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| Method | Advantages | Weakness | Referring city | Application |
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| Material flow analysis | Grasp the material flow situation and promote energy conservation and emission reduction | Uncertainty in hidden flow accounting and few analyses of water and land | Guiyang | Describe the characteristics of urban circular economy |
| Jiangsu Province | Construction of ecological efficiency evaluation indicator system |
| Xuzhou | Analysis of sustainable state |
| Xiʼan | Evaluation of the development of circular economy |
|
| Emergy analysis | Transform the elements of ecosystem and economic system into the same indicator of magnitude | Some limitations in the evaluation of human factors including system, culture, and politics | Qaidam Basin | Analysis of the development of urban circular economy |
| Yulin | Construction of emergy evaluation indicator system |
| Shizuishan | Evaluation of urban metabolism level |
|
| Ecological footprint | Make clear the sustainable status of the economy in terms of ecology | Lack of research on value flow, get conceptual data, and have poor operability; less information with fewer indicators | Guangzhou | Analyzes the dynamic change process of urban ecological footprint |
| Wuhan | Evolution characteristics of ecological environment and ecological pressure |
| Yichun | Provides the idea and realization path and method of urban transformation |
| Daqing | Spatial and temporal changes of urban ecological carrying capacity |
|
| Ecological efficiency | Emphasize the combination of economy and environment | Calculation methods and indicator system need to be strengthened | 16 resource-based cities | Understand the development of circular economy in resource-based cities |
| Liaoning Province | Comprehensive measurement of circular economy development |
| Jiangxi Province | Analysis of the changing track of the development mode of urban circular economy |
| Shizuishan | Analysis on the development level of industrial circular economy |
|
| System dynamics | Low requirement for data accuracy; complex practical problems handling | Obstacles to variable design and data mining | Lanzhou | Analyzes the main cause and effect feedback relationship of urban circular economy system |
| Qinghai Province | Shows the feedback relationship between economic growth, resource depletion, and environmental impact |
| Tongliao | Simulates the dynamic change process of the urban complex system under the mode of the circular economy under long time series |
| Tieling | Analysis of the changing law and trend of critical water resources parameters |
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