Empirical Research on Ecological Efficiency of Coal Resource–Dependent Cities in China

Environmental pollution has now become a potential problem that restricts stable economic growth. As an effective way to measure sustainable development, ecological efficiency can comprehensively reflect the actual level of coordinated economic and environmental development. This paper established a data envelopment analysis (DEA) evaluation model using environmental pollution and resource consumption as input indicators and total economic output as the output indicator. Eco-efficiency evaluation empirical research was carried out on 27 coal resource–dependent cities divided into eastern, central, and western regions in China to establish the eco-efficiency of these cities. The results show that technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency, and scale efficiency are relatively low in resource-dependent cities. The technical efficiency values for three regions were 0.506, 0.402, and 0.439, and the overall level was considerably low, which shows that the regional differences of ecological efficiency are obvious. High ecological efficiency is mainly concentrated in the eastern cities, but the ecological efficiency levels in the central and western regions are relatively low. The main factors affecting eco-efficiency include solid waste, waste gas, and resource consumption. Finally, the development countermeasures of coal resource–dependent cities’ eco-efficiency, such as industrial structure transformation, developing circular and low-carbon economies, and implementation of environmental protection measures for boosting economic growth were given based on the empirical research results.