Comprehensive carrying capacity of the urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Delta,China

Urban agglomeration (UA) is a complex artificial system. Carrying capacity reflects the environmental capability to support human activity. From the perspective of resource supply and demand, the paper selects 12 representative indicators to evaluate the carrying capacity of land, water, transportation and environment. 16 cities of the UA in the Yangtze River Delta, China, are selected as data samples. Time-series global factor analysis is employed to extract the principal factors of the index of 2000 and 2008. The results show that the comprehensive carrying capacity of the UA tends to benign development as a whole except for Shanghai. Carrying capacities of land and water have become the two critical factors to restrict economic and social development. Based on the hierarchical cluster analysis, the values differentiate the UA into significant gradients. The coefficient of variation shows that the spatial differentiation is conspicuous and expanding. The paper also proposes some policies for the government and planners to successfully design and implement the UA.