A New Perspective on Functional Zoning by Integrating Coupling Coordination Analysis of Ecological Environment and Urbanization Level: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia

Rapid urbanization intensifies disturbances to the ecological environment, underscoring the urgent need for effective strategies to guide regional development towards sustainability. Functional zoning offers a promising approach to address this challenge. However, in eco-fragile regions, functional zoning has often failed to incorporate the spatially explicit coupling coordination degree (CCD) between ecological environment and urbanization level. Taking Inner Mongolia as a case study, this study evaluated the spatial coordination between these two systems by leveraging geographic big data. Functional zones were then delineated using the K-means clustering method, incorporating the geospatial relationships between ecological environment and urbanization level. Results revealed significant geospatial heterogeneity in both ecological environment and urbanization level. Ecological environment generally declined from east to west, while urbanization was generally low throughout the region. Substantial variations in CCD were observed, with the global Moran’s I value confirming a significant spatial clustering pattern. Based on the findings above, five functional zones were identified, with the urbanization promotion zone as the dominant one. This study provides a valuable reference for regional pattern optimization and sustainable development of social-ecological systems.