C, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Plan for the Protection, Inheritance and Utilization of the Grand Canal Culture [EB/OL]. [...] In addition, the irrigation network of the Grand Canal expanded the acreage and number of water conservancy fields, which allowed the transplantation and cultivation of crop varieties between the North and the South. [...] 1.4 The Canal City SDG Assessment Index: The Methodology 1.4.1 Selection of indicators The assessment of SDG implementation progress of canal cities is to construct Canal City SDG Assessment Index system under the guidance of theory, collect data of the assessment indicators, and analyze the SDG implementation progress of the canal city based on the assessment formula. [...] The formula to do so is as follows: (1.3) (1.4) Specifically, W_ki is the weight of the i-th indicator in the k-th dimension at the 5P level; 〖CCSAI〗_k is the percentage of implementation progress of the i-th indicator in the k-th dimension among the 5P; is the percentage of implementation progress of the k-th dimension at the 5P level; CCSAI is the comprehensive evaluation value of 2030 sustainab. [...] • The average value of the performance of the f ive top-performing cities worldwide: for some indicators without a scientific basis to calculate and estimate the 2030 target value, the paper sets the 2030 target value of the indicator as the average of the top five cities globally in the selected development area.