Dynamic assessment of sustainable development based on grey relational analysis and artificial neural network

Sustainable development is a hot issue in ecological economy. By analyzing the grey relational grade matrix, the degree of influence for each factor on sustainable development can be found. The results showed that main factors of influencing sustainable development were total population, gross domestic product, total investment in fixed assets, per capita annual living expenditure of urban households, per capita consumption expenditure of rural households and proportion of tertiary industry in industrial composition by grey relational analysis(GRA). A three-layer artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to predict sustainable development. The 6-4-3 ANN model with standardization transformation was the best model. GRA and ANN are useful tools to evaluate sustainable development and provide policy proposals for decision-making to local government.