THE SPATIAL-TEMPORAL DIFFERENTIATION IN AIR POLLUTION AND INDUSTRY STRUCTURE — EVIDENCE FROM THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF BEIJING–TIANJIN–HEBEI URBAN IN CHINA

Abstract

In developing countries, environmental problems are often intertwined with industrial spatial distribution and migration. This paper is the first in this field to apply the standard deviational ellipse (SDE) method to the analysis of spatial agglomeration and spatiotemporal evolution of air pollution in 13 cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region (BTH). According to the industrial classification, each industry could be further divided into five sub-industries: labor-intensive, capital-intensive, technology-intensive, pollution-intensive, and the mining industry. The discussion includes an exploration of the relationship between environmental quality and the spatial distribution of different sub-industries, along with their dynamic changes in migration. This paper also describes the innovative use of the geographically weighted regression (GWR) to study the impact of the whole industry and sub-industries on the environment. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: (i) Both air pollution and the industry have obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics. (ii) The spatial difference coefficients between the secondary industry and environmental pollution and between various sub-industries and environmental pollution are small, and there is spatial consistency. (iii) Capital-intensive industries represent a primary source of air pollution. In addition to the slowdown of the tertiary industry, the contribution of various types of sub-industries to environmental pollution displays an increasing trend.