As the Chinese population and industrial highly concentrated area, eastern coastal areas accepted a large volume of foreign and domestic investment and became one of the global factories. However, this industrial development process was at the cost of high resources input, environmental pollution, ecological damage and land resource shortage. Taking prefecture-level cities as research units, this paper defined the industrial green transformation coefficient and environmental pressure change coefficient, analyzed the spatial patterns of evolution of industrial structure and efficient and environmental pressure. Further, 114 prefecture-level administrative units were classified into four types of zones with a two-dimensional four-quadrant division method. Also, corresponding suggestions for green transformation routes and environmental regulation were proposed to different zones were proposed.
As for pressure reduction & industries green transformation zones, they are mainly composed of two types of area, one is the core cities of Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta urban agglomerations and the other is the inland cities taking ecological conservation as the regional main function. We should encourage the former to develop smart and high-level manufacturing, and limit the entering and layout of high-pollution industries for the latter. As for pressure reduction & industries non-green transformation zones, they are only located in several core cities of urban agglomeration, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Dalian, which have some heavy chemical industrial projects, and some cities in eastern Guangdong and eastern Guangxi. We should strengthen the function of "command and control" at the heart of the urban agglomeration for those core cities, develop modern service industries, limit the development of heavy and chemical industries and drop out low-level manufactures based on the strict environmental standard. Given the environmental problems caused by industrial spatial transfer in some cities of western Guangdong and eastern Guangxi, attention should be given to increasing technical level of transferring products producing and pollutants processing. As for pressure intensification & industries green transformation zones, they mainly include some traditional old industrial base cities. Hence, their industrial restructuring should focus on improving industrial technical level, cultivating and developing new materials, energy-saving and environmental protection industries, and cut backward and excessive production capacity based on strict environmental regulation standards. As for pressure intensification & industries non-green transformation zones, they are mainly distributed in the coastal cities with heavy chemical industry projects or the peripheral cities that undertake the industrial spatial transfer, where the environmental criteria of industrial and space access should be upgraded.