EMERGY-BASED URBAN ECOSYSTEM HEALTH EVALUATION FOR A TYPICAL RESOURCE-BASED CITY: A CASE STUDY OF TAIYUAN, CHINA

Urban ecosystem health assessment helps ensure sustainable urban development. As the provincial capital of Shanxi in China, Taiyuan's development also affects Shanxi, an area rich in coal resources, and its urbanization is closely related to the coal energy structure, which has led to ecological deterioration. This study aims to apply emergy synthesis and information entropy to estimate the urban ecosystem health of Taiyuan during the 2001-2017 period, to provide insight into the policy implications. The results indicated that the urban ecological health of Taiyuan has ameliorated during the 17-year period, mainly due to the resilience and ecological service capacity of Taiyuan urban ecosystem improved over the past 17 years. The continuous reduction of industrial waste emissions leads to ecosystem, which have resilience improving. However, we should be cautious since there are still a lot of problems with the organizational structure. And Taiyuan government still needs to adjust the current energy structure, optimize industrial structure, and reduce the dependence on the resources.