after the disintegration of the So-
viet Union and were distributed in the northern area of the Pan-Third
Pole. All of these countries belong to ecological reserve areas. In con-
trast, the first category and the third category were mostly ecological
deficits. Meanwhile, they are also consistent with the change of the cou-
pling type. The first and third types have changed from the initial urban-
ization lag to the late eco-environment lag, probably because the
urbanization growth rate shows opposite patterns with the eco-
environment growth rate. In the second category of countries, the
sub-category has not changed, indicating that its urbanization is rela-
tively balanced with eco-environment changes.
4. Discussion
4.1. Spatial agglomeration of coupling and decoupling process
Previous studies mainly discussed the impact of urbanization on
the eco-environment in individual countries. A few studies explored
the coupling coordination degree in a single year, which cannot re-
veal the evolutionary trend. We focused on multiple countries and
the long-term coupling coordination process and aimed to identify
not only the long-term evolution trend but also the spatial aggrega-
tion effect. The results revealed significant spatial agglomeration.
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Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011
The urbanization level appears as a high-high cluster in Europe,
low-low cluster in South Asia, and medium-level clusters in East
Asia and Southeast Asia. The eco-environmental status also repre-
sented a high-high cluster in Europe and a low-low cluster in Asia.
Besides, we found that some regions showed the same trend in the
process of coupling and decoupling development. There were mainly
four clusters (Fig. 12).
Cluster 1 (Type II) includes six countries: Russia, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. They were maintaining the
basically coordinated with the eco-environment lag, and transform be-
tween strong and weak negative decoupling. Their urbanization was
underpowered, basically at a unchanged, even downward trend. On
the contrary, the development of eco-environmental status was rela-
tively positive, fluctuating slightly up and down. These six countries
were all founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the tran-
sition from communism to capitalism, vast free investment has driven
urban growth. However, the influx of capital has exacerbated urban im-
balances and many urban populations have migrated to the suburbs,
resulting in counter urbanization (Salvati et al., 2018; Tammaru et al.,
2004). Large unplanned urban expansions led to urban space chaos,
manifested as the encroachment of green space, eventually resulted in
the decline of eco-environment (Blinnikov et al., 2006).
Cluster 2 (Type V) contains seven countries: China, India, Thailand,
Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Bhutan. They developed from a low-
level to high-level coupling and changed between strong and weak
decoupling. These countries were just in the stage of accelerated urban-
ization. However, their eco-environment continued to deteriorate. The
current improvement of the coupling state was due to the growth of
urbanization. Except for India and Bangladesh, the rest of countries
already showed a lag in the eco-environment. If the eco-environment
deteriorates further, their urbanization would be distinct restricted
in the future. Similarly, Azam and Khan's research supports our
conclusions. They found a significantly negative correlation between
Bangladesh and India's urbanization growth and environment. Urban
population growth has dramatically increased infrastructure, energy,
and transportation, which caused environmental pollution (Azam and
Khan, 2016). Ariken also found that China experienced a decline in
eco-environment, especially in the northwest region (Ariken et al.,
2021). In Nepal, the land cover changes caused by urbanization brought
serious environmental problems, such as soil erosion (Chalise and
Kumar, 2020).
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
Fig. 12. The Spatial agglomeration in the Pan-Third Pole region.
Cluster 3 (Type I) includes five countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,
Indonesia, and Vietnam. These countries also changed from low-level to
high-level coupling, but the decoupling trend shows a strong long-term
decoupling. Like cluster 2, countries in cluster 3 were also in an acceler-
ated period of urban construction and entered ecological deficit. Oppo-
site to cluster 2, they had a better ecological basis, such as a high
biodiversity and ecological service value (Turner et al., 2007). But even
so, long-term strong decoupling suggested that there were more severe
deterioration and also short-term and unsustainable coupling. Other
scholars have also found this phenomenon. For example, Rutten et al.
(2014) found that Vietnam's expansion of construction land occupied
ecological space. Yamamoto et al. (2019) also found that a growing
urban population increases the demand for cultivated land and con-
struction land, which indirectly caused the loss of forest area in
Indonesia. A similar process also exists in Laos: Natural forests were
greatly reduced due to expansion of cultivated land (Wang et al., 2019).
Cluster 4 (Type III) includes eight countries: Egypt, Israel, Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, and Oman. The coupling change
trend is to maintain the basically coordinated pattern with eco-
environment lag. Moreover, the decoupling trend is changing between
strong and weak decoupling, with a severe ecological deficit and high-
level urbanization. Therefore, we can infer that their urbanization is
harming the eco-environment. Their ability to maintain the basically co-
ordinated pattern is entirely due to the high urbanization level. The
rapid urbanization of this cluster has benefited from its abundance of
natural resources (e.g., crude oil, gas, non-oil fuels, mineral, and non-
mineral resources) and the transition of their economies from
agriculture-based economies to industrial and services-based econo-
mies. However, the improvement of urbanization has not been
attained without costs. The regional ecosystem in these countries,
including air, water, and soil, has been seriously damaged by the un-
reasonable city construction caused by accelerated urbanization
(Charfeddine and Mrabet, 2017). Specifically, air pollution in this
cluster was far higher than the world average. As for specific coun-
tries, Kuwait ranks 5th in the world in carbon dioxide emissions,
Saudi Arabia ranked 13th, and Oman ranked 17th (Gressani et al.,
2007). Besides, studies targeted at specific countries also show con-
flicts between the ecological environment and urbanization. For
example, Oman's energy industry has had a serious impact on the
local environment (Al-Janabi and Al-Azri, 2020).
We can find a path-dependence phenomenon from the four clusters.
That is, similar urbanization paths and ecological backgrounds will
11
Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011
create homogeneity in the coupling and decoupling trends across coun-
tries. For instance, countries in cluster 1 were lack of appropriate policy
to facilitate urbanization, so the subsequent construction was insuffi-
cient, causing an anti-urbanization wave and negative decoupling be-
tween urbanization and eco-environment. Both cluster 2 and cluster 3
have over-occupied the ecological space during the accelerated urbani-
zation, resulting in a transition to the ecological deficit. Unlike cluster 2,
cluster 3 had a better ecological basis and can bear more losses, so it still
showed the basically coordinated pattern. Countries in cluster 4 were
highly dependent on resource-intensive industries and therefore had
high environmental pressures. The path-dependence phenomenon
was particularly obvious in eco-environment of the Pan-Third Pole.
However, we only discussed the path-dependence phenomenon quali-
tatively in this paper. Future research need to focus on whether specific
factors in urbanization paths ultimately lead to this phenomenon, as
well as testing the specific mechanism.
4.2. High-level urbanization has a positive effect on the eco-environment
Unexpectedly, we found that 35 countries with high urbanization
levels had not changed in the type of coupling and maintained the basi-
cally coordinated pattern with eco-environment lag. Specifically, the
minimum urbanization level was also higher than 35%, which belongs
to the accelerated stage of urbanization. From this phenomenon, we
found that a high urbanization level may exert a positive effect on the
coupling coordinated development between urbanization and the eco-
environment. Countries with higher levels of urbanization were more
likely to develop in harmony with the eco-environment. There are sev-
eral potential explanations for this.
First, urbanization can be a source of higher productivity because of
its positive externalities and economies of scale. Indeed, the same goods
can be produced using fewer resources in urban areas (Cheng et al.,
2019). Second, the development of service sectors in 35 countries was
remarkable. This sector generally polluted less than manufacturing, so
this aspect of urbanization was also beneficial for the environment
(Shahbaz et al., 2019). Third, environment-friendly infrastructure and
public services, such as piped water, sanitation, and waste management,
were much easier and more economical to construct, maintain, and
operate in an urban setting (Farhani and Shahbaz, 2014). Moreover,
urbanization allowed more people to have access to environment-
friendly facilities and services at affordable prices. Consistently, pre-
vious research suggests that as the urbanization level increases,
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
China government starts to strengthen environment-friendly infra-
structure construction and livelihood services (Hubacek et al.,
2009). Fourth, an increase in urbanization level elicits greater envi-
ronmental concern in the population and drives them to demand a
clean environment, and this concern enforce environmental laws,
policies, and regulations to reduce environmental degradation in
turn (Sarkodie and Strezov, 2019). As an example, the residents of
mangrove villages valued the surrounding coastal habitats for the
ecological benefits and the government issued “City in a Garden” to
create a clean natural environment in Singapore (Thiagarajah et al.,
2015). Finally, urbanization drives innovation, such as green tech-
nologies. In the long term, environment-friendly equipment, ma-
chines, vehicles, and utilities will determine the green economy
(Charfeddine and Mrabet, 2017). Clean energy industries promoted
by the United Arab Emirates have already reduced pollution caused
by traditional energy industries (Sbia et al., 2014).
4.3. Policy implications
Our findings also have important implications for policy makers.
First, countries with distinct spatial agglomeration characteristics
need to strengthen the contact with neighboring countries. If the ag-
glomeration is a low-low cluster, they should consider the possibility
of similar constraints and expand development space through coop-
eration. In contrast, countries in a high-high cluster should deepen
mutually beneficial cooperation to strengthen their agglomeration
advantages.
Second, countries in path dependence should precisely identify
their problems and come up with solutions that may depend on
which cluster they belong to. For instance, countries in cluster 1
should adopt appropriate national policies and formulate reasonable
plans to facilitate urbanization development. Both cluster 2 and clus-
ter 3 need to pay more attention to ecological protection and stop
rapid urbanization process at the expense of the eco-environment.
Cluster 4 countries were highly dependent on resource-intensive in-
dustries and therefore had high environmental pressures. Hence, it is
necessary to consider industrial upgrading or seek environmental-
friendly industries in these countries to avoid environmental
problems.
Third, high-level urbanization has a positive effect on the eco-
environment in certain circumstances. Countries that do not reach
high levels of urbanization for the time being can learn high-quality ur-
banization experiences from other countries that have achieved this,
and seek a development pattern that has less impact on the eco-
environment. For example, they can invest in green infrastructure and
gradually upgrade the existing industries as the urbanization level
increases.
4.4. Limitations and future directions
This study utilized a single factor as an indicator to depict the rela-
tionship between urbanization and the eco-environment. It avoided
the subjective factors brought by the weighted calculation of the indica-
tor system. However, this method only objectively showed the coupling
and coordination relationship's evolution, and it was challenging to de-
scribe the specific mechanism. It was also impossible to quantitatively
analyze the influencing factors and identifying specific problems. Mean-
while, the single index (urbanization rate) was limited in demonstrat-
ing urbanization's complex system, causing the evaluations may be
different from the actual urban construction in some countries. For ex-
ample, Estonia made a successful transition from anti-urbanization,
but its urbanization level performs relatively poor when measured by
urban population. In future research, we should add more indicators
to comprehensively evaluate urbanization process. In order to address
the limitations of limited access to regional data, future researchers
should explore more new data to describe urbanization and pay more
12
Science of the Total Environment 789 (2021) 148011
attention to other data forms, such as remote sensing data and social
media data.
In addition, we used countries as research units in this research,
but differences in the land area across countries and internal diver-
sity should not be ignored. Similar with Russia, China, and other
analogous countries, their internal differences were also part of the
regional differences in the Pan-Third Pole. Future research may
explore the coupling coordination process and how urbanization
and eco-environment interact on a finer scale, instead of using ad-
ministrative boundaries.
5. Conclusions
Despite an explosion of research interests on the environmental
change of the Pan-Third Pole got the whole world's attention, previous
studies rarely focused on the environmental changes due to urbaniza-
tion. We investigated the coupling coordination process between ur-
banization and the eco-environment in the Pan-Third Pole. We
established a framework to measure the long-term and dynamic effects
of coupling coordinated processes, capture the micro details, and exam-
ine the macro-dynamics through cross-regional and multi-scale per-
spectives. Overall, we found that the Pan-Third Pole was in an
accelerated urbanization process, with two clusters located in the Mid-
dle East and South Asia. The overall eco-environmental status has
changed from ecological reserve to deficit, and a low-low cluster ap-
peared in the Middle East. The coupling types adjusted to the middle
level, still with no superior coordinated pattern. In addition, the
coupling development trend of the countries in the Pan-Third Pole
was divided into four types. Type 1 countries (n = 35) kept a basically
coordinated pattern with the eco-environment lag, had higher
urbanization levels, and were more likely to achieve coordinated
development. Type 2 countries maintained a basically coordinated
pattern, but the subclass changed from urbanization lag to the eco-
environment lag. Type 3 countries changed from the low-level coupling
to the high-level coupling. Type 4 countries transformed the high-level
coupling into the low-level coupling. Moreover, the decoupling trend
can be divided into strong decoupling as the dominant type, transition
between strong and weak negative decoupling, and transition between
strong decoupling and weak decoupling. Finally, the spatial agglomera-
tion was remarkable in the Pan-Third Pole. There were distinct clusters
in urbanization and the eco-environment. The phenomenon of “path-
dependence” existed in the coupling coordination process between ur-
banization and the eco-environment.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yuxue Feng: Writing – original draft, Conceptualization, Method-
ology, Writing – review & editing. Sanwei He: Formal analysis,
Writing – review & editing. Guangdong Li: Conceptualization, Su-
pervision, Project administration, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program
of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Pan-Third Pole Environment Study for
a Green Silk Road (Pan-TPE) (Grant No. XDA20040400), the Second
Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP),
(Grant No. 2019QZKK1005), the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (Grant No. 41971207), and the Youth Innovation Promotion
Association CAS (2020053).
Y. Feng, S. He and G. Li
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