Strategic Cross-Border Water Pollution in Songliao Basin

Guanyi Yu,Chunliang Xiu,Changsong Zhao,Zhengliang Ding

doi:10.3390/su10124713

Abstract

This paper studies the two-fold impacts of environment regulation related to local officer promotion and water quality assessment of cross-border sections within the framework of the 11th Five-Year Plan. We employ the difference-in-difference (DID) and difference-in-difference-in-difference (DDD) models to a unique dataset on water polluting activities in Songliao Basin counties from 2003 to 2009. Empirical results show that on one hand, regulation and water pollution are negatively correlated, the stricter the regulation is, the less water pollution happens. On the other hand, as no explicit accountability and synergetic governance system were set up by the 11th Five-Year Plan, prefecture-level municipal governments tend to exert the least enforcement efforts in the most downstream counties. We find the evidence of strategic water polluting that the overall output value, new entry into and old business water polluting industries are significantly higher in the most downstream county of a prefecture-level city, relative to other similar counties.

Highlights

Cross-border water pollution refers to the pollution transferred from upstream to downstream jurisdictions by water flow
The central government was shocked by the explosion event, which explicitly addressed the water pollution challenge by specifying in the 11th Five-Year (2006–2010) Plan quantitative emission reduction targets for chemical oxygen demand (COD)
We prove that the intensity of regulation is negatively related to polluting activities, showing a relatively laxer water pollution regulation in the most downstream county in a prefecture-level city than that in the two other counties

Summary

Introduction

Cross-border water pollution refers to the pollution transferred from upstream to downstream jurisdictions by water flow. Such pollution has strong negative externality as shown by the phenomenon “one point polluted, the whole drainage basin affected” [1]. The central government was shocked by the explosion event, which explicitly addressed the water pollution challenge by specifying in the 11th Five-Year (2006–2010) Plan quantitative emission reduction targets for chemical oxygen demand (COD). The government set up a monitoring system on cross-border river quality and linked local officials’ promotion with these targets for the first time [4,5,6]. Local officials who failed to the pollution reduction mandates would be removed from office

Methods

Results

Conclusion