Preliminary study on evaluation indicators for urban engineering system sustainability

China’s urbanization has entered a mid-to-late phase, and is characterized by high-density urban engineering projects that form systems coupled to geotechnical environments. These systems exhibit significant vulnerability due to strong spatiotemporal coupling, which hampers sustainable urban development. Traditional approaches to urban engineering design, construction, and maintenance tend to focus on individual projects and lack the ability to comprehensively evaluate system-level sustainability. Thus, with current methods, it is difficult to optimize the renewal and operation of high-density urban engineering systems. In this study, the constituent elements and key features of high-density urban engineering systems are discussed, and urban engineering system sustainability evaluation indicators are comprehensively reviewed. Viewed from perspectives of resilience, low-carbon development, and ecological impact, 66 performance indicators describing urban engineering systems are selected. The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)-based analytic network process (DANP) method and the entropy weight method (EWM) are utilized to calculate these indicators’ subjective and objective weights, respectively. Furthermore, the coupling relationships between evaluation indicators are explored, aiding the construction of an urban engineering sustainability evaluation index system. Finally, empirical analysis is conducted across six megacities in China (Tianjin, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Shenzhen) to validate the effectiveness of the evaluation indicators. The findings reveal significant imbalances in the sustainability of urban engineering systems in China. Accordingly, potential strategies and indicators for targeted enhancement of these systems are discussed.