Toward a digital ecological civilization in China’s pursuit of sustainable development: regional disparities, interactive responses and obstacle factors

Global environmental crises pose a serious threat to sustainable development, and the integration of digital technology and ecological civilization has given rise to digital ecological civilization. This study clarifies the connotations and constructs the evaluation index for digital ecological civilization using a dataset of 256 prefectural-level cities in China from 2010 to 2023. The results show that the process of digital ecological civilization in China has been steadily promoted, and although the value of the index is low, it shows an upward trend. The development of China’s digital ecological civilization is unbalanced, showing the characteristics of a ladder distribution of east-central-northeast-west. In addition, the regional differences in the development of digital ecological civilizations mainly stem from interregional differences, which show a gradually expanding trend. The intraregional differences in digital ecological civilization in the four regions are also gradually expanding. The coupling and coordinated development of these two systems face persistent obstacles, particularly in terms of awareness of ecological civilization and support for digital policies. Promoting the coordinated development of the digital economy and green digital innovation may incur short-term adjustment costs, but in the long run, it will ultimately establish a virtuous cycle where both sectors empower each other and jointly advance ecological civilization. We developed the ‘Digital Ecological Civilization’ concept framework under the sustainable development goals, aimed to enhance the coupling between digital economy and ecological conversation.