Spatial relocation of pollution-intensive industry and the mechanism in Yangtze River Delta

Abstract

The world is moving further toward economic globalization and trade liberalization.Industrial relocation is an important way to upgrading the industrial structure and promoting regional coordinated development, which usually assumes relocating industrial production from prosperous zones to less developed zones. Against the background, it has become a hotspot in the research of regional sustainable development in the places where the pollutionintensive industry is relocated and what causes the pollution.Based on the panel data of the Yangtze River Delta from 2000 to 2010 and using spatial analysis tool of Arc GIS, this paper explores the characteristics and regularities of spatialtemporal pattern of pollution-intensive industry, and comes to a quantitative conclusion on the driving mechanism of pollution- intensive industry's relocation by constructing a metrological model. Results suggest:(1) In the last 10 years, the phenomenon of pollution- intensive industry's relocation is found in the Yangtze River Delta. The direction of its relocation coincides with Shanghai-Nanjing railway and Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo railway. Moreover,the general trend is from the center to the periphery, which is an accelerated diffusion trend.Generally, the speed of diffusion is faster in the latter 5 years than in the former 5 years, but it has been a little slower since 2008;(2) There are many factors contributing to the relocation of pollution- intensive industry in the Yangtze River Delta, among which export- oriented degree and labor costs help pollution- intensive industry to relocate, while the intensity of environmental governance, industrial structure and innovation capability prevent pollutionintensive industry from relocating to destination. What's more, economic development level is negatively related to the relocation. Given that, it is concluded that the economic development of the Yangtze River Delta is independent to pollution- intensive industry, which contributes less to the growth of GDP nowadays than 10 years ago. However, the Yangtze River Delta has not got rid of the position of "Pollution haven", because the location of pollution- intensive industry has not changed fundamentally, and Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou remain to be on centre stage of pollution- intensive industry in the Yangtze River Delta, as well the exportoriented degree is particularly noticeable in this region. To some extent, this is related to the recent economic downturn after the financial crisis in 2008. Hence, it is an arduous task and long way to upgrade the overall industrial structure, in order to maintain the sustained regional development. Furthermore, the need for more serious environmental supervision is urgent, so government should pay more attention to the coordination between industrial development and environmental protection.