Does environmental audit help to improve water quality? Evidence from the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre

The environmental consequences of national Audit governance: An analysis based on county-level data in China

Recent years have witnessed growing public concern over air pollution in China, posing a challenge to the government's environmental management efforts. Empirical evidence indicates that the digital economy contributes to mitigating environmental pollution. Given that national audits are a crucial part of the national oversight system and considering the significant role of digital technology in audit governance, it is relevant to explore how the digital economy can support national audits in enhancing China's environmental quality. This study investigates the environmental impact of national audit governance, utilizing a dataset from 1540 counties in China spanning from 2005 to 2018. The findings reveal that effective national audits contribute to reducing haze pollution (HP) levels, with the digital economy playing a moderating role. The results also demonstrate heterogeneity; national audits are particularly effective in regions characterized by high urbanization rates, severe HP, and stringent environmental regulations. The mechanism analysis suggests that industrial transformation and enhanced government governance are the key mechanisms through which national audits reduce regional HP. Additionally, reforming the audit management system can amplify the effects of national audits on reducing HP.

Have government environmental auditing contributed to the green transformation of Chinese cities?

Faced with growing ecological problems, governments around the world are increasingly focusing on improving ecology and the environment. The topic of urban green transformation has attracted a great deal of research. However, not much of it has focused on the effectiveness of government environmental auditing, especially from the perspective of its role in sustainable governance. This article takes 285 cities in China from 2009 to 2020 as the research scale. It innovatively measures government environmental audits with dual indicators and uses System Gaussian Mixture Model (SGMM) to estimate that government environmental audits significantly promote urban green transformation, and the impact of "whether to implement government environmental auditing" is greater than the "intensity of government environmental auditing". The results show that government environmental audit intensity has a stronger impact on urban green transformation in eastern cities. In contrast, environmental audit coverage has a stronger impact in western cities. Moreover, the effect of government environmental auditing on green transformation is more significant in small and medium-sized cities and key environmental protection cities than in large cities and non-key environmental protection cities, respectively. Government environmental auditing could facilitate urban green transformation by restraining local government behavior, forcing green technology innovation, and promoting industrial structural upgrading. In addition, the intensity of government environmental auditing can better act on green transformation through the fore-mentioned mechanisms. It can play a crucial role in green technology innovation.

Effects of air environmental audit on reducing air pollutant emissions: evidence from China

In order to mitigate air pollution, governments have implemented various active measures for air pollution prevention and control, among which the air environmental audit is an essential supervision initiative of air environmental regulation policy. This study aims to focus on and investigate the role of air environmental audit in national governance systems by collecting panel data on air environmental audits and air pollutant emissions from 261 prefecture-level cities across China between 2004 and 2018. Using difference-in-differences (DID) models, we empirically analyzed the policy effects of air environmental audits on reducing air pollutant emissions. The results indicate that air environmental audits have a significant impact on reducing air pollutant emissions, which is robust under multiple scenarios, including propensity score matching and placebo tests. The effect of air environmental audits varies significantly among different air pollutants, with the most significant and rapid effect observed on PM2.5 concentration, while industrial sulfur dioxide and industrial smoke (dust) emissions exhibit a time lag. Moreover, the promotion effect of air environmental audits on air pollution control displays strong heterogeneity based on local economic levels, initial environmental quality, and government competition. Therefore, it is of great significance to intensify the implementation of air environmental audits for air pollution control and to promote and improve the audit work according to pollutant classification and local conditions, thereby fully leveraging the audit's role and further improving air quality continuously.

Voting by mouth: media attention and environmental governance

External regulation is crucial for environmental protection. This study investigates the impact of media attention on corporate environmental governance from 2011 to 2021, using China's public companies as our samples. The empirical results indicate that media attention consistently and significantly enhances corporate environmental governance. This effect remains robust across endogeneity considerations and alternative tests. Additionally, in regions with higher marketization and stronger rule of law frameworks, the efficacy of media attention in improving corporate environmental performance becomes remarkably pronounced. Further analysis unveils that media attention positively impacts environmental governance by elevating public awareness, refining internal management efficiency, and fostering innovative strategies for minimizing environmental impact. These results offer empirical backing for the reinforcement of external oversight and corporate governance practices.

Evaluation of water quality at national scale from 2011 to 2021: Advances and challenges

More environmental policies and larger investments in protecting the aquatic environment in China have been made in the last decade than previously. It is important to assess how this will affect river water quality. Here, changes in water quality in China between 2011 and 2021 are assessed. Water bodies meeting class III or better defined in the Chinese Environmental Quality Standards for Surface Water (GB3838-2002) were labeled WQI, water bodies meeting class V or better but below class III were labeled WQII, and water bodies below class V were labeled WQIII. The percentage of WQI water bodies increased from 66.1 % in 2011 to 81.0 % in 2021, and the percentages of WQII and WQIII water bodies decreased between 2011 and 2021. The percentage of WQI water bodies increased more quickly and the percentage WQIII water bodies decreased more quickly after 2017 than between 2011 and 2016. The percentages of WQI water bodies in the Northwest River Basin (RB), Pearl RB, Southeast RB, Southwest RB, and Yangtze RB were >80 %, and were higher than the percentages of WQI water bodies in the other five RBs. The percentages of WQI and WQII water bodies increased but the percentage of WQIII water bodies decreased in the Hai RB. The percentage of WQI water bodies increased but the percentages of WQII and WQIII water bodies decreased in the Huai RB, Liao RB, Yangtze RB, and Yellow RB. The river monitoring capacity increased and pollution sources, particularly point sources, became more controlled, and this improved river water quality. River management in China has passed the first stage of controlling pollution sources after 10 years of centralized management. The next stage should be focused on strengthening control of non-point sources of pollution and rehabilitating ecological systems to improve river health.

Can e-commerce alleviate agricultural non-point source pollution? - A quasi-natural experiment based on a China's E-Commerce Demonstration City

Agricultural non-point source pollution is an important driving factor that causes systemic pollution of the ecological environment and directly threatens the sustainable development of agriculture, human health, and safety. As a new engine to reshape the agricultural development model, e-commerce is of great significance to the mitigation of agricultural non-point source pollution. This study regards China's National E-commerce Demonstration Cities (NEDCs) as a quasi-natural experiment and uses the Multi-period difference in difference (DID) method to investigate the impact of urban e-commerce development on agricultural non-point source pollution and its mechanism. The results show that compared with the control group, the NEDC policy reduced the total fertilizer consumption in the pilot cities by 7.5 percentage points, and at the same time had a reduction effect on the consumption of nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural films. According to the analysis of the underlying mechanism, this abatement effect is achieved by increasing the economic performance of the NEDC pilot cities represented by GDP and GDP per capita, and promoting technological innovation represented by green patents and green utility patents. The analysis of heterogeneity finds that the reduction effect of e-commerce on agricultural non-point source pollution is stronger in areas such as main grain production areas and high-value agrochemical input areas. Accordingly, this study proposes that the government should pay attention to regional heterogeneity and formulate support policies for agricultural e-commerce based on local conditions. Moreover, we should actively advance the development of the new business model of "e-commerce + agriculture" and promote the organic integration of agricultural development and ecological civilization.