Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2016, Vol. 71 ›› Issue (11): 1911-1925.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201611004

• Ecology and Environment • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Regional disparity of environmental pollution source and its socio-economic influencing factors: Based on the cross-section data of 339 cities at prefecture level or above in China

Kan ZHOU(), Jie FAN()   

  1. Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
  • Received:2016-01-07 Revised:2016-07-06 Online:2016-11-25 Published:2016-11-25
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, No.41501139;Science and Technology Service Network Initiative of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.KEJ-EW-ZY-004

Abstract:

Based on the cross-section data of pollutant discharge and socio-economic development in 2012, by using the indicators of total discharge of COD and SO2 and various sources, the spatial differentiation and agglomeration effects of pollutant discharge are measured quantitatively in 339 cities at prefecture level or above in China. Meanwhile, the socio-economic drivers of environmental pollution are estimated through the econometric model, and some suggestions are put forward to reduce and control pollutant discharge. The results show that: (1) The regional differences of the structure of pollutant source are of great significance in China. Specifically, the types of water pollutant sources are mainly included in the region dominated by agricultural source, the region dominated by urban domestic source, and in the region jointly dominated by agricultural and urban domestic source, with the proportions of these regions being 35.40%, 33.92% and 25.66%, respectively. Among them, the discharge intensity of water pollutant is the highest in the region dominated by agricultural source, which are mainly located in North and Northeast China. Meanwhile, the types of air pollutant sources in China are mostly involved in the region absolutely dominated by industrial source, which accounts for 74.63% and is distributed in the vast area of China in addition to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. (2) Single and bivariate LISA cluster maps of total discharge and various sources indicate that the agricultural source makes contribution to the spatial agglomeration of high intensity discharge of water pollutants, while the industrial source leads to the concentrated discharge of air pollutants. Especially, in the Bohai Rim region and its economic hinterland, the structure of pollutant sources strengthens the agglomeration effects of pollutant discharge intensity. (3) By means of OLS estimation for nationwide regression model, it is demonstrated that population size, urbanization rate and economic growth are the main driving factors of environmental pollution, and population size is the key factor in China. Moreover, in terms of regression models of regional types, the economic development level makes different contributions to pollutant discharge in various regions, which shows a positive effect on the air pollutant discharge in the region dominated by industrial source, while shows a negative effect on the water pollutant discharge in the region dominated by urban domestic source. In addition, the degree of industrialization has positive influence on the air pollutant discharge in the region absolutely dominated by industrial source.

Key words: environmental pollution, pollutant source, regional disparity, agglomeration effect, influencing factors, China