Dynamic evaluation of the influence of drafting units in China’s air quality standards network

Abstract

Abstract The setting of air quality standards is highly significant in controlling widespread pollutants and mitigating environmental risks. The selection of influential drafting units is a major step for the improvement of the systematicness, harmony, and compatibility of standard systems, which further leads to high air quality. To this end, this paper presents a novel social network-based methodology to assess the influence of drafting units based on a dynamic two-layer standard network model with the publicized data of the national air quality standards of China. Firstly, network theory metrics are aggregated with the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) to evaluate their importance dynamically; Secondly, three measurements of participation degree, cooperation degree, and contribution degree are deliberately designed to assess the influence of drafting units. The results show that most of the key standards vary over time driven by policy reform, while the volatility of critical drafting units is relatively stable. It is also interesting to find that most of the influential drafting units are research institutes rather than enterprises. In view of the results, we assert that government agencies should strategically support influential drafting units and encourage them to make great efforts in drafting important standards.