Economic Development and China’s Urban Haze Pollution: Based on Spatial Correlation Networks

Abstract

China’s urban haze pollution has manifested prominent regional characteristics and spatial interaction, and such spatial interaction has evolved into a spatial network-based structural form. By use of the 2014–2016 real-time monitoring data of 160 Chinese cities, the authors precisely identify the forms of spatial correlation networks, reveal their overall features and microscopic models, and then construct spatial network weights to conduct empirical tests on the relationship between haze pollution and economic development. Studies show that spatial correlation networks featuring compactness, connectivity and superposition have already come into being in China’s urban haze pollution. Cities within the spatial correlation networks of haze pollution are interconnected in a triangle model. In different spatial correlation networks, the Environmental Kuznets Curve of urban haze pollution shows different states. The spatial network of socio-economic correlation, rather than entirely natural correlation, is more suitable for the current situation of haze pollution, which is a forceful retort to the opinions of Reductionism and Natural Determinism. The conclusions indicate that to address China’s haze pollution, it is advisable to keep exploring and improving the inter-regional prevention and control mechanism within the framework of economic cooperation, step up the top-level design and public participation of haze governance, and further consolidate the achievements of Blue Sky Protection Campaign.