Abstract
Located in the Eurasian continent’s hinterland, Xinjiang is a typical arid and resource-developing region in China’s northwest. Problems such as excessive resource consumption, environmental pollution, and ecological imbalance are becoming severe, which have become the bottleneck that further restricts Xinjiang’s sustainable development. Due to its outstanding quantitative advantages, ecological efficiency has become a significant indicator and analytical tool for measuring the green economy and sustainable development. In this study, we analyzed ecological efficiency variation for Xinjiang’s 14 prefectures between 2001 and 2015 using a super-efficient data envelopment model (DEA), Malmquist Index, and Tobit model. These analyses indicated that: (1) The overall ecological efficiency level of Xinjiang is low, and development among regions is unbalanced, out of sync, lacks sustainability. (2) From 2001 to 2015, Xinjiang’s ecological efficiency showed a W-shaped rising trend and finally increased by 5.7%. It is due to the substantial improvement in environmental efficiency. (3) By analyzing the environmental efficiency and resource efficiency, 14 prefectures in Xinjiang consist of four development modes: low energy consumption and low emission, high energy consumption and low emission, low energy consumption and high emission, and high energy consumption and high emission. (4) Water resources are restricting factors of arid regions. In most prefectures, there exist excessive water resource investment, excessive COD, and NH3-N emissions. (5) By analyzing the Malmquist index, it shows that the technical progress index(TC) restricted ecological efficiency. In contrast, the technical efficiency index (EC) promoted ecological efficiency.(6)The ecological efficiency was positively correlated with the utilization of foreign capital, urbanization rate, and average education degree but negatively correlated with the marketization degree. The study has guidance and reference function for the sustainable development of Xinjiang—a vital corridor of the Silk Road Economic Belt, and also provides a reference to the research work of other arid resource-based regions.
Highlights
In 1990, some scholars first proposed the ecological efficiency concept, which meant the added value ratio to the added environmental impact [1]
Depending on relevant studies [45, 46], environmental efficiency can be expressed by the ratio of economic output index to environmental emission index, while resource efficiency can be expressed by the ratio of economic output index to resource input index
It shows that dwindling ecological efficiency is due to low resource efficiency in Xinjiang; unreasonable resource allocation, large resource consumption, and the high energy consumption is still the characteristics and current economic development situation in Xinjiang
Summary
In 1990, some scholars first proposed the ecological efficiency concept, which meant the added value ratio to the added environmental impact [1]. The model method is used in ecological efficiency research, among which the data envelopment method (DEA) is widely used. Chinese scholars have applied the DEA method of the ecological efficiency evaluation of provinces [10, 11] and regions [12, 13]. Shanshan Li [14] measured and analyzed the ecological efficiency of 30 provinces and prefectures in China. Zhimin Dai et al [16] measured and analyzed the industrial ecological efficiency of several provinces in East China. Research on ecological efficiency focuses on the three levels of enterprise [17,18,19], industry [20,21,22], and region [23,24,25]. Some scholars have studied the temporal and spatial distribution, dynamic changes, and influencing factors of ecological efficiency in provinces such as Beijing [26], Shenzhen [27], Jilin [28], Jiangsu [29], and Jiangxi [30]
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