Review on Quantitative Research Methods of Regional Sustainable Development in China

Since the 1990s, with the in-depth study and under-standing of sustainable development, quantitative study of regional sustainable development (RSD) was increasingly hot in China.Based on quantitative study of RSD from Core Periodical in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (1992-2008), statistical analysis on the annual distribution, periodicals distribution and changes of the distribution were made. And from perspectives of social-economic, ecological, systematic and emerging methods,the course, problems and trends of the quantitative study methods on RSD were examined and analyzed to get a clear summary. By the review, the context on the quantitative study of RSD was to be clarified. The study also showed that, primarily, fields involv-ing quantitative study are expanding; second, big progresses and constant development have been made on the systematic method gradually sophisticated, the flourishing ecological method and emerging new methods in the context of cross and integration which has made complex integrated systems a more satisfactory solution; third, the method system has been more multi-angled, and the clues of independent innovation have been observed despite the fact that the introduction of imported method is the main trend.Although many problems exist, multi-scale study, dynamic time-series study and inter-regional comparative study will be further exploited and increasingly carried out with the progress of spatial information technology, which would boost the development and application of new methods in RSD study.