Analysis of the relationship between economic growth and industrial pollution in Zaozhuang, China-based on the hypothesis of the environmental Kuznets curve

Does democracy improve environmental quality of GCC region? Analysis robust to cross-section dependence and slope heterogeneity

Since the developed world's economic prosperity has been heavily reliant on excessive fossil-based energy consumption, it has posed severe environmental quality challenges. This research attempts to revisit the relationship between income and anthropogenic emissions in the context of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory by considering electric power consumption, urbanization, and democratic accountability index in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. It employs annual frequency panel data from 1990 through 2019 and three alternative advanced econometric estimation techniques. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, the EKC results for the whole sample strongly support the proposition of an inverse U-shaped connection between anthropogenic emissions and affluence in the long run. Secondly, the country-specific results confirm EKC only in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, while the remaining countries demonstrate a U-shaped connection. Thirdly, the democratic accountability promoted anthropogenic emissions implying that it failed to contribute to environmental protection. It means that democratic setup in the GCC region performs poorly in accomplishing climate change mitigation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Fourthly, electric power consumption and urbanization impart positive and negative impacts on anthropogenic emission, respectively. These findings are found robust across the fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS), bias-corrected LSDV (least squares dummy variable) (LSDV), and pooled mean group (PMG) estimators. Finally, Dumitrescu-Hurlin panel causality shows that (i) income and urbanization establish a two-way causality with the anthropogenic emissions. (ii) However, a unidirectional causal connection is revealed from electric power consumption and democratic accountability index to anthropogenic emissions. The findings suggest that the GCC region should prioritize environmental protection and SDGs across the political aims' recipe since it would direct the region on the path of climate change mitigation.

Agricultural chemicals and sustainable development: the agricultural environment Kuznets curve based on spatial panel model

Excessive delivery of agricultural chemicals seriously threatens the ecology and environment of agricultural areas and restricts the sustainable development of agriculture. The analysis of agrochemical Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) adopting spatial econometric tools is limited. Therefore, this study adopted the spatial panel regression approach to analyze the agricultural chemicals EKC Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRR). The results show that (1) both EKC curves of chemical fertilizer and pesticide of the TGRR are inverted U-shaped, and there are 53.8% and 42.3% of the counties/districts did not meet the inflection point of the EKC as regards to chemical fertilizer and pesticide. (2) The EKC of agricultural chemicals of the TGRR are stable, and the variables such as cultivated area and the urban-rural income disparity have impact on the occurrence of the inflection point of EKC. (3) There is the spatial "imitation and convergence" of agricultural chemicals among the counties in the TGRR. The findings indicate that the ecological and environmental situations of agriculture in the TGRR need urgent attention. Countermeasures aiming to alleviate the contradiction between ecological and economic development should be put forward.

Investigating the factors underlying participation by the Chinese public in environmental management: an approach based on spatial heterogeneity

Public participation in environmental management (PPEM) in China has become increasingly prominent; thus, investigating the factors that underlie participation by the Chinese public in environmental management is important. To this end, we adopted unique data for PPEM, which was measured based on environmental complaints logged by the telephone hotline set up by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of China. We observed that PPEM greatly varied from one city to another, indicating significant spatial heterogeneity. In addition, complaints were mainly concentrated in four large regions, namely, the North China Plain, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration. Next, a newly developed spatial heterogeneity analysis method, namely, geographical detector, was applied to investigate the driving factors of PPEM. From the factor detector analysis results, we confirmed that the economic level, energy consumption, urban population, college-educated population, wastewater, environmental risk, SO₂ emissions, and PM_2.5 concentrations were the dominant factors that caused citizens to voice environmental complaints. In addition, we noticed that moderately developed cities were the leading risk areas, which indicated that these cities had serious environmental pollution problems and their citizens actively voiced complaints. As economies continue to grow, the populations in these cities are projected to become more aware of environmental quality and will implement stricter regulations to protect the environment and lower complaints. Moreover, the interaction detector analysis results revealed that the interaction of urban and college-educated populations with other factors played more important roles in affecting PPEM.

The Impacts of Urban Manufacturing Agglomeration on the Quality of Water Ecological Environment Downstream of the Three Gorges Dam

As an important way to promote economic growth and to improve ecological environment quality, industrial agglomeration strategy has been widely accepted and implemented in various regions of China. In theory, industrial agglomeration is conducive to reducing pollution emissions. However, this needs to be tested in reality. The purpose of this paper is to test the impacts of manufacturing industry agglomeration on the quality of water ecological environment in 17 prefecture-level cities downstream of the Three Gorges Dam. Therefore, a theoretical model was established to test the direct and indirect effects. Empirically, results show that the direct effect of manufacturing agglomeration on the quality of water ecological environment is −0.426, which provides statistical evidence for the important role of manufacturing agglomeration in improving the quality of water ecological environment. The indirect effect of manufacturing agglomeration on ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) is 0.118% through technological innovation, the indirect effect on NH3-N is 0.114% through economic growth, and the indirect effect on NH3-N is 0.254% through industrial structure. Due to the low overall level of the manufacturing industry and its reliance on dirty technologies, the indirect effects of industrial agglomeration are not conducive to improving the quality of the water ecological environment. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a long-term mechanism to promote the evolution of the regional economy along a path that is conducive to the improvement of the water ecological environment.

Study on the interactive influence between economic growth and environmental pollution

With the rapid growth of economy, the environmental pollution problem is becoming increasingly prominent. How to promote the coordinated and balanced development of economy and environment is a strategic problem of great significance that we face urgently. Taking Wuhan City of China as the research object, this paper selects the key indexes of economic growth and environmental pollution and studies the interactive influence between economic growth and environmental pollution in Wuhan. On the one hand, the impact of Wuhan's economic growth on environmental pollution is analyzed by the proposed time-delay correlation analysis method and the time-delay EKC (Environment Kuznets Curve) models. On the other hand, the impact of Wuhan's environmental pollution on environmental growth is studied. By establishing the LARS-LASSO (least angle regression-least absolute shrinkage and selection operator) regression model and the stepwise regression model, the main factors affecting economic growth in preliminary environmental pollution indexes are analyzed, and then, an interaction model is established to study the impact of the interaction between any two main environmental factors on economic growth. The results of empirical analysis show that the main factors affecting economic growth are industrial wastewater emissions, industrial waste gas emissions, and industrial smoke and dust emissions, and the interaction between industrial waste gas emissions and industrial wastewater emissions restrains economic growth.

Analysis on the relationship between fisheries economic growth and marine environmental pollution in China's coastal regions

The rapid development of China's fisheries economy is accompanied by intensified marine environmental pollution over the period covered by this study. Based on data from multiple sources, this paper attempts to measure the relationship between fisheries economic growth and marine environmental pollution among China's coastal regions over the past 17 years. For this purpose, it firstly quantifies changes in fisheries economy and fisheries population. It then goes onto comparing the degree of changes in fisheries economy and marine environment. Finally, it depicts the relationship between fisheries added value (FAV) and polluted marine area (PMA) and between per capita net income of fishermen (PCNIF) and PMA ratio. Results suggest that.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the relationship between water pollution and economic growth: a case study in Nansi Lake catchment, China

Investigation of water pollution-economic growth nexus is an important component for the sustainable development of eco-environment and socio-economy. This study combined the improved Grey relational degree (GRD) model with the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) to quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the relationships between water pollution and economic growth in Nansi Lake catchment (Jining, Zaozhuang, and Heze) under the context of the Five-Year Plan in Shandong. Results showed that the relational degree of industrial wastewater and economic growth was Heze (0.652) > Zaozhuang (0.581) > Jining (0.538), and of domestic wastewater and economic growth was Jining (0.722) > Heze (0.721) > Zaozhuang (0.650). Meanwhile, the EKC of industrial wastewater rose and then declined, whereas that of domestic wastewater increased upwards. Overall, coordinated development had been gradually obtained between industrial wastewater emissions and economic growth. And, uncoordinated development between domestic wastewater emissions and economic growth still existed, indeed, in recent years it had intensified. Further, domestic wastewater emissions continue to rise, to the point where they now constitute one of the main sources of water pollution in Nansi Lake catchment. Results of this study indicated that combining the improved GRD model with the EKC provides a new approach to comprehensive investigation of the water pollution-economic growth nexus from a qualitative and quantitative perspective.

Challenges for Water Security and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development: A Case Study of Industrial, Domestic Water Use and Pollution Management in Shandong, China

Comprehensive analysis of water use and pollution management plays an important role in regional water security and sustainable socio-economic development. This study applies the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC), Gini index and elasticity coefficient methods to conduct an investigation of industrial and domestic water use and pollution management in Shandong. The results show that industrial water pollution generally displayed a coordinated relationship with socio-economic development, while an uncoordinated relationship occurred between domestic water pollution and socio-economic development. Meanwhile, the Gini index between domestic water use and population in 2017 (0.101) was superior to that of 2003 (0.165), and the Gini index of industrial water use and second industry output in 2017 (0.273) was better than that of 2003 (0.292), indicating that the allocation and equity of domestic and industrial water use in Shandong kept to a good development trend. Additionally, the industrial effect is better than the domestic effect in terms of the control of wastewater emissions and the governance of typical pollutants in wastewater. Accordingly, domestic water pollution has gradually become one of the major sources of water pollution, and the allocation of industrial and domestic water use has room to improve further in Shandong. Conjunctive use of the aforementioned three methods provides an approach to investigate the integrated management of water use and water pollution control from multiple angles.

A study on the causal effect of urban population growth and international trade on environmental pollution: evidence from China

This study seeks to contribute to the recent literature by empirically investigating the causal effect of urban population growth and international trade on environmental pollution of China, for the period 1980-2014. The Johansen cointegration confirmed a long-run cointegration association among the utilised variables for the case of China. The direction of causality among the variables was, consequently, investigated using the recent bootstrapped Granger causality test. This bootstrapped Granger causality approach is preferred as it provides robust and accurate critical values for statistical inferences. The findings from the causality analysis revealed the existence of a bi-directional causality between import and urban population. The three most paramount variables that explain the environmental pollution in China, according to the impulse response function, are imports, urbanisation and energy consumption. Our study further established the presence of an N-shaped environmental Kuznets curve relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution of China. Hence, our study recommends that China should adhere to stricter environmental regulations in international trade, as well as enforce policies that promote energy efficiency in the urban residential and commercial sector, in the quest to mitigate environmental pollution issues as the economy advances.

An integrated specification for the nexus of water pollution and economic growth in China: Panel cointegration, long-run causality and environmental Kuznets curve

This paper concentrates on a Chinese context and makes efforts to develop an integrated process to explicitly elucidate the relationship between economic growth and water pollution discharge-chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge and ammonia nitrogen (NH₃-N), using two unbalanced panel data sets covering the period separately from 1990 to 2014, and 2001 to 2014. In our present study, the panel unit root tests, cointegration tests, and Granger causality tests allowing for cross-sectional dependence, nonstationary, and heterogeneity are conducted to examine the causal effects of economic growth on COD/NH₃-N discharge. Further, we simultaneously apply semi-parametric fixed effects estimation and parametric fixed effects estimation to investigate environmental Kuznets curve relationship for COD/NH₃-N discharge. Our empirical results show a long-term bidirectional causality between economic growth and COD/NH₃-N discharge in China. Within the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology framework, we find evidence in support of an inverted U-shaped curved link between economic growth and COD/NH₃-N discharge. To the best of our knowledge, there have not been any efforts made in investigating the nexus of economic growth and water pollution in such an integrated manner. Therefore, this study takes a fresh look on this topic.

Carbon dioxide emission and economic growth of China-the role of international trade

This study investigates the role of international trade in mitigating carbon dioxide emission as a nation economically advances. This study disaggregated the international trade into total exports and total imports. A multivariate model framework was estimated for the time series data for the period of 1970-2014. The quantile regression detected all the essential relationship, which hitherto, the traditional ordinary least squares could not capture. A cointegration relationship was confirmed using the Johansen cointegration model. The findings of the Granger causality revealed the presence of a uni-directional Granger causality running from energy consumption to economic growth; from import to economic growth; from imports to exports; and from urbanisation to economic growth, exports and imports. Our study established the presence of long-run relationships amongst carbon dioxide emission, economic growth, energy consumption, imports, exports and urbanisation. A bootstrap method was further utilised to reassess the evidence of the Granger causality, of which the results affirmed the Granger causality in the long run. This study confirmed a long-run N-shaped relationship between economic growth and carbon emission, under the estimated cubic environmental Kuznet curve framework, from the perspective of China. The recommendation therefore is that China as export leader should transform its trade growth mode by reducing the level of carbon dioxide emission and strengthening its international cooperation as it embraces more environmental protectionisms.