Spatiotemporal evolution of sustainable development of China's provinces: a modelling approach

Three sustainable development sub-indicators were established along with 49 indicators of sustainable development at the provincial level. We collected data for the key years of 2010, 2015, and 2018 and evaluated the sustainable development level of 31 provinces in China by using the best and worst value improved equal-weight TOPSIS method. With spatial autocorrelation and hotspot analysis, the spatial characteristics of the sustainable development level were studied. Grey correlation analysis and the offset degree index were also used to find out which indicators should be of most concern to improve the level of sustainable development. The results showed the following. (1) The level of sustainable development of China's provinces is increasing, but there is a decrease from east to west. (2) In terms of sustainable development, the gap between the four major economic regions is narrowing. (3) The overall sustainable development level is highly consistent with the mainstream green development and the human development index, indicating that exploiting the driving force behind developing and improving the quality of development is the key to China's sustainable development strategy. (4) Different measures should be taken to promote the realization of Sustainable Development Goals in different areas.