Tibet Plateau region is considered a critical barrier for ecological security in China, whereas its economic development heavily relies on the support of several highland cities like Lhasa. An effective production structure within urban economic sectors plays an important role in balancing two competing objectives. Therefore, a sector production structure to balance two objectives becomes increasingly vital. To understand the roles, we integrate complex network with input-output (IO) table to delineate and comprehensively summarize the sectoral production structures of major cities in Tibet’s economy from 2012 to 2107. This analysis considers a regional perspective and reflects changes in drawing ecosystem services for societal development. The results show that the sectors related to public services in almost all cities, such as education, social security, public health, and associated infrastructure, were extensively developed until 2012 to improve public services for communities, but the overall production structure is concentrated in primary and construction sectors, which highly depend on the consumption of natural resources. It demonstrated the challenges when improving the status of well-being, but not to compromising environmental conservation. Since then, the sector structure in the region has been undergoing transformation, reflected by increasing influences of service sectors on the economy that were stimulated by government policies of advancing tertiary industries (such as Lhasa and Nyingchi). The changes are able to sustain the progress of the community’s well-being without further expansion of withdrawing natural resources, consequently towards more balanced development. Furthermore, based on critical production path assessment, we put forward plausible pathways towards more sustainable development by capitalizing on the distinctive advantages of different cities in specific industries, such as manufacturing or traditional agriculture.
 

production structure；input-output model； complex network model； Tibet Plateau region