[Relationship Between Urban Industrialization and PM2.5 Concentration in China and the Internal Mechanism of EKC]

Ya-Nan Li; Zhen-Min Ding; Yuan-Jie Deng; Meng-Yang Hou; Shun-Bo Yao

doi:10.13227/j.hjkx.201910042

[Relationship Between Urban Industrialization and PM_2.5 Concentration in China and the Internal Mechanism of EKC]

Huan Jing Ke Xue. 2020 Apr 8;41(4):1987-1996. doi: 10.13227/j.hjkx.201910042.

[Article in Chinese]

Authors

Ya-Nan Li¹, Zhen-Min Ding¹, Yuan-Jie Deng¹, Meng-Yang Hou¹, Shun-Bo Yao¹

Affiliation

¹ Resource Economy and Environmental Management Center, College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China.

PMID: 32608708
DOI: 10.13227/j.hjkx.201910042

Abstract

Based on the panel data of 255 cities in China, this study built a spatial Durbin model to study the impact of China's industrialization on the PM_2.5 pollution level. Meanwhile, an environmental governance tool characterized by forest and grass coverage was introduced to explore the internal mechanism and exogenous driving force of EKC. The results show that ① the relationship between industrialization and PM_2.5 concentration is obviously an inverted u-shaped, and the EKC hypothesis was verified. ② The formation of the EKC curve was caused by the external factors and not the endogenous mechanism of economic growth. Forest-grass coverage plays a regulating role in the relationship between industrialization and PM_2.5 pollution level, namely the inverted u-shaped structure of environmental EKC results from environmental governance tool with forest and grass cover rather than the automatic adjustment of economic growth. ③ The influence of industrialization on PM_2.5 concentration has a spatial spillover effect. Urban industrialization not only affects the PM_2.5 concentration in local regions but also its neighboring region.

Keywords: Environmental Kuznets Curve(EKC); PM2.5; forest-grass coverage; industrialization; regulating effect.

Publication types

English Abstract