Quantification of spatial difference of sustainability in the Taihang Mountain area of Hebei Province, China, with its information platform and GIS

Mountainous area, accounting 69 percent of Chinese territory, plays an important role in sustainable development. The exploitation to mountainous area always goes with ecological degradation, resource overuse and spatial difference, so the study on sustainable development evaluation of different mountain area is very important. The rational result of sustainable development evaluation needs abundant data and suitable method which are supported by information platform in this paper. Based on the information platform of Taihang Mountain area in Hebei Province of China which contains information system and decision supporting system, the sustainable development ability (SDA), sustainable development coordination degree (SDCD), sustainable development level (SDL) and the sustainable development situation (SDS) are spatially analyzed in this area. The results show that the substantial spatial heterogeneity was observed in the study area. The north part of Taihang Mountain area in Hebei Province has relatively lower SDCD and SDL and higher SDA; the middle part has medium SDA and higher SDCD and SDL; the south part has medium SDCD and SDL and lower SDA. The middle part of Taihang Mountain area in Hebei Province has higher SDS, the north part lower SDS and the south part medium SDS. These results were mainly caused by the different economic development level, resources endowment and environment situation.