Evaluation of county-level coordinated development in Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province

In response to fragile environment, a special ecological importance and undeveloped economy in Zhangjiakou City of Hebei Province, the paper established an index system to evaluate development coordination status, and discuss the correlation between environment and social-economic importance of 13 counties in the city. The index system included twenty one indexes, belonging to three subsystems of ecological resources, economic level and social development. The index weight was measured by using entropy evaluation method. Scores of ecological resources, economic level, social development and coordination degree of the three subsystems in each county were calculated. Based on the scores of economic level and coordination degree, 13 counties were further divided into four groups - developed and coordinated area of Yu County; developed and coordinating area of Huailai County; developing and coordinating areas of Xuanhua, Zhangbei, Yangyuan, Huai'an, Wanquan, Zhuolu, Chicheng and Chongli Counties; and undeveloped and uncoordinated areas of Kangbao, Guyuan and Shangyi Counties. It was noted that the four groups were related to the geographical distribution of the counties. The less developed counties were mainly distributed in the northern part of Zhangjiakou City, developed counties distributed in the southern part, and counties with medium economic development and coordination degree were mainly distributed in the central part of Zhangjiakou City. In accordance with the classification, different solutions and suggestions were advanced for coordinating development efforts in the different groups of counties. In developed and coordinated areas, it was necessary to keep and extend development experiences and to also pay significant attention on ecologically limiting factors. In developed and coordinating areas, the technologies and structures of industries needed improvement to increase profits and reduce industrial consumption of resources. For developing and coordinating areas (which covered most of the counties in the region), there was need of a comprehensive balance in development and ecology to avoid damage to the environment during economic and social development. For undeveloped and uncoordinated areas, top government officials needed to pay more attention on policies which increase ecological compensation and poverty alleviation to eliminate ecological poverty.