Yangtze River Economic Zone Research Articles

Comprehensive Evaluation of Non-waste Cities Based on Two-Tuple Mixed Correlation Degree

Under the background of vigorously promoting the construction of ecological civilization, the importance of constructing the “non-waste cities” becomes increasingly prominent. Taking 39 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone as the research objects, this paper establishes a new evaluation index system for “non-waste cities,” and proposes a multi-source, heterogeneous and multi-attribute decision-making method for the comprehensive evaluation of “non-waste cities.” Specifically, the evaluation index system of “non-waste cities” is constructed from four aspects: economic level, environmental pollution, resource consumption, and waste utilization. Considering that there is the characteristic of multi-source heterogeneity for the attribute values (that is, real numbers, interval numbers, and fuzzy linguistic variables coexist), the multi-source heterogeneous data are uniformly converted into two-tuples, and then a new two-tuple entropy weight method is proposed to determine the weights of evaluation attributes. Moreover, combining the traditional grey relational analysis method with TOPSIS, a multi-source, heterogeneous and multi-attribute decision-making method based on two-tuple mixed correlation degree (TTMCD-MSHMADM) is proposed to evaluate the “non-waste cities,” and an empirical analysis is made for the 39 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone. The result gives a theoretical basis for the formulation of sustainable economic development policies in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, and provides a decision reference for selecting the demonstration cities of “non-waste cities.”

Anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inputs in a new perspective: Environmental loads from the mega economic zone and city clusters

The imbalance of regional development affects anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus (ANP) inputs pattern in a mega economic zone, and as an engine of regional development, a city cluster contributes to a more complicated spatiotemporal heterogeneity of ANP. This study estimates ANP loads of Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) using statistics (2011–2017) that included industrial, agricultural, and living data for the first time. The impact of regional imbalanced development and city clusters on spatiotemporal heterogeneity of ANP inputs combined with socio-economic factors were analyzed, and the GM (1, 1) model was used to forecast the ANP changes by 2030. The results show YREZ has relatively high fluxes of anthropogenic N (11.8 tons km−2 yr−1) and P (1.8 tons km−2 yr−1) in comparison to other watersheds in the world. Hotspots are mainly concentrated in city clusters, which contribute to more than 60% of ANP within one-third of the economic zone’ area. Since 2011, the anthropogenic N and P inputs of YREZ have decreased by 2% and 6%, respectively. The urbanization in eastern provinces has not led to an increase in ANP, but the underdeveloped areas are still at the stage of development with high burden. Although ANP is continuing to decline (2017–2030), the mid-western city clusters is still maintaining high ANP inputs and their decline is smaller than the average of YREZ (−5% N, −14% P). Furthermore, the ANP inputs from the entire YREZ are deteriorating water ecology in an estuary, and their negative impact is greater than the delta region. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development of YREZ, the key is to accelerate the green development of urbanization in the mid-western regions. However, the improvement of estuarine water environment requires joint efforts throughout the entire economic zone.

Multi-criteria decision making and fairness evaluation of water ecological carrying capacity for inter-regional green development.

Determining water ecological carrying capacity (WECC) is of great significance to ensure inter-regional green development. This study presents a comprehensive evaluation framework for WECC assessment in the Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ), China. Effects of water resources, socio-economic, and ecological elements on WECC can be evaluated based on multi-criteria decision analysis. Gini and unbalance coefficients are used for measuring the regional fairness between WECC and socio-economic development. Surface water production pressure (SWPP) and groundwater pollution risk (GPR) are further regarded as indicators for expressing water resources constraint on shale gas extraction in the YREZ. Results disclose that the average WECC level decreases from 0.439 in 2000 to 0.4007 in 2016, which is the opposite of the changing trend in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. A high WECC level appears in Zhejiang (0.5126) with a good state, but that of Guizhou (0.3983), Anhui (0.3968), Hunan (0.3914), and Chongqing (0.3651) are at the alert state. The obstacle factors of WECC in the eastern YREZ mostly originate from socio-economic and water resource subsystems, while that in the middle and western YREZ mainly arise from water resources and ecological subsystems. Fairness analysis shows a well-matching characteristic between the overall WECC and socio-economic performances due to a majority of their Gini coefficients lower than 0.4, while a poor matching characteristic exists in terms of provincial differences owing to their varied unbalance coefficients, especially in Guizhou, Jiangsu, and Shanghai. Moreover, Chongqing with most of shale gas reserves is characterized by slight SWPP (1.0202) and GPR (0.0188), but the prospect of shale gas development in Sichuan is not optimistic due to its high SWPP (1.0846) and GPR (0.0647). Recycling of flowback and product waters can significantly lighten regional water resources pressure. This presented framework can be applied into many other Chinese cities (e.g., Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region) with slight modifications according to their actual situations for supporting water resource managers and government with decision making.

Can China’s Government-Oriented Environmental Regulation Reduce Water Pollution? Evidence from Water Pollution Intensive Firms

China’s environmental regulation regime remains mainly government-oriented, consisting of the government environmental investment policy and the command–control policy. This paper first improves the traditional environment Copeland-Taylor model by including the above two types of government-oriented environment instruments. Then, based on a comprehensive firm-level dataset, we examine the effects of government-oriented environmental instruments on firms’ water pollutant emission abatement in the Yangtze River Economic zone. We find robust evidence of a significant decrease of 2.99% in chemical Oxygen Demand(COD) discharge and of 3.55% in ammonia nitrogen(NH3) discharge of firms in response to the government environmental investment policy, whereas the command–control instrument shows little effect on firms’ water pollutant emission reduction. Our results are robust when using alternative measurements for two types of environmental instruments. Additionally, we also find there exist heterogeneous effects across sub-samples: (1)comparing with large and medium firms, small and micro firms are more liable to be influenced by the two types of government-oriented environmental instruments; (2) the effect of two types of government-oriented environmental instruments is obviously significant in the intensive-water-pollution industry, whereas it is not obvious in clean industry; (3) the effect of government environmental investment is obvious on state-owned enterprises and domestic joint ventures, whereas the command–control policy has effectively reduced the water pollutant discharge for domestic joint ventures and private firms. Finally, this study also presents some future policy implications.

“3S” TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATION FOR DYNAMIC MONITORING SOIL AND WATER LOSS IN THE YANGTZE RIVER BASIN, CHINA

Abstract. For China, which has many big rivers, there is an urgent need for efficient dynamic monitoring technology of water and soil loss. However, there are some problems in the current 3S (RS, GIS and GPS) technology for dynamic monitoring water and soil loss. This paper takes the Yangtze River Basin as an example to innovate and optimize the key technologies of the remote sensing interpretation of the water and soil loss dynamic monitoring of the Yangtze River Basin, and overcome the major technical difficulties in the remote sensing interpretation of the dynamic monitoring of water and soil loss. The key technologies include: 1) The establishment of a field investigation platform based on Internet and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for remote sensing interpretation; 2) Near real-time evaluating key factors of soil and water loss based on UAV photogrammetry and digital terrain analysis; 3) Geometric and Radiometric Simultaneous Correction Model (GRSCM) framework for remote sensing images pre-processing; 4) An object-oriented land use change update quality control method supported by multi-PC and GIS; and an object-oriented remote sensing image classification system based on random forest, deep learning and transfer learning; 5) Improvement of quantitative change detection method for image vegetation and three-dimensional topography. The results have been successfully applied in the remote sensing interpretation of the dynamic monitoring of water and soil loss in the national key prevention and control area of the Yangtze River Basin. They have been provided a scientific reference for the development planning of The Yangtze River Economic Zone.

Industrial Energy-Related CO2 Emissions and Their Driving Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Zone (China): An Extended LMDI Analysis from 2008 to 2016.

As the world’s largest developing country in the world, China consumes a large amount of fossil fuels and this leads to a significant increase in industrial energy-related CO2 emissions (IECEs). The Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ), accounting for 21.4% of the total area of China, generates more than 40% of the total national gross domestic product and is an important component of the IECEs from China. However, little is known about the changes in the IECEs and their influencing factors in this area during the past decade. In this study, IECEs were calculated and their influencing factors were delineated based on an extended logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) model by introducing technological factors in the YREZ during 2008–2016. The following conclusions could be drawn from the results. (1) Jiangsu and Hubei were the leading and the second largest IECEs emitters, respectively. The contribution of the cumulative increment of IECEs was the strongest in Jiangsu, followed by Anhui, Jiangxi and Hunan. (2) On the whole, both the energy intensity and R&D efficiency play a dominant role in suppressing IECEs; the economic output and investment intensity exert the most prominent effect on promoting IECEs, while there were great differences among the major driving factors in sub-regions. Energy structure, industrial structure and R&D intensity play less important roles in the IECEs, especially in the central and western regions. (3) The year of 2012 was an important turning point when nearly half of these provinces showed a change in the increment of IECEs from positive to negative values, which was jointly caused by weakening economic activity and reinforced inhibitory of energy intensity and R&D intensity.

Regional eco-efficiency evaluation and spatial pattern analysis of the Yangtze River Economic Zone

The environmental ecology of the Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) faces ecological function decline, deterioration and degradation under intense human activities, long-term development and utilization and its economy has developed rapidly over recent decades. Eco-efficiency is considered as a measure of coordinated development of economy, resources, environment and ecology, and is currently considered a very important issue. In this paper, based on the slack-based measure and data envelope analysis model, we take 129 prefecture-level cities of the YREZ as the study unit and measure the eco-efficiency of the YREZ in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, which considers undesired output. The evaluation of the status quo of the regional eco-efficiency development was carried out at provincial, prefectural and city scales. The spatial autocorrelation test model and standard deviation ellipse were used to analyze the spatially distributed characteristics and the evolutionary regularity of eco-efficiency. Our study suggested that the eco-efficiency value varied significantly at different spatiotemporal scales and the overall distribution presented an “N-shaped” pattern, the value is the largest downstream and the smallest upstream. Regional eco-efficiency presented certain volatility in growth and a clear spatial positive agglomeration trend from 2000 to 2015. The spatial distribution of each agglomeration area was also significantly different, forming some high-high agglomeration areas at the center of the shaft with Shanghai and surrounding cities, and some low-low agglomeration areas at the center with middle reaches and upstream cities. The low-high over-aggregation and high-low polarization clusters were fewer. At the same time, with the change of the research period, the degree of positive agglomeration became increasingly pronounced and the eco-efficiency gap of the neighborhood unit reduced. The regional eco-efficiency value of the YREZ presented a spatial distribution pattern in the northeast-southwest axis and the evolutionary pattern of the regional eco-efficiency similarly showed a northeast-southwest orientation.

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Urban Water Use Efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Zone in China: Based on Undesirable Super-efficiency EBM-DEA Model

Xie, Y. and Song, Y., 2020. Spatiotemporal analysis of urban water use efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Zone in China: Based on undesirable super-efficiency EBM-DEA model. In: Yang, Y.; Mi, C.; Zhao, L., and Lam, S. (eds.), Global Topics and New Trends in Coastal Research: Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 103, pp. 458–463. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.Water is an important social and economic resource for the sustainable development of mankind. This paper measures water use efficiency (WUE) of 106 cities in Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) of China during 2006-2017 based on undesirable super-efficiency EBM-DEA model which takes sewage and social output into consideration. The results show that: (1) On average, WUE (technical efficiency, TE) of the YREZ does not reach efficient level, of which the west performs best among the three regions. Furthermore, pure technical efficiency (PTE) in the middle and west as well as scale efficiency (SE) in the east is constraint factor of their WUE respectively. (2) WUE in most cities is found above 0.4, and in a few cities is found efficient. (3) It must be noted that all capital cities' technical efficiency are revealed to be restrained by their SE. (4) Whether on overall level or regional level, WUE has been decreasing over time except for 2017, but the annual decreasing rate is becoming smaller and smaller and even convert to increasing rate in 2017. (5) The change of WUE mainly depends on efficiency change, and the deceasing of it should be attributed to technology regress. (6) More attention should be paid to the east whose total decreasing rate is largest and annual decreasing rate fluctuates greatest over time. These findings may provide a scientific basis for further studies on city level WUE and practical water resource management in the YREZ.

Study of the Utilization Efficiency and Its Influencing Factors of Water Resources in Yangtze River Economic Belt

The Yangtze River Economic Belt has gradually become one of the regions with the strongest comprehensive strength and the greatest strategic competitiveness in China. Promoting the utilization efficiency of water resources in various provinces and cities in this region and minimizing the restraint effect of insufficient utilization of water resources on the economy can provide strong support for the development of the region from the perspective of water resources. The SBM model was used to measure the water use efficiency of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone from 2007 to 2017 and Tobit model was used to identify the key influencing factors. The results show that the water use efficiency of the provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone varies greatly, and the total factor productivity index of water resources shows an overall growth trend, which is mainly determined by the scale efficiency. The per capita GDP and the proportion of the first industry have a significant positive effect on the water use efficiency, while the government’s investment in water resources and per capita water resources endowment have a significant negative correlation. Based on this, some countermeasures and suggestions are put forward, such as strengthening inter-regional technical cooperation, optimizing water use structure, and reasonably investing in water conservancy facilities projects.

Water quality evaluation based on the water quality index method in Honghu Lake: one of the largest shallow lakes in the Yangtze River Economic Zone

Abstract Honghu Lake is the largest lake-type wetland in Hubei Province, China. It is also one of the largest shallow lakes in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, a key area in the relatively more developed southeast of China. However, the water quality has seen a deterioration tendency in recent decades, mostly owing to unreasonable human activities such as lake enclosure aquaculture following rapid social and economic development. Based on the water quality index (WQI) method, the water quality of Honghu Lake, by the vast amount of data collected from five observation sites monitored over ten years, was analyzed and evaluated. The results show that: (i) the water quality of Honghu Lake is in the ‘General’ grade as a whole with a WQI value of 43.41 ± 6.66; (ii) the water quality has been improving in the recent two years, reversing its decade-long deterioration; (iii) the water quality sampled at the Lantian site is the worst while that of the Guandun site is the best; (iv) the concentration of Pb and Cd are the key parameters to determine the water quality of Honghu Lake. Therefore, it can be concluded that more attention should be paid to investigate heavy metals in Honghu Lake in the future.

Coupling Coordination of Water Governance and Tourism: Measurement and Prediction

The interaction between water governance and tourism is complicated and significant so that the study of the coupling coordination between these two subsystems is important. This study analyzes the correlation mechanism of the water governance-tourism system, constructs the composite and aggregated evaluation system which consists of 5 dimensions and 15 indicators, uses information entropy weight technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution method to evaluate the development degrees of both water governance and tourism growth of the 11 regions in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, analyzes the two subsystems’ relation of coupling coordination temporally and spatially with the coupling coordination degree model, predicts degrees of coupling coordination of the regions for the next 4 years with gray system prediction model, and proposes specific and generalizable countermeasures. The results show that these methods can provide an effective reference to evaluate the coupling coordination development of water governance and tourism and to provide scientific and generalizable countermeasures for enhancement.

CO2 flows in the inter-regional and inter-sectoral network of the Yangtze River Economic Zone.

As a significant economic region in China, the Yangtze River Economic Zone has close spatial and sectoral linkages and generates considerable CO2 emissions. Reducing CO2 emissions in the Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) while considering both inter-regional and inter-sectoral connections has become an essential issue. Based on a multi-regional input-output model and complex network theory, this study constructed a network with inter-regional and inter-sectoral CO2 emission flows in the YREZ simultaneously to reveal sectoral and spatial transfer pattern and identify the key sectors at the provincial level. The results of density, connectedness, hierarchy, and efficiency showed that the CO2 flow network was vulnerable and sensitive. The key provincial sectors were identified through different network indicators, including degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and eigenvector centrality. According to their characteristics, the 66 sectors were categorized into different communities with the roles of suppliers, receivers, and intermediaries. The findings of this study provided an integral map of CO2 emission flows in the YREZ so that the specific and comprehensive policies could be designed from sectoral and provincial level to avoid the offset of different policies.

Analysis and Prediction of the Coupling Coordination Relationship between Tourism and Air Environment: Yangtze River Economic Zone in China as Example

The results show that the comprehensive development degree (CDD) of the tourism-air environment system mainly maintains stable with fluctuation and the gap among different reaches in the Zone is declining; the coupling coordination degree’s (CCD) tendency in most regions remains similar as in the previous decade. The results illustrate that the method combing information entropy weight and the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (IEW-TOPSIS), coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), and gray GM (1, 1) prediction model is effective in evaluating the coupling coordination relationship between the subsystems of tourism and air environment and in proposing specific countermeasures for tourism development and air environment governance.

Study on Total Factor Carbon Emission Efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, China

With the continuous acceleration of the modernization process, the Eco-environmental problems of the Yangtze River Economic Zone in China have become increasingly prominent, which makes the study of carbon emission efficiency become a long-term concern. Based on the panel data of 11 provinces and cities of the Yangtze River Economic Zone in 2009～2016, this paper calculates the DEA-Malmquist index of the Total Factor Carbon Emission Efficiency containing undesirable output in various provinces and cities and three major regions. By studying the DEA-Malmquist index and its decomposition, the results show that the Total Factor Carbon Emission Efficiency of various regions in the Yangtze River Economic Zone presents a growth trend, and its main contribution comes from technological progress. In the future, the emission reduction rules of the Yangtze River Economic Zone will be transformed from the traditional top-down emission reduction model to the bottom-up “independent contribution” emission reduction model.

Study on Green Development Efficiency of Yangtze Economic Zone in China considering Resources and Environment

This paper evaluates the green development efficiency of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone considering resources and environment. Input factors include assets, human resources and resources. Output takes into account GDP and major pollutants (as unexpected output). This paper makes a static analysis of the economic development efficiency of the provinces and municipalities in 2015. Considering the resource and environment constraints, the overall economic development efficiency is constrained to a certain extent. The Malmquist index model is used to calculate the changes of economic efficiency in 2005-2015, which is decomposed into pure technical efficiency, scale efficiency and technological progress index. Considering the impact of resources and environment, the overall economic efficiency of 11 provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Zone showed an upward trend in 11 years, with an average MI index of 1.014. Technological efficiency (EC) is declining as a whole. Pure technical efficiency (PEC) is the main factor that causes the decline of technical efficiency, while technological progress (TC) is an important factor to promote the increase of development efficiency during the research period. The results of regional analysis show that the decline of technological efficiency (EC) in Sichuan, Yunnan, Hubei and Anhui provinces is mainly affected by pure technological efficiency (PEC). The decline of technological efficiency (EC) in Guizhou, Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces is mainly affected by scale efficiency (SEC).

Features of the development of the Yangtze River Economic Zone

Features of the development of the Yangtze River Economic Zone

Characterizing the implications of waste dumping surrounding the Yangtze River economic belt in China

China has prohibited an extensive list of solid waste from abroad since 2017. While China seeks to move away from being the world's dumping ground, cleaning up its own backyard is proving to be a great challenge. China’s Yangtze River economic zone, which covers 11 provinces and accounts for 40% of the country's Gross Domestic Product, has been found to be alarmingly polluted: 74 million metric tons of solid wastes, including industrial solid waste, construction debris, municipal solid waste, and hazardous waste, have been disposed of by dumping. In this study, the statistics and spatial patterns of waste dumping were determined and mapped, and then the subsequent environmental impacts on the local and downstream marine ecosystem were evaluated. The results indicated the largest dumped-waste volume was found in Sichuan province (industrial solid waste) and Hubei province (solid waste mixture). The potential environmental impacts aroused by waste dumping in Hubei, Jiangxi and Sichuan provinces were serious, while the impacts in Yunnan and Zhejiang were slight. It is imperative for the Yangtze River Economic Zone to develop stringent measures for curbing the dumping of solid waste, assessing the implications from existing dumping activities, and enhancing the capacity for responsible waste management.

Relevance Analysis of Sustainable Development of China's Yangtze River Economic Belt Based on Spatial Structure.

Scientifically justifiable spatial structure can not only promote the efficient use of regional resources, but can also effectively avoid “urban diseases”, such as traffic congestion, housing shortage, resource scarcity, and so on. It is the “regulator” and “booster” of regional development. Firstly, this paper measures the spatial structure of the Yangtze River Economic Belt from the four dimensions of scale distribution, central structure, spatial connection, and compactness: Gini coefficient of urban scale, urban primacy, regional economic linkage strength, and spatial compactness. Secondly, the optimized Super-Slack Based Measure-Undesirable model is used to evaluate the sustainable development status of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Finally, a sustainable development correlation analysis model based on regional spatial structure is constructed. Based on the overall perspective of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the individual perspective of 11 provinces and cities, the relationship between the spatial structure of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and sustainable development is analyzed. It is found that the impact of the four spatial structure indicators on the sustainable development level of the Yangtze River Economic Zone is relatively stable in five different periods. The ranking results are as follows: Gini coefficient of urban scale > urban primacy > regional economic linkage strength > spatial compactness.

Spatial–Temporal Analysis of Urban Land-Use Efficiency: An Analytical Framework in Terms of Economic Transition and Spatiality

Rapid urban expansion may cause a decline in land-use efficiency and result in a series of social and ecological problems. Economic transition has significantly influenced urban land development, and provides a good perspective for analyzing changes in land-use efficiency. This paper primarily discusses the theoretical influence of economic transition on urban land-use efficiency. Using 126 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone as examples, we explore the spatial–temporal characteristics of changes in land-use efficiency, and estimate the relationship between land-use efficiency and economic transition with econometric models. The results show that the land-use efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Zone has generally been improved over time, and presented significant clustering effects around urban agglomerations. Panel data analysis suggests that foreign direct investment in the globalization process and tax burdens, which were further aggravated by the reform of the responsibility and revenue assignment between local and central government, have had a significant negative effect on land-use efficiency. On the contrary, marketization, urbanization, and fiscal expenditure decentralization have exerted significant positive effects. We also found that agglomeration effects and location advantages did play a positive role in improving land-use efficiency, which accounted for the spatial inequality. This paper concludes with policy proposals to improve the intensification and economization level of urban land use.

Research on the Issues of Resource Allocation Efficiency of Multimodal Transport in Yangtze River Economic Zone

Yangtze River Economic Zone shoulder strategic missions of regional economic development as well as eco-civilization improvement. There for its multi-modal transportation system should be stressed in terms of high efficiency operation. High lighted by the first theorem of welfare economics, the paper works out the technical model of efficient allocation of multimodal transport resources in the Yangtze River Economic Zone by applying the transportation optimization method. As the findings of the paper, there are al least 6 categories of the resolutions in improving the transport efficiency, namely reducing the institution cost, improving the transportation demand, reducing the freight rate, shortening the transfer time, shortening the transit time, breaking the bottleneck of transportation between the two dams. The results of the research are respected to reduce the negative impact of the unfavorable shipping conditions as well as the blocks of river dams on the smooth operation of multimodal transport turnover in the region.