Urban comprehensive carrying capacity analysis in Zhejiang Province of China from the perspective of production, living, and ecological spaces

Urban Comprehensive Carrying Capacity (UCCC) can describe the development of a city and is an important guarantee for its sustainable development. Production-Living-Ecological Space (PLES) is an important guideline for the optimal development of China's land space in the new era. Based on the PLES, we construct a UCCC index system and analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of the UCCC of each city in Zhejiang Province from 2006 to 2020. In addition, a coupling coordination degree model and an obstacle degree model are introduced to analyze the coupling coordination degree of the development of PLES of each city and the main constraint indicators, respectively, and a GM(1,1) model is used to predict the UCCC of each city in Zhejiang Province from 2021 to 2025. The study indicates that (1) the UCCC of each city is steadily increasing, with a growth rate of over 30% in 15 years. (2) As of 2020, the highest degree of coupling coordination reaches only 0.508, and it remains a major challenge for cities to improve the coordination degree of land use. (3) Some production space and living space indicators are the main obstacle indicators hindering the development of the UCCC in Zhejiang Province. (4) The forecast results show that the UCCC in each city will still maintain an upwards trend in the following 6 years and will gradually reach a high carrying capacity level.