[Evaluation of ecological environment and urban development quality in Xi'an City, China]

Sound ecological environment is an important foundation for promoting high-quality urban development, as it determines the level and quality of urban construction and human settlements. Taking Xi'an as the study area, we used remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) to evaluate the urban ecological environment. The evaluation index system of high-quality urban development was constructed and the entire-array-polygon was used to evaluate the urban development quality. The coupling coordination degree model was used to analyze the temporal variations of the coupling coordination degree of those two factors. The results showed that the urban ecological condition of Xi'an showed a pattern of high in the south and low in the north, and that the level of RSEI had an upward trend in 2010-2020. The RESI of the six inner districts of Xi'an decreased, but the RESI of the surrounding districts of Xi'an was stable or improved. The urban development quality of Xi'an was improved in 2010-2020, though the quality level was still at the low level. The improvement of the three major subsystems of urban development was uneven, and the increase range of three subsystems from largest to smallest was ranked as ecological subsystem > economic subsystem > social subsystem. The coupling coordination of the two kinds of index increased in 2010-2020, and the coordination level had been prompted from barely coordinated to primary.