Coordinating Ecology and Tourism for a Sustainable Future: Lessons from China’s Yangtze River Delta

Collared Finchbill

22-10-2025

That is what one calls: the master practices wu wei (non-action), the workers practice you wei (action). Wu wei attains everything; you wei attains nothing.

In Kingfisherish Wandering [1]

© Sui Xu

In an era when urban expansion and mass tourism are placing growing pressure on fragile ecosystems, a new study by Zhao, Pan, and Tan [2] offers a scientific roadmap for achieving balance. Their work, published in Sustainable Operations and Computers, introduces an integrated framework to evaluate the sustainable performance of ecotourism systems (ETS) in China’s Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA)—a region known for its economic dynamism and rich ecological heritage.

The researchers emphasize that tourism and ecological systems (TS and ES) are interdependent: the health of one influences the sustainability of the other. Yet, traditional models often analyze them separately, missing the dynamic coordination needed for long-term development. To fill this gap, Zhao and colleagues developed a System Coordination Perspective, combining the Network Slack-Based Measure (SBM), Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD), and Support Vector Machine Recursive Feature Elimination (SVM-RFE) models [3-5]. This hybrid approach allows them to assess both efficiency and coordination between TS and ES across multiple cities.

Their analysis of 2016-2020 data revealed encouraging yet uneven progress. While coordination between ecology and tourism improved by 7.7% before the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions in 2020 caused sharp efficiency declines—especially in Shanghai, where ETS efficiency fell by over 50%. Still, Zhejiang Province displayed notable resilience thanks to diversified industries and strong ecological governance. Transportation infrastructure and tertiary industries emerged as key drivers of sustainable growth, together accounting for nearly two-thirds of the total contribution to ecotourism sustainability.

True sustainability depends not only on economic growth but on relational coordination—where human activity harmonizes with natural systems. This aligns with the concept of Nature Quotient (NQ), which values the integration of ecological intelligence into decision-making. By enhancing coordination between environmental and economic systems, societies can cultivate “ecological literacy”—an awareness that progress and preservation are not opposites but complementary pursuits [6].

In this light, sustainable ecotourism becomes a path toward individual and social peace: individuals experience inner calm by reconnecting with nature, while communities gain stability through balanced development [7]. As the authors suggest, promoting intercity cooperation, optimizing transport, and nurturing cultural and ecological diversity will not only boost efficiency but also strengthen the moral fabric of sustainability—where prosperity arises from harmony, not exploitation.

References

[1] Nguyen MH. (2025). Kingfisherish Wandering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FVLLLXNW/

[2] Zhao J, Pan J, Tan L. (2025). Sustainable evaluation of ecotourism in the Yangtze River delta urban agglomeration: A system coordination perspective. Sustainable Operations and Computers, 6, 57-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.susoc.2025.01.002

[3] Li Y, et al. (2020). Dynamic and network slack-based measure analysis of China's regional energy and air pollution reduction efficiencies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 251, 119546. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119546

[4] Dong Q, et al. (2023). Coupling coordination degree of environment, energy, and economic growth in resource-based provinces of China. Resources Policy, 81, 103308. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2023.103308

[5] Chen WK, Chen LS, Pan YT. (2021). A text mining-based framework to discover the important factors in text reviews for predicting the views of live streaming. Applied Soft Computing, 111, 107704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2021.107704

[6] Vuong QH, Nguyen MH. (2025). On Nature Quotient. Pacific Conservation Biology, 31, PC25028. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC25028

[7] Nguyen MH, Ho MT, La VP. (2025). On “An” (安): Inner peace through uncertainty, nature quotient, and harmony with Dao. http://books.google.com/books/about?id=NIKMEQAAQBAJ