Abstract:

China attaches great importance to the green eco-efficiency and sustainability of the Yellow River Basin (YRB), but the level and influencing factors of such eco-efficiency there lack in-depth analysis. Thus, this research uses the Slack Based Model (SBM) to calculate the green eco-efficiency of YRB, uses the overall feasible generalized least square method (FGLS) to estimate the regression model, and employs data of 43 cities from 2007 to 2018 to analyze the sustainability of industrial structure upgrading. The results are as follows. First, the overall level of YRB’s green eco-efficiency is low. Second, spatial distribution presents the heterogeneity characteristics of the “middle reaches a depression”, displaying a fluctuating trend after the first decline and then a rise together with changes in time. Third, due to the influence of spatial heterogeneity, the levels of sustainability of industrial structure optimization on green eco-efficiency of the reaches of YRB vary.