Abstract
With the rapid economic growth and development, the problem of environmental pollution in China’s cities is becoming increasingly serious, and environmental pollution takes on a regional difference. There is, however, little comprehensive evaluation on the environmental performance and the regional difference of strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China. In this paper, the environmental performance of 109 strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China is evaluated in terms of natural performance, management performance, and scale performance by Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), incorporating PM2.5 and PM10 as undesirable outputs. The empirical results show that: (1) At present, the natural performance is quite high, while the management performance is noticeably low for most cities. (2) The gap between the level of economic development and environmental protection among cities in China is large, and the scale efficiency of big cities is better than that of smaller cities. The efficiency value of large-scale cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc. is high, equaling 1; the value of smaller cities such as Sanmenxia, Baoding, Mudanjiang, and Pingdingshan is low, close to 0, indicating that big cities are characterized by high environmental efficiency. (3) From the perspective of region, the level of environmental performance in China is very uneven. For example, the environmental efficiency level of the Pan-Pearl River Delta region is superior to that of the Pan-Yangtze River region and the Bahia Rim region, whose values of environmental efficiency are 0.858, 0.658, and 0.622 respectively. The average efficiency of the Southern Coastal Economic Zone, Eastern Coastal Comprehensive Economic Zone, and the Comprehensive Economic Zone in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is higher than that of other regions. Finally, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are put forward. The method used in this paper is applicable to the performance evaluation of cities, and the results of the evaluation reflect the differences of the environmental performance level between strictly-environmental-monitored cities and different regions in China, providing reference for the balanced environmental development of cities and regions.
Highlights
With rapid economic growth, the problem of air pollution is increasingly serious
The environmental performance of the northern coastal economic region is rather lower, far from that given by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi, which is more in line with the reality) to comprehensively evaluate the environment performance from the perspective of natural performance, management performance as well as scale performance
As we can see from the environmental performance of 109 strictly-environmental-monitored cities, the management performance of most cities is lower than natural performance, which reveals that at present, most cities in China still put economic development first while environmental protection is second
Summary
The problem of air pollution is increasingly serious. PM2.5 and PM10, the embodiment of air pollution, have instigated widespread public attention from the community. The Environmental Performance Index: 2016 report [1] released by Yale University has ranked the air quality in more than 180 countries in the world, with China ranking last but one. There are 113 strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China, only 23.9% [5] of whose air qualities meet the standards. The evaluation of the environmental performance of strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China and the regional comparative analysis can provide empirical support for the sustainable development of cities. There is no research on the methods and indicators that can be adopted to evaluate the environmental performance of strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China, and on the differences of the environmental performance of Chinese cities in different regions, etc. The environmental performance of 109 strictly-environmental-monitored cities in China is evaluated in terms of natural performance and management performance. The remaining parts are as follows: the second part is a related literature review; the third part concerns model, indicators and data description; the third part deals with empirical results; and the final part proposes conclusions and suggestions
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