Relationship between air pollutants and economic development of the provincial capital cities in China during the past decade

Yunpeng Luo; Huai Chen; Qiu'an Zhu; Changhui Peng; Gang Yang; Yanzheng Yang; Yao Zhang

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0104013

Relationship between air pollutants and economic development of the provincial capital cities in China during the past decade

PLoS One. 2014 Aug 1;9(8):e104013. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104013. eCollection 2014.

Authors

Yunpeng Luo¹, Huai Chen², Qiu'an Zhu¹, Changhui Peng³, Gang Yang¹, Yanzheng Yang¹, Yao Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China; Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, College of Forestry, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China; Center of CEF/ESCER, Department of Biology Science, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, Canada.

Abstract

With the economic development of China, air pollutants are also growing rapidly in recent decades, especially in big cities of the country. To understand the relationship between economic condition and air pollutants in big cities, we analysed the socioeconomic indictors such as Gross Regional Product per capita (GRP per capita), the concentration of air pollutants (PM10, SO2, NO2) and the air pollution index (API) from 2003 to 2012 in 31 provincial capitals of mainland China. The three main industries had a quadratic correlation with NO2, but a negative relationship with PM10 and SO2. The concentration of air pollutants per ten thousand yuan decreased with the multiplying of GRP in the provincial cities. The concentration of air pollutants and API in the provincial capital cities showed a declining trend or inverted-U trend with the rise of GRP per capita, which provided a strong evidence for the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC), that the environmental quality first declines, then improves, with the income growth. The results of this research improved our understanding of the alteration of atmospheric quality with the increase of social economy and demonstrated the feasibility of sustainable development for China.

Publication types

Historical Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants / analysis*
Air Pollution / economics*
Air Pollution / history*
China
Cities / economics*
Economic Development*
Geography
Gross Domestic Product
History, 21st Century
Industry
Nitrogen Dioxide / analysis
Particulate Matter / analysis
Regression Analysis
Sulfur Dioxide / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter
Sulfur Dioxide
Nitrogen Dioxide

Grants and funding

This study was supported by 100 Talents Program of The Chinese Academy of Sciences, by Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0477), by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31100348), by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) discovery grant, and by China's QianRen program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.