COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Social-Ecological Urban Systems
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1636479
Regional integration policies and ecological resilience: A case study of urban agglomeration planning policies in China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang, China
- 2Chengdu Vocational & Technical College of Industry, Chengdu, China
- 3Institute of Quantitative Economics，Huaqiao University, Xiamen, China
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Facing the severe challenges of global climate change, cities must transition to regenerative, equitable, and adaptive systems, which serves as the cornerstone of urban sustainable development. This study employs a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) approach as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate how regional integration policies (RIP) shape urban ecological resilience (UER), with a particular concentration on the underlying mechanisms. The findings demonstrate that RI significantly enhances UER. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that RI exerts a pronounced positive effect on UER in eastern cities, whereas its impact is statistically insignificant in central and western regions. Moreover, the policy exerts a substantially stronger influence on provincial capitals compared to non-capital cities. RIP affects UER primarily through industrial structure upgrading and technological innovation. These analysis demonstrate the critical role of inter-city interactions and interdependencies in cross-administrative ecological governance, providing a scientific foundation for optimizing regional governance frameworks and enhancing ecological security.
Keywords: urban ecological resilience, regional integration policies, Multi-period difference-in-differences model, Urban agglomeration, Upgrading of industrial structure, technological innovation
Received: 29 May 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Wu and Shen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yang Shen, Institute of Quantitative Economics，Huaqiao University, Xiamen, China
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