Exploring the Spatial Pattern of Environmental Change Efficiency of Coastal Shrinking Cities in Taiwan

Kuo, H.F. and Lu, Y.E., 2018. Exploring the spatial pattern of environmental change efficiency of coastal shrinking cities in Taiwan. In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 1541–1545. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

The declining population has become a special phenomenon for many cities all over the world. Among 352 townships in Taiwan, 63.92% of them have been facing the situation of shrinking population from 2006 to 2016; furthermore, the proportion of this has been increasing over the years. Taiwan is facing problems of negative growth in total population, aging structure of population, rising of dependency ratio, aging society and so on. This study applied environmental change efficiency index and identified 10 important indicators to evaluate the relative efficiency and sustainability of coastal shrinking cities in Taiwan. The inputs were oriented toward natural environmental resources and the ecological environment, including surface temperature, surface runoff, habitat quality, water consumption and power consumption. The outputs were chosen to reflect the benefits and goals of economic and social development, included population, production, income, the service quality of infrastructure, and employees. The results indicate that the average environmental change efficiency is 70.71%, which has clear spatial differentiation and it would be helpful to develop strategies for coastal shrinking cities.