Analysis for the Interaction Relationship between Urbanization and Ecological Security: A Case Study in Wuhan City Circle of China

Exploring the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security is the key issue to achieve regional sustainable development. This study used coupling coordination model and vector auto-regression model to comprehensively investigate the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security in Wuhan City Circle from 2005 to 2018. The results showed that urbanization quality in Wuhan City Circle increased from 0.1818 in 2005 to 0.4355 in 2018, with an average annual increase rate of 10.74%. The ecological security of Wuhan City Circle decreased from 0.4890 in 2005 to 0.4511 in 2015 and increased from 0.4511 in 2015 to 0.4554 in 2018. The degree of coupling coordination between urbanization and ecological security of Wuhan City Circle presented a circle structure with Wuhan as the center and increasing outward. Additionally, the impulse analysis showed that the increase of urbanization had a significant negative impact on ecological security of Wuhan city, Huangshi city, and Xiaogan city. Meanwhile, the ecological security index of Ezhou city, Tianmen city, Huanggang city, Xiantao city, Xianning city, and Qianjiang city were all positive in early stage after the ecological security was impacted by the increase of urbanization. The analysis of historical data and future trends can provide operable recommendations for urbanization development and ecological security protection through cleaner production and efficient use of natural resources from the aspect of coordinated development.