Measuring coupling coordination between urban economic development and air quality based on the Fuzzy BWM and improved CCD model

Rapid industrialization and urbanization stimulate the fast-growth of the urban economy and generate large numbers of wastes and pollutants, which greatly affect environmental quality. In turn, the strict environmental regulation may negatively affect economic development. Thus, the coordination between economic development and environmental quality has been a thorny problem for policymakers around the world, especially for developing countries such as China. This paper provides a framework for measuring the coupling coordination between urban economic development and air quality for sustainable development. Firstly, it establishes the criteria for measuring urban economic development and air quality, and employs the Fuzzy Best-Worst Method to derive the criteria weights. Then, the performance of urban economic development and air quality can be evaluated. Further, it uses an improved Coupling Coordination Degree model by introducing dynamic contribution coefficients to evaluate the coupling coordination between economic development and air quality. It also conducts a case study by taking the 18 cities in Henan Province of China as examples to perform this framework. After that, it discusses the effectiveness of the Fuzzy Best-Worst Method by comparing with the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process, and conducts a sensitivity analysis on the contribution coefficients of the improved Coupling Coordination Degree model. Finally, it provides some policy implications for the improvement of coordination between urban economic development and air quality and draws some conclusions.