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This paper studies examines how a firm's position in the global value chain affects its pollutant emissions. This paper integrates China's firm-level trade data into China's multi-regional input-output tables to provide an index to measure a firm's position in global value chains. Based on a firm-level pollution dataset (2000–2014) in China, this paper conducts an empirical analysis and find that the most-downstream firms on the global value chain have lower pollutant emission intensity. Our results also suggest that the production factor structure effect, the knowledge absorption effect and the abatement investment effect together contribute to the emission intensity gap between the most-upstream firms and the most-downstream firms. These novel results are significant in guiding firms towards reducing their emissions and promoting a green global value chain, with the ultimate goal of achieving multinational environmental protection. [Display omitted] • The most-downstream firms have lower pollutant emission intensity. • A supply chain disruption shock is used as an instrumental variable. • Factor structure, knowledge absorption and abatement investment are channels. • Effects on firms with diverse ownership and trade patterns are heterogeneous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing global energy demand and limited production of conventional crude oil, the extraction of unconventional heavy and extra-heavy oil is receiving unprecedented attention. China is the fourth largest producer of heavy oil. High viscosity and complex formation environments increase the difficulty of exploiting heavy oil. To alleviate the economic cost and environmental pollution pressure brought by heavy oil production, China has achieved significant advancement in the innovation of heavy oil recovery, including accelerating the transformation of thermal technology to non-thermal technology and the use of new energy technology to achieve the goal of low-carbon economy and green environmental protection. Based on the background of heavy oil in China, this paper recharacterizes the high-viscosity mechanism of heavy oil. From different aspects, including basic principles, main characteristics, applicability, limitations, and challenges, this paper comprehensively reviews existing heavy oil recovery technologies, including thermal recovery, in-situ upgrading, cold recovery, and new energy technologies. Currently, in China, the main target of heavy oil recovery is achieving the "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality" goals, which can be described as low energy consumption, low emission, and low pollution. To facilitate the low-carbon transition in the extraction of heavy/extra-heavy oil and attain environmental sustainability goals, it is essential to increase the proportion of non-thermal factors in thermal recovery technologies, develop efficient in-situ catalysts, adopt clean cold extraction techniques, and advance the development of new energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental protection and sustainable development are now profoundly ingrained in the public consciousness in the modern era of the global green revolution. First, this paper uses an evolutionary game model to theoretically analyse the impact of environmental regulation and green finance on enterprises by dissecting the game behaviour between local governments, banks and enterprises. Then, we incorporate entrepreneurial spirit into the model to determine whether entrepreneurial spirit accelerates the achievement of green sustainability objectives. Environmental regulation and green finance are found to contribute substantially to the innovation of green technologies by local enterprises, while entrepreneurial spirit accelerates this process. Finally, we empirically test the findings based on a prefecture-level panel dataset from 2007 to 2020. We find that green finance has a positive impact in Central and Western cities of China, while Eastern cities are in greater need for government environmental regulation controls. For entrepreneurial spirit, the incentive effect of entrepreneurial spirit on the level of green technology innovation is more significant in Central and Western regions of China. This paper enriches the field of research on entrepreneurial spirit and regional green sustainable development by providing empirical evidence for the evaluation of environmental regulatory and green financing policy impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data of 11 provinces in the western region of China, the paper empirically analyzes the influence of public environmental participation on the effectiveness of pollution governance. Based on documents from provincial governments in Western China, the paper uses Nvivo software to extract keywords about local governments' attention to the environment and examines its mediating effect between public environmental participation and pollution governance. Furthermore, a classifiable analysis of government environmental attention is carried out, and the effect of local governments' attention to the environment on pollution governance is studied. The results show that public environmental participation promotes pollution governance by increasing the governments' attention to the environment. Additionally, local governments' environmental attention also has a promotive effect on pollution governance, and the increase in environmental decision-makers' attention to environmental pollution and energy consumption is conducive to the improvement of environmental quality, but the effect of environmental protection and collaborative attention on environmental quality improvement still needs to be explored further. • Local governments' attention to the environment is estimated. • Public environmental participation promotes pollution governance. • Local Governments' Environmental Attention plays mediating role. • Local Governments' Environmental Attention has a promotive effect on environmental quality. • The effect of collaborative attention on environmental quality improvement still needs to be explored further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest carbon sink project (FCSP) has received growing attention for its outstanding advantages in carbon emission reduction, environment protection, and achieving the carbon neutrality objective. Using a government-social capital cooperation model, FCSP helps to revitalize the ecological and economic benefits of the forest with standard and efficient management. However, the management and operation barriers of FCSP implementation are complex, multiple and indefinite in the long run, which requires a comprehensive barrier evaluation framework. Hence, this paper is devoted to constructing a barrier evaluation framework for FCSP implementation in China with an integrated multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. To this end, critical barriers are identified and the criteria system is constructed with a two-stage systematic literature review and interaction with the experts. Later, an applicable and comprehensive barrier evaluation framework is built, wherein the interval type-2 fuzzy set (IT2FS) is used to process fuzziness and uncertain information, the best-worst method (BWM) is adopted to determine the criteria weight, and the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations II (PROMETHEE II) is introduced for comprehensive barrier evaluation. The criteria weighting results indicate that FCSP implementation encounters challenges taking into account institutional and governance barriers (criteria weight: 0.3592), management barriers (0.2384), economic and market barriers (0.1637), knowledge barriers (0.0747), technical and infrastructure barriers (0.1639), C1 "Lack of clear leadership and policies" and C5 "Forest management performance" were determined the most significant criteria, A5 and A4 respectively performed the lowest and the highest barrier level. In sensitivity analysis, the ranking results were stable when the criteria changed, and Spearman's rank correlations of B2, B4, and B5 are significant. The results were validated by a comparative analysis with other methods with the help of Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, which reflects accepted high correlations (Spearman's pro values of BWM-IT2F-PROMETHEE II (Gaussian rule), BWM-IT2F-TOPSIS, and BWM-TFN-VIKOR are 1.00, 1.00, 1.00). The findings of the paper help the decision makers to develop more rational strategies and successfully implement the FCSP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the problems caused by garbage have become more and more serious, and many countries have begun to advocate the concept of environmental protection. China has also begun to implement the policy of waste classification, but the effect is not ideal. This is because the publicity of waste classification knowledge has not reached good expectations, and the traditional propaganda means such as static graphics and text can not give people a deep impression. Therefore, in order to better achieve the knowledge publicity of garbage classification, under the conditions of the continuous maturity of Internet technology and 5g technology, relying on virtual reality technology, combined with novel game mode and immersive game experience, through games, players' interest in learning garbage classification knowledge is increased, so as to improve the knowledge publicity efficiency of garbage classification. This paper discusses and studies a series of key technologies used in virtual simulation games, which use unity 3D as the development editor of the game engine, 3D Max as the model creation tool, shadow creator SDK as the VR technical support, and action one headset to display the game content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy ideas associated with the urban minerals industry in China have shifted focus from environmental protection to industrial development in recent years. A key factor influencing the development of this industry is whether the policy system can adapt to changing policy ideas. This paper analyzes a series of policies on urban minerals issued by the central government and related departments and ministries from 1987 to 2017. Using the content analysis method, which is a quantitative methodology, the paper proposes a framework of policy tools and objects of policy intervention to analyze the evolutionary characteristics and problems associated with the development of the urban minerals industry. The research results show that the policy system of urban minerals in China has changed from the germination stage, in which urban minerals policies were embedded in environmental protection policies; to an introduction stage, in which the urban minerals policy system initially took shape; to a development stage, in which the effects of urban minerals policies have stabilized. The changing trend of urban minerals policies can be summarized as follows. First, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) gradually became the dominant policymaker. Second, the policy tools were enriched via restructuring. Third, the objects of policy intervention were continually extended to the whole industry chain. Although the policy system of urban minerals in China has promoted industrial development, certain problems remain to be resolved, such as the conflicting policies from different departments, the unreasonable combination of policy tools and improper object of policy intervention. To this end, we have proposed corresponding countermeasures and suggestions to better improve the development of the urban minerals industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central environmental protection inspection is an institutional innovation in China that aims to supervise enterprises by monitoring government environmental enforcement. This paper examines the effectiveness of central environmental protection inspection in improving enterprise environmental performance by using a quasi-natural experiment of the first round of central environmental protection inspection. The study reveals that the central environmental protection inspection improves enterprise environmental performance by strengthening local government environmental enforcement and environmental attention. This is evidenced by the increase in enterprise environmental capital expenditure and the decrease in pollution discharge fees. The impact of central environmental protection inspection on enterprise environmental performance is strengthened by local governments' environmental regulation and environmental fiscal expenditure, as well as by public participation. Under the pressure of central environmental protection inspection, heavily polluting enterprises engage in production process improvement and R&D investment, which can improve their economic performance. This can ultimately lead to a competitive advantage for enterprises, promoting a win-win situation for both environmental and economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academia has paid much attention to the ecological protection and poverty alleviation functions of carbon sink afforestation project (CSAP), an important means to realize forestry carbon sink. However, whether CSAP can promote county industrial structural upgrading (ISU) and propel high-quality economic development remains unanswered. Based on the panel data of counties in Sichuan Province, China in 2000–2016, this paper estimates the impacts of CSAP on ISU through difference-in-differences with variation in treatment timing (VTT-DID) and synthetic control method. The results show that: CSAP can improve the advanced level of county industrial structure. This finding remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Government guidance dominates the impacts of CSAP on ISU, while market regulation plays a limited role in the impact mechanism due to the presence of elite capture. Government guidance and market regulation have a positive synergistic effect. The ISU impacts of CSAP are affected by resource endowment, level of economic development, and culture difference of ethnic monitories at the county level. Mechanism analysis shows that CSAP mainly acts on county ISU by increasing capital accumulation. The research results provide a reference path for China to transform its concept of economic development, and the key evidence for the fact that CSAP is an important way to realize high-quality economic development and environment protection at the county level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low carbon economy, energy conservation and environmental protection is one of the important tasks of current and future economic and social development. The large-scale development and utilization of all kinds of clean energy has accelerated the speed of China's energy transformation. Rail transit system is a large power consumer. In recent years, the transportation system has been facing the triangle contradiction of new energy, cost and environmental protection. Connecting photovoltaic power generation to rail transit power supply system has many advantages: (1) it can reduce the operation cost of transportation system; (2) it can reduce the use of traditional thermal power; (3) it can reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment; (4) it can also promote the application of new energy. It makes a lot of sense. However, due to the randomness and uncertainty of photovoltaic power generation, the direct access of photovoltaic power generation to rail transit power supply system will bring a certain impact on rail transit power supply system. In this paper, the LSTM neural network is used to predict the load of photovoltaic power generation, which effectively ensures the accuracy of prediction, and then improves the stability of photovoltaic power generation when connected to the rail transit power supply system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The principle of difference information and the principle of minimum information are discussed. • The proposed method can deal with the environment problem in other regions. • The unequal adjacent accumulation multivariate grey model is used to forecast the public concern about air pollution. In grey theory, the principle of difference information holds that difference is information. To mine the difference information between data, the unequal accumulation is proposed in this paper. The unequal accumulation reduces the loss of difference information and improves the forecasting performance of the grey model. Based on the unequal accumulation, the unequal adjacent discrete multivariable grey model is proposed. According to the comparison with other models, the proposed model has good forecast performance and algorithm efficiency. To further prove the practical significance of the model, it is used to predict the public concern about air pollution in three cities of China. The results show that the public concern about air pollution in cities with different air pollution conditions is quite different. Environmental protection departments could pay attention to the public concern about air pollution to better control air pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial sector is one of the key sectors in China’s economic transformation and carbon emissions control. This paper applies VAR and STIRPAT models to investigate the major influencing factors of CO 2 emissions in China’s commercial sector over the period 1980–2014. According to the empirical results, per capita GDP, urbanization and energy structure have positive effects on CO 2 emissions while energy intensity has negative effect on CO 2 emissions in the long term. Besides, per capita GDP ranks as the most important driving factors of CO 2 in China’s commercial sector, followed by urbanization, energy structure and energy intensity in that order. This paper argues that reducing energy intensity and improving energy structure are the means to realize CO 2 emission reductions in the commercial sector in the short and long term, respectively. Besides, this paper forecasts that CO 2 emissions in China’s commercial sector will be 1942 Mt by 2030, which is huge and about half of the CO 2 emissions of the European Union in 2014. The findings have important implications for policy-makers to enact CO 2 emission reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National civilized city selection activity organized by Chinese government is a kind of policy taking both environmental protection and economic growth into consideration. It is of great importance to high-quality economic growth of China. This paper mainly selects data of 280 at and above prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2016 and combines multi-stage difference-in-differences model to test the impacts of national civilized city selection on green total factor productivity (GTFP). The empirical results show that national civilized city selection activity can significantly promote the GTFP and have strong robustness. And the positive influence can be achieved through the mechanism of city innovation. In addition, heterogenous effects exist under different city administrative hierarchies and different regions. Finally, conclusions of this research for one thing provide empirical evidences for mutual development of economic growth and environmental protection; for another thing, this paper enriches policy evaluation researches of national civilized city by including environmental factors in total factor productivity calculation. • City carbon emission is used in evaluating green total factor productivity (GTFP). • National civilized city selection has positive impact on GTFP and is robust. • City innovation plays a vital role in the process of the policy promotes GTFP. • The policy effect varies in different city administrative hierarchies and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the problems arising out of the EIA review and approval by examining 63 administrative judicial decisions. Each of the 63 administrative judicial decisions have been analyzed in this paper to determine the causes of actions, what the specific claims made by plaintiff and to summarize the features of the relevant cases. The results indicate that, problems arising in the procedure of EIA examination and approval by Chinese local administrative organs mainly consist of insufficient information disclosure, infringement of the public's right to know, violation of public participation provisions, unlawful revocation of EIA permission, delay in review and approval, and failure to perform the examination duties, all of which can be further categorized into following types, that is, deficiency in the EIA information openness and deficiency in procedural justice and legitimacy in respect of the EIA review and approval procedure, which show that the legal principles stipulated in the Administrative Licensing Law of People's Republic of China are ignored in respect of EIA approval. In order to solve these problems, this paper is of the opinion that the Chinese local environmental protection departments should not only abide by the Environmental Impact Assessment Law of the People's Republic of China, but also strictly follow the legal principles stipulated in the Administrative Licensing Law of People's Republic of China , such as the principle of lawfulness of administration doctrine, openness, procedural fairness, reliance protection, supervision, etc., so as to ensure that China's EIA permits are carried out along the track of legalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An improved box-plot is used to modify the outliers in the original carbon price data. • The optimal parameter structure of the individual model is determined by a novel comprehensive evaluation criterion. • The adaptability between the optimum forecasting model and the predicted subseries is ensured by an original matching strategy. • A new hybrid optimization algorithm is employed to optimize the ensemble models parameters. Accurate carbon price forecast plays a vital role in energy conservation, emission reduction and environmental protection. In previous studies, more attention was focused on the prediction accuracy and stability, while the problem of disharmony between the prediction model and the data pattern is usually ignored. Considering the matching utility with deeper understanding of data and model, this paper proposes a novel approach to forecast carbon price, which combines the data preprocessing mechanism, decomposition technology, forecast module with selection and matching strategy and ensemble model based on an original hybrid optimization algorithm. According to a comprehensive evaluation index in consideration of several evaluation perspectives, the optimal parameter structures of the three forecast models are selected in this framework. Then, the data components decomposed by variational mode decomposition are reconstructed into three novel range entropy series with different levels of complexity by range entropy. As a result, the matching relation between the three forecasting models and the three range entropy series is correspondingly established. Additionally, a feedback neural network optimized by hybrid optimization algorithm, which persists more superiorities of reasonable weight assignment than the usual ensemble method, is initially used to synthesize three forecasting results of range entropy series. The carbon price data from four different trading markets in China is used to test the novel approach and the experimental results indicate that it does enhance the performance of carbon price forecasting, and provide a convincing tool for the operation and investment of the carbon markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the imminent water crisis era and stringent water environment management, enterprises play a vital role in environmental governance. However, there is seldom analysis on how the water environment regulation influences an enterprise's innovation due to data deficiency. Using our database from 2000 to 2022, we combine geographic information from water quality monitoring stations with the data on listed companies in China to pinpoint what distance firms are exposed to the monitoring stations. Results from a spatial regression discontinuity design along the geographic distances demonstrate that water environmental regulation has a significant positive impact on the quantity and quality of enterprise innovation. This paper found that it is primarily driven by the decreased usage of intermediate goods, rising industry profits from the exit of low-productivity firms, and enhanced enterprise research and development (R&D) investment. Furthermore, the positive impact is more pronounced for privately-owned firms, firms closer to suppliers, polluting firms, and politically unaffiliated firms. Our study offers scientifically valuable insights for emerging market countries in formulating effective water environmental regulation policies to incentivize firms to innovate in environmental protection. Additionally, it provides novel ideas on synergizing water environmental regulation and firm innovation to foster a mutually beneficial relationship between environmental protection and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the global call for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, China plans to reform its protected areas (PAs) system. Despite positive progress, there are still challenges in defining PAs boundaries, allocating management authority, and securing sustainable funding. This paper reviews the current state and challenges of China's PAs management and advocates a paradigm shift towards comprehensive public governance. This shift aligns with the Ecological Conservation Redline (ECR) and integrates PAs into the National Territorial Spatial Planning, for a coordinated layout of Ecological-Productive-Living Spaces. The current study emphasizes the need for a refined assessment of PAs, including ecosystem services, to balance human development rights and environmental sustainability. It also advocates for multi-stakeholder consultation mechanisms to ensure broader social participation, particularly for indigenous peoples and local communities. The current investigation highlights the importance of valuing ecological products to harmonize environmental protection with community welfare. This review contributes to the discourse on balancing ecological integrity with socio-economic progress and provides insights into the difference between human rights, ecological conservation, and sustainable development, marking a significant stride towards global sustainability goals. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• China's sustainable development relies on agricultural trade and carbon emissions. • Carbon emission transfer index in agricultural trade is measured. • Decoupling-recoupling model and integrated prediction model are constructed. • A unified framework for trade, environment and technology is established. Under the new development pattern of domestic and international "dual circulation" in China, studying the relationship among green technology innovation, agricultural trade deficit (ATD) and carbon emission transfer embodied in agricultural trade (ATCT) becomes crucial for achieving coordinated and unified high-quality economic development and efficient environmental protection. Based on this, the paper uses environmental input–output model, "two-stage" decoupling and recoupling model, panel vector auto-regressive model, spatial econometric model and "rolling" Grey-BP neural network prediction model to explore present status of ATD, ATCT and their relationship, driving role of green technology innovation, as well as whether that relationship will be improving in the future. The results reveal the following: (1) China's ATD and ATCT show an increasing trend year by year, and their inter-provincial differences are gradually significant over time. The overall relationship between ATD and ATCT does not display ideally, which makes it necessary to quickly transform that relationship into reasonable and ideal state. (2) Green technology innovation has significant positive "U-shaped" and inverted "U-shaped" local effects on ATD and ATCT respectively, with a reasonable range of ATD reduction while ATCT increase valuing from 0 to 0.290, and has significant positive "U-shaped" spatial spillover effect on both without any reasonable range. The short-term effect of green technology innovation on coordinated promotion between ATD and ATCT is superior to the long-term one. (3) Green technology innovation has a significant regional heterogeneity. Regional differences must be taken into consideration seriously, and the measures adapted to local conditions are crucial. The role of fundamental and progressive green technology innovation has heterogeneity, which means that targeted development and utilization of green technology products are important. (4) Regardless of the time horizon, the relationship between ATD and ATCT will improve, which can provide a key step for coordinated development of economy and environment in agricultural trade. Therefore, in order for China to implement and promote further opening-up, reduce agricultural trade dependence, ensure food security and important agricultural product supply, as well as achieve the unity of high-quality economic development and ecological efficient protection, it is necessary to reasonably reverse trade deficit and increase carbon emission transfer in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After-treatment devices of diesel engines effectively reduce exhaust emissions but deteriorate over time. Consequently, the China-VI emission regulation mandates a useful life of seven years or 700,000 km for after-treatment devices. Conventional engine bench aging methods, being costly and time-consuming, are inapplicable for long-term emission durability verification. This paper introduces an accelerated aging method based on the thermal accumulation and Arrhenius equation. Accelerated aging of four after-treatment devices of the same model at different temperatures and durations was carried out. Results revealed that barring the CDPF's PN filtration efficiency, the efficiencies of the DOC, SCR, and ASC catalysts declined with accelerated aging, especially under lower temperatures. Deterioration in conversion efficiencies of catalysts increased the NOx, CO, THC, and NH 3 emissions under cold- and warm-WHTC tests. Considering that the equivalent durability mileage of the after-treatment devices under 150 h 650 °C accelerated aging condition is approximately 870,000 km, while the CO, THC, PN, NOx, and NH 3 emission factors are 0.05 g/kWh, 0.21 g/kWh, 2.14 × 1010 #/kWh, 0.44 g/kWh, and 3.48 ppm, respectively, so the durability of the tested after-treatment devices could comply with the China-VI emission regulation. Although accelerated aging did not significantly affect PN emissions, it increased the balanced point temperature of CDPF and the proportion of sub-23 nm particles. If emission regulations further reduce the lower limit of PN measurement to 10 nm, it could negatively impact the emission durability of CDPF. In addition, comparing the 1000 h of conventional aging showed similar characteristics and results in NOx conversion efficiency and NOx emission, suggesting that the accelerated aging method is reliable. In conclusion, the accelerated aging method reduces the durability verification duration, providing a cost-effective regulatory tool for environmental protection authorities and guidance for manufacturers to optimize device performance and durability. • Accelerated aging method for after-treatment devices of diesel engines is developed • Catalyst performance deteriorates more seriously under low temperatures • NOx deterioration is most pronounced during accelerated aging • Accelerated aging is well-equated with conventional bench aging based on SCR [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition and cooperation in the environmental governance of cities are popular around the world. However, empirical research based on the prefecture-level city level in China is rare. Since the central government of China proposed to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization, whether there are strategic interactions of "race to the bottom" or "race to the top" among local governments is an important issue of academic and public interest. This paper constructs a game-theoretic model to reveal the strategic interactions of environmental governance among local governments. And then, based on the data of 221 prefecture-level cities collected from 2007 to 2018, the spatial econometric model is used to conduct multi-dimensional testing "race to the bottom" behavior of environmental protection expenditure among local governments. Moreover, this paper further analyses the impact of performance assessment indicators on the strategic interactions of local governments, so as to provide policy reference for improving environmental public welfare. Empirical results suggest that local governments in China show strategic imitation in environmental protection spending decisions, which is manifested as "race to the bottom", and this behavior is gradually weakening with the strengthening of environmental protection assessment. Furthermore, environmental performance indicators relieve the government's strategic imitation, while economic performance indicators intensify the government's strategy imitation. Thus, reasonable performance evaluation indicators are conducive to benign strategic interaction among governments. Finally, the current environmental protection expenditure has not yet significantly affected pollution reduction, providing new evidence for the "race to the bottom" behavior of local governments. Based on the findings of our study, the central government should optimize the performance evaluation system of local officials and strengthen the implementation of the environmental supervision system and accountability mechanism. Meanwhile, the local governments should further increase environmental protection expenditure, and enhance the supervision and utilization efficiency of environmental protection funds. • Strategic interaction among 221 prefecture-level cities in China was multi-dimensionally studied. • It has been found that China's local governments have strategic imitation as "race to the bottom". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Constructing an eco-civilization is crucial in achieving green, low-carbon development, and thus bridging the gap between theory and practice is imperative to better promote urban ecological transformation. At present, there are inconsistencies and imbalances between theoretical research and practical efforts to achieve an eco-civilization. This paper uses bibliometric analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation to analyze China's progress towards an eco-civilization at the theoretical and practical levels. The 'theory' is analyzed using 632 articles, while the 'practice' is analyzed using 100 eco-civilization pilot zone reports. The two are compared, with results showing: from 2015 onwards, the theory is moving in an interdisciplinary direction, with seven themes focusing on macro topics. eco-civilization construction projects have multiple overlapping themes, and the growing connection between energy consumption, economic growth and environmental impacts driven by significant projects is the key to improving the level of regional ecological development. the theory and practice are similar in that both are concerned with environmental protection, ecological education, and ecotourism. However, eco-civilization construction projects lack forward-looking and dynamic development tracking of low-carbon research. the paper proposes that dynamic evaluation and project tracking methods should be applied to monitor critical indicators to achieve a solid link between the theory and practice during eco-construction projects. This paper also proposes academia should do more research on townships and other micro level phenomena to promote climate change and energy revolution in the construction of a Chinese eco-civilization. • Analysis of the similarities and differences between theoretical research and practical measures of eco-civilization. • Academic research focuses on sustainability, while practical activities lack attention to climate change. • Optimizing the energy-economy-environment integration project is the key to improving China's ecology. • Environmental protection, eco-civilization education, and eco-tourism are common concerns in the theory and practice. • Suggestions include focusing on crucial indicators and micro-level activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese herbal medicine has a long history spanning more than 2000 years, and it is widely used to prevent and treat diseases in China and even in Southeast Asia. Given the popularity of Chinese herbal medicine and the continuous development of the pharmaceutical industry, large amounts of Chinese medicine residues are produced in China every year. Chinese medicine residues are mainly made up of medicinal plant materials intended for human utilization that are subsequently discharged, lost, degraded or contaminated. The traditional methods of disposal of Chinese medicine residues include incineration, stacking and burying. However, these methods not only affect the ecological environment but also cause a great waste of Chinese medicine residues. In the past few years, the utilization of Chinese medicine residues for industry and environment protection has aroused widespread concern. Extensive studies have explored Chinese medicine residues, especially with regard to energy generation applications. In this work, the origin, chemical composition and potential of Chinese medicine residues in terms of energy generation, paper making, composite material preparation, re-extraction of bioactive components and environmental protection are summarized. This review is aimed at providing an overview of the current progress on the utilization of Chinese medicine residues for industry and environment protection and discussing the existing problems and future development. • Developing biomass energy is a promising solution for Chinese medicine residue. • Chinese medicine residue is a potential material for producing paper and composite. • Re-extraction of bioactive components is necessary for Chinese medicine residue. • Chinese medicine residue can be used to curb environmental pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the main driving forces that influence the sustainable innovation of enterprises based on a three-dimensional framework at the organization level, individual level and system level. Using data from China's Innovation Survey, which is in line with the Community Innovation Survey（CIS）, this paper examines the behaviours and strategies of Chinese enterprises' sustainable innovation. The study finds that China's sustainable and innovative enterprises are generally large-scale, are long lasting, have good profitability and invest more in R&D and environmental protection. And the sustainable innovation of state-owned enterprises is significantly more than other enterprises. The primary purpose of enterprises engaged in sustainable innovation is to reduce environmental damage, but financial constraints are still an important obstacle for enterprises to overcome to carry out sustainable innovation. In addition, enterprises with more conservative senior executives and more political connections to government do not prefer sustainable innovation. The institutional pressure exerted by external environmental regulations and the cost constraints alleviated by government environmental protection subsidies are the key factors affecting enterprises' sustainable innovation. In conclusion, depicting the real situation of Chinese enterprises' sustainable innovation behaviour based on the survey framework and data of systematically identifying enterprises' innovation behaviour is beneficial to provide examples for developing countries related to sustainable innovation research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discover the latent causal chain of industrial water pollution in China and find ways to cure the wanton discharge of toxic waste from industries. It draws evidences from the past pollution incidents in China. Through further digging the back interests and relations by analyzing representative cases, extended theory about loophole derivations and causal chain effect is drawn. This theoretical breakthrough reflects deeper causality. Institutional defect instead of human error is confirmed as the deeper reason of frequent outbreaks of water pollution incidents in China. Ways for collaborative environmental governance are proposed. This paper contributes to a better understanding about the deep inducements of industrial water pollution in China, and, is meaningful for ensuring future prevention and mitigation of environmental pollution. It illuminates multiple dimensions for collaborative environmental governance to cure the stubborn problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A conceptual framework and model of microagroecosystems were constructed. • Assessed the degree of landscape ecological risk in microagroecosystems. • The human activity gravity of microagroecosystems shifted to lower altitudes. • The ecological vitality of microagroecosystems is increasing. • Clarified micro-spatial human-land relations and development directions. Micro-spatial agroecosystem (AES) changes in karst mountain areas are a response to the human-land relationship of the human activity center. However, the changes and linkages between AESs and landscape ecological risks (LER) from a micro perspective in karst mountain areas (KMA) have not yet attracted in-depth attention from the academic community. This paper proposes the concept of microagroecosystems (MAESs) and constructs the MAES model based on the landscape development intensity (LDI) to evaluate the systematic landscape evolution rules and the LER intensity, which reflects the human-land relationship in KMA. We used the buffer ring with a 200 m cultivation range interval to categorize the MAES model into six models, namely, High-Mid-Low, High-Low-Medium, Medium-High-Low, Medium-Low-High, Medium-High-High, Low-Medium-High and Low-Medium-High, and the different models not only reflect the regional conditions but also represent the different stages of the evolution of AESs in KMAs. We found that AESs in karst mountainous areas are transforming from traditional food crop systems to economic fruit forest ecosystems, and at the same time, the gravity center of human activities is migrating from high to low altitude areas, and the ecological vitality of MAESs is showing a trend of enhancement. In addition, the regions with high altitudes and steep slopes in karst mountainous areas have a single landscape structure and are dominated by traditional food cultivation, while the regions with low altitudes and gentle slopes have a diverse landscape structure and are dominated by modern and sustainable agricultural development. Finally, we reveal that the LER in KMAs shows a trend of initial increase followed by subsequent decrease, the influence of the human-land relationship on the LER in the micro perspective is significant, and the coordination and trade-off between agricultural development and environmental protection is the key direction of development in the future. The study results can provide a reference for the rational allocation of landscape, ecological environment restoration, and optimization of regional human-land relationships in KMAs worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the implementation process of economic and environmental policy, a key concerned problem is the inability of some local officials to faithfully implement environmental policies made by the central government in China, as well as many other developing countries. In this paper, a multitask principal-agent model is established to make a comprehensive comparison on the role that the current incentive mechanism (CIM) and the long-term performance-oriented incentive mechanism (LTPOIM) play in policy implementation. In addition, both the incentive effect and the choice of incentive intensity in the LTPOIM are investigated. The results provide the insight that local officials may trade off the efforts of environment protection for economic growth in the CIM. However, local officials are incentivized to allocate higher efforts toward the implementation of environmental policies (IENP) to strengthen environment protection, or invest higher efforts toward IENP and the implementation of economic policies (IECP) to pursue the win-win situation for economy and environment in the LTPOIM. Besides, the chance of distributing higher efforts toward IENP and IECP in the case of complement tasks is higher than that in the case of substitute tasks. The optimal incentive intensities of long-term performance in the case of complement tasks are higher than those in the case of substitute tasks. • The long-term performance-oriented incentive motivates local officials to balance environmental and economic policies. • The central government makes use of the multitask agency problem to gain a win-win situation for economy and environment. • The adjustment of local officials' efforts portfolio and central government's incentive strategies are investigated. • The chance of distributing higher efforts toward two tasks is higher in the case of complement tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The air pollutant diffusion trend prediction plays an important role in the environment protection. The approaches in the existing studies rarely consider spatial and temporal information sequentially or cannot use spatiotemporal structure information effectively. In this paper, we propose a new deep learning-based air pollutant diffusion trend prediction model, called GATBL-Learning. It is an end-to-end neural network model consisting of Graph Attention Network (GAT) and Encoder-Decoder model. Since each city in the region will set as a node, GAT can extract spatial information from them by aggregation operation. Then Encoder-Decoder model, consisting of Bi-LSTM as Encoder and LSTM as Decoder, mines time series features and outputs the data containing spatiotemporal features. In addition, we also observe that the changes of air pollutants show seasonality discipline and training the seasonal model can improve the model adaptability. The results demonstrate the proposed prediction model is effective and superior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: China's policymakers are being forced to balance socioeconomic development with the need for environmental protection. In this paper, we have briefly discussed the main characteristics of the environmental problems that China will face in the 21st century and the challenges that must be met in order to develop policies that will support environmental management. As our discussion in this paper shows, the negative effects of China's economic development on its environment will continue to rise for some time, despite strong efforts to reverse the situation. It will also be necessary to change China's resource-intensive mode of economic development, change the economic development philosophy to one in which controlling pollution is as important as economic development, and raise public awareness of the need for environmental protection. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• The factors that affecting urban carbon emissions efficiency (CEE) are explored. • The carbon emissions of 282 cities are estimated with the aid of nighttime light data. • Urban CEE has significant and positive spatial spillover effects. • Industrial agglomeration and collaboration are key to green production efficiency. This paper explores the factors that improve the efficiency of urban carbon emissions. Based on nighttime light data, the carbon emissions of 282 cities in China from 2004 to 2018 are estimated, and the carbon emission efficiency (CEE) is measured. The spatial autocorrelation results show that CEE in Chinese cities has significant and positive spatial spillover effects. The LISA low-low type cluster area of CEE presents an evolutionary trend of westward migration, and eventually formed two low-efficiency centers in the Central Plains city group and the Sichuan-Chongqing city group. The empirical results of the spatial Durbin error model show that urban population expansion, economic growth and R&D investment have effectively improved CEE, but industrial scale and agglomeration adversely affect CEE. In addition, human capital investment and foreign investment have not exerted their due green growth effects. Manufacturing agglomeration had a negative impact on local CEE, but had a warning effect on neighboring regions. Different from the manufacturing industry, the agglomeration of producer services industry can bring significant improvement to CEE, accompanied by a demonstration effect which can promote the CEE in adjacent regions. Further, this paper finds that developing the synergy between manufacturing and producer services industries can significantly restrain the negative effects of industry on CEE. This paper enriches the performance evaluation framework of low-carbon city development in theory, and varies the situations that previous researches only concerned about carbon emissions while ignoring emissions efficiency. This paper is a beneficial policy practice of the coordinated development of economic growth and ecological environmental protection in the regional coordinated development mechanism, which indicates that strengthening industrial collaboration can effectively improve the efficiency of green production in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, more people are becoming aware of the importance of ecosystem protection. As a crucial part of the human well-being, ecological well-being has always had essential scientific research value. In this paper, authors take the Yellow River Delta high-efficiency eco-economic zone as a case study, based on the theory of land ecosystem services to study the ecological well-being. With the help of expert coefficient value assessment for different types of land use, authors have researched the spatiotemporal differentiation and influence mechanism of regional ecological well-being, using the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD) model and Geographic Weighted Regression (GWR) model. The results found small differences in change of resource well-being (RW) and large differences in change of environmental well-being (EW) from 1990 to 2020, and the RWs and EWs of the central cities including Dongying Core, Hekou Core, Kenli, Hanting Core and Changyi are higher than those of their surrounding counties. The coupling coordination relationship of RW and EW in the central cities including Dongying Core, Hekou Core and Changyi is larger than in their surrounding counties. Population urbanization (PU) and industrial urbanization (IU) are important factors of change in land use and ecosystem services which influence the human well-being, PU affects RW more significantly, and IU affects EW more significantly. In order to further promote the sustainable ecological well-being of the Yellow River Delta region, authors recommend the conservation of land resources, technological innovation of environmental management and the formulation of environmental law. It provides significant enlightenment and decision support for strengthening the environmental protection of the Yellow River Delta high-efficiency eco-economic zone. In this paper, authors take the Yellow River Delta high-efficiency eco-economic zone as a case study, based on the theory of land ecosystem services to study the ecological well-being. With the help of expert coefficient value assessment for different types of land use, authors have researched the spatiotemporal differentiation and influence mechanism of regional ecological well-being, using the Coupling Coordination Degree (CCD)Model model (CCDM) and Geographic Weighted Regression (GWR) model. The results found small differences in change of resource well-being (RW) and large differences in change of environmental well-being (EW) from 1990 to 2020, and the RWs and EWs of the central cities including Dongying Core, Hekou Core, Kenli, Hanting Core and Changyi are higher than those of their surrounding counties. The coupling coordination relationship of RW and EW in the central cities including Dongying Core, Hekou Core and Changyi is larger than in their surrounding counties. Population urbanization (PU) and industrial urbanization (IU) are important factors of change in land use and ecosystem services which influence the human well-being, PU affects RW more significantly, and IU affects EW more significantly. In order to further promote the sustainable ecological well-being of the Yellow River Delta region, authors recommend the conservation of land resources, technological innovation of environmental management and the formulation of environmental law. The study has important value for realizing regional sustainable development and improving human well-being, and also provides a new research idea for exploring the relationship between man and land by using the intersection of sociology, geography, and ecology. [Display omitted] • It provides a new perspective for studying ecological well-being based on ecosystem services. • It analyzed the spatial characteristics of ecological well-being in the Yellow River Delta of China. • 3. It explored the mechanism of urbanization on ecological well-being with GWR model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the national air pollution, China implemented the Clean Air Action policy from 2013 to 2017. The vigorous implementation of the policy has ensured that the policy targets have been achieved, and the haze problem has been effectively controlled. To evaluate the policy effect of environmental regulation on labor demand, this paper conducts policy evaluation by designing a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the variations of labor demand in the region dimension (272 cities) and sector dimension (5 major sectors) from 2008 to 2017, the results of the difference-in-difference-in-difference estimation show that: 1) The implementation of Clean Air Action has a significant negative impact on industrial employment. 2) The dynamic shocks are concentrated in the final stage of the policy. 3) Policy effects show heterogeneity in different regions. Since China is in the critical stage of economic transformation, the findings and enlightenment of this paper can be extended to other environmental and climate policies. • The Clean Air Action provides a quasi-natural experiment. • Environmental regulation has a negative impact on labor demand. • The shocks are mainly concentrated in the final stage. • The policy effect is insignificant in the central and western regions and resource-based cities. • The government should make a trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The promotion of modern industrialization has caused heavy environmental pollution. Environmental protection is a basic national policy of China. In 2011, China began to implement the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Environmental Protection" (12th FYP_NEP). Using the survey data of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Shandong Province of China, this paper empirically explores the impact of 12th FYP_NEP on the energy utilization and operating efficiencies of SMEs. It is found that the environmental policy "12th FYP_NEP" has a significant incentive effect on both efficiency performance of Chinese SMEs, and has a greater positive impact on operating efficiency. Our heterogeneity analysis showed the following results. The incentive effect is different in different industries and enterprises of different sizes. The policy "12th FYP_NEP" has a greater positive impact on the energy utilization efficiency of SMEs in China's first and second tier cities, but it has no significant impact on their operation efficiency. This shows that SMEs in first and second tier cities are more effective in coping with the national environmental policy reform strategy. It can be seen that the promulgation of China's environmental policies can significantly improve the energy utilization awareness of these SMEs. The incentive effect of the policy on the two efficiency performances of SMEs in cities with "heavy air pollution" is greater, indicating that the implementation effect of "12th FYP_NEP" on SMEs in such cities is better. The enlightenments are as follows: the current situation of Chinese SMEs is that the energy utilization efficiency is low, while the operating efficiency is high. Most enterprises attach great importance to their own operating profits and economic development, and the awareness of energy utilization needs to be greatly strengthened. "12th FYP_NEP" has obvious positive effect on the energy utilization and operating efficiencies of SMEs, but there are slight differences among different types of enterprises. It is suggested that governments can refine their own environmental regulation standards and implement different environmental regulations for different types of enterprises, so as to enhance the performance of domestic enterprises most effectively. • This paper used the China survey data on SMEs over the period 2010–2013. • It is found that the Chinese "12th FYP_NEP" has a significant incentive effect on efficiency performance of Chinese SMEs. • The incentive effect is different in different industries and enterprises of different sizes. • The policy makes for improving the energy efficiency of SMEs in first and second-tier cities and heavy-polluted cities. • Chinese SMEs should attach great importance to energy utilization rather than operating profits only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The sustainability of Chinese economy has attracted attentions from all over the world since China''s reform & opening up policy. This paper attempted to evaluate the relationships among Chinese economy, energy and its impact of emissions during 1991–2009 using several novel indicators based on emergy, energy and monetary units. The results show that NH3-N in wastewater has taken main responsibility for impact of emissions, the hidden environmental cost per unit economic output has been continuously reduced, education and R & D investment has cut pollutants generating intensity since 1997, and environmental protection investment has cut emission intensity since 1996. Generally speaking, the coordination degree of structure and scale of China''s economy has been improved to different degree from 1991 to 2009. However, the growth of education and R & D investment and environmental protection investment has not prevented impact of emissions from increase caused by economic aggregate growth, and the turning point has not appeared in this period. Finally, this paper discusses some related issues and puts forward the corresponding suggestions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Conservation investments are increasingly being implemented through payments for ecosystem services (PES) for the protection and restoration of ecosystem services around the world. Previous studies suggested that social norms have substantial impacts on environmental behaviors of humans, including enrollment of PES programs. However, it is still not well understood how social norms are affected by the design of PES programs and how the evolution of social norms may affect the efficiency of conservation investments. In this paper, we developed an agent-based simulation model to demonstrate the evolution and impacts of social norms on the enrollment of agricultural land in a PES program. We applied the model to land plots that have been enrolled in China's Grain-to-Green Program (GTGP) to examine reenrollment in an alternative payment program when the current payments ceased. The study was conducted in Wolong Nature Reserve where several thousand plant and animal species, including giant pandas, may benefit from the reenrollment. We found that over 15% more GTGP land can be reenrolled at the same payment if social norms were leveraged by allowing more than 10 rounds of interactions among landholders regarding their reenrollment decisions. With only three rounds of interactions, an additional 7.5% GTGP land was reenrolled at the same payment due to the effects of social norms. In addition, the effects of social norms were largest at intermediate payments and were smaller at much higher or much smaller payments. Even in circumstances where frequent interactions among landholders about their enrollment decisions are not feasible, policy arrangements that divide households into multiple waves for sequential enrollment can enroll over 11% more land at a given payment level. The approach presented in this paper can be used to improve the efficiency of existing PES programs and many other conservation investments worldwide. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: How to accomplish the assessment of environmental quality and its quantitative? How investments in environmental protection affect environmental quality? Such issues were hot in environment protection. This paper do an empirical analysis with data of Chongqing from 1996 to 2009 based on Set Pair Analysis methods, the results showed environmental quality from 1996-1998 were “worse”, the quality in 1999 and 2000 were “qualified”, the quality were “better” from 2001-2006 and were “good” in 2008 and 2009. And then, the paper unified the correlation of each level into a coordinate system in order to quantitative value of environmental quality. Through the analysis of relationship between investment in environmental protection and environmental quality, it was found that 1% changing of environmental protection investment could cause 9% changing of environmental quality. In addition, changing rate of environmental quality has lagged 1 year compared with changing rate of environmental protection investment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The values, concepts and approaches of health impact assessment (HIA) were outlined in the Gothenburg consensus paper and some industrialized countries have implemented HIA for many years. HIA has played an important role in environmental protection in China, however, the emergence, progress and challenges of HIA in China have not been well described. In this paper, the evolution of HIA in China was analyzed and the challenges of HIA were presented based on the author''s experiences. HIA contributed to decision-making for large capital construction projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam project, in its emergence stage. Increasing attention has been given to HIA in recent years due to supportive policies underpinning development of the draft HIA guidelines in 2008. However enormous challenges lie ahead in ensuring the institutionalization of HIA into project, program and policy decision-making process due to limited scope, immature tools and insufficient professionals in HIA practice. HIA should broaden its horizons by encompassing physical, chemical, biological and socio-economic aspects and constant attempts should be made to integrate HIA into the decision-making process, not only for projects and programs but also for policies as well. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Environmental taxes can play an important role in reducing pollution issues. However, they also have an impact on the entire economy. This paper uses panel data from Shandong Province in China from 2005 to 2016 to analyze the impact of pollutant charges on the economic and environmental performances. The results show that the payment transfer of pollutant charges can influence the output but the effects varies with regions and time. Pollutant charges increase the resource utilization efficiency and promote economic growth. After controlling output and industry structure, pollutant charges on waste gas improve the air quality. This study confirms the existence of the environmental tax double dividend and provides a reference for new environmental protection taxes. • The effects of pollutant charges on economics and environment are tested. • There are heterogeneity of the effect of pollutant charges on industry structure. • Pollutant charges improves the resource utilization efficiency in Shandong. • Pollutant charges promotes economic growth and improves the environmental quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Farm size plays a critical role in agricultural sustainability. This may have far-reaching consequences for the economic and environmental performance of agricultural production, resulting, for instance, in an excessive use of mineral fertilizers. However, the magnitude of such effects and their main causes are not well understood, while being essential for effective policy development, especially for countries like China where the agricultural sector is still largely dominated by smallholder farms. In this paper, we review the current understanding of how farm size affects agricultural sustainability using China's crop farming as an example from economic, environment and social aspects. We analyze impacts from both a Chinese and a global perspective to identify intervention points to improve agricultural performance. We found that increasing farm size has a positive impact on farmer's net profit, as well as economic, technical and labor efficiency with mean coefficients of 0.005, 0.02 and 2.25, respectively. Nevertheless, the relationships between farm size and overall productivity, total factor productivity and allocative efficiency are still not well understood and therefore require more research. Meanwhile, increase in farm size is associated with statistically significant decrease in fertilizer and pesticide use per hectare, showing clear benefits for environmental protection. In line with the experiences documented for the evolution of agricultural practices in developed countries, the expansion of large-scale farming is a critical path for modernizing agricultural production and ensuring sustainable food production from the social perspective. Measures concerning farm size should be implemented in an interaction between farmers and the government to promote the green development of agriculture. Highlights • Farm size plays an important role in the performance of agriculture. • Increasing farm size shows clear benefits for environmental protection. • Large-scale farming is a critical path for modernizing and sustaining agriculture. • Smallholders prefer to use more non-fixed inputs to increase yields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Thallium (Tl) is a typical toxic metal, which poses a great threat to human health through drinking water and the food chain (biomagnification). China has rich Tl-bearing mineral resources, which have been extensively explored and utilized, leading to release of large amounts of Tl into the environment. However, research on Tl pollution and removal techniques is relatively limited, because Tl has not been listed within the scope of environmental monitoring in China for several decades. This paper reviewed Tl pollution in wastewater arising from various industries in China, as well as the latest available methods for treating Tl-containing industrial wastewater, in order to give an outlook on effective technologies for controlling Tl pollution. Conventional physical and chemical treatment technologies are efficient at removing trace amounts of Tl, but it proved to be difficult to achieve the stringent environmental standard (≤0.1–5 μg/L) cost-effectively. Adsorption by using newly developed nanomaterials, and metal oxide modified polymer materials and microbial fuel cells are highly promising and expected to become next-generation technologies for remediation of Tl pollution. With the potential for greater Tl contamination in the environment under accelerated growth of industrialization, researches based on lab-scale implementation of such promising treatment technologies should be further expanded to pilot and industrial scale, ensuring environmental protection and the safety of drinking water for sustainable development. Comprehensive insights into experiences of Tl pollution in China and in-depth perspectives on new frontier technologies of Tl removal from wastewaters will also benefit other nations/regions worldwide, which are susceptible to high exposure to Tl likewise. Highlights • Thallium (Tl) is highly toxic whereas understudied as compared to other metals. • Booming Tl pollution is occurring in China very recently. • Various sources were reviewed for soaring Tl pollution in wastewater in China. • Traditional methods are hard to meet environmental standards cost-effectively. • New frontier technologies of Tl removal benefit all nations faced high Tl exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • A Super-SBM with undesirable output model is applied. • The environmental efficiency of 283 Chinese cities during 2003–2016 is analyzed. • The overall environmental efficiency performance across the Chinese cities is low. • China has achieved significant improvement in environmental efficiency across survey period. Abstract In the past decades, unprecedented dramatic economic development in the Chinese cities has also brought serious environmental problems. In line with this, the Chinese government has been investing great efforts and resources in addressing environmental problems. However, little previous studies have been conducted in examining whether this development is efficient from a win-win perspective balance between economic growth and environmental protection. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on the environmental efficiency (EE) in the process of dramatic economic development in the Chinese cities. The Super-slack-based measure (Super-SBM) model is adopted to analyze the EE performance. Data used for analysis are collected from 283 sample cities in China. The research results indicate that the overall EE performance across the Chinese cities is relatively low, and the differences in EE performance among the 283 cities are significant. The top three EE performers are Shenzhen, Sanya and Erdos, and Baiyin, Xinzhou and Liupanshui are the bottom three performers. The results also suggest that the EE performance in the Eastern area, where most first-tier cities are located in, is significantly higher than that in the Central and Western areas (aggregated with fourth and fifth tier-cities). From the dynamic perspective, the results show that China has achieved significant improvement in environmental efficiency across the surveyed period of 2003–2016. The research findings provide valuable references not only for the Chinese policy-makers and practitioners to adopt measures for promoting a win-win balance between environmental protection and economic development in the Chinese context, but also for further studies on environmental efficiency in the international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The trilemma of economic growth, energy sustainability and environmental protection is facing China's urban sustainable development. In this paper, the ecological network analysis is applied to evaluate the whole metabolic processes of urban energy system. Then, a hierarchy analysis is conducted to diagnose and describe the energy's impacts on the whole energy metabolic processes, and reflect the dynamics and evolution of urban energy metabolic system. Using Beijing as a case study, results suggest that Beijing's strongest energy metabolic flows are electricity→service and electricity→ industrial energy use. Meanwhile, the main inflow to electricity has switched from raw coal in 2008 to natural gas in 2016. The hierarchy analysis indicates that the impacts of Natural gas and other energy are increasing while that of raw coal is decreasing. These results also suggest that Beijing's current achievements on urban energy system optimization mainly rely on structural variation in industries. It is considered that the future optimization should concentrate on promoting clean energy utilization in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In the process of building a two-oriented society, it is of reference significance to analyze the current situation of rural ecology and environment so as to build a two-oriented society and of realistic and practical significance to achieve coordinated development of three systems of rural society, economy and resource environment. With the case study of Xiantao City in Hubei Province, one of cities of comprehensive support reform pilot area of “two-oriented society”, this paper conducts investigation and research on local countryside. Through field investigation, typical survey and literature review, this paper learns about pollution and control situation of natural environment, social environment and ecological environment in the countryside of Xiantao, and analyzes the situation of rural ecological environment control in building a two-oriented society. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Emergy theory has its unique advantage in the research of regional economic system''s ecological efficiency. Namely, it can integrate ecological system and social economic system into one body so as to conduct unified statistical measurement and analysis on the real value of natural environment and human kind''s production activities, and therefore overcoming the shortcoming of only focusing on economic analysis. Based on the reference of previous researchers’ research literatures , this paper utilizes the relevent economic, social and environment statistics of Hunan province''s Agro-ecological system for the year of 2008, and carries out the computation and data processing of the input and output emergy for this system. And in the meantime, the authors also have analyzed the current situation of the input-output structure , the system''s load capacity , and the system''s operation efficiency among with other problems. This paper intents to lay a solid foundation for the future further research on the sustainable development of Hunan province''s Agro-ecological system. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Because of climate change and the popularity of air travel, the issue of low-carbon economy of air transportation industry is no longer ignorable. However, there is no standard measurable indicator to evaluate low-carbon economy, especially for air transportation industry. To fill in the blank of this area, this paper firstly discusses general indicators of low-carbon economy for air transportation industry. Secondly, it explores measurable indicators to assess the level of low-carbon aviation based on generally published data. Finally, it takes Shenzhen aviation as a case to discuss the evaluation of its low-carbon economy with the established measurable indicators. This paper not only provides indicators for low-carbon economy of air transportation with practical measurement effectiveness, but also opens up a new direction for the study of low-carbon air transportation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Many studies have verified that zombie firms have serious negative effects in the economic field, but it is unclear whether those effects will extend to the environmental field. Based on China's firm-level data, this paper investigated the impact and mechanisms of zombies on wastewater discharge behavior by normal firms. The empirical study showed that the higher the proportion of zombies in a province is, the greater is the wastewater discharge by normal firms, which proves that zombies also have serious negative effects in the environmental field. The first mechanism is tax burden, which means that an increase in the proportion of zombies will induce the local governments to raise the actual tax rate on normal firms, which will worsen their financial situation and prompt them to increase wastewater discharge. The second one is institution quality, which means that the higher the proportion of zombies in a province is, the worse is the institution quality. In a low-level institutional environment, it is difficult to form effective governance on pollution. The last one is regulation power, which means that the higher the proportion of zombies is, the stronger is the incentive for local government officials to pursue GDP by relaxing environmental regulations. The contribution of this study is an extension of the research on zombies to the environmental field, which is significant to the in-depth understanding of the widespread, global problem of zombies. This study provides an important idea for countries committed to environmental protection. In addition to direct channels such as environmental regulation, indirect channels such as reducing unreasonable government intervention, speeding up the clearance of inferior firms, and creating a healthy market environment are also of enormous importance. • This paper pushes forward the researches on the negative effects of zombie firms to the environmental field. • The higher the proportion of zombies in a province is, the greater is the wastewater discharge by normal firms. • Tax burden, institution quality and regulation power are important mechanisms. • For government, less intervention may also play a significant role to enhance the environmental performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The government's attention on environmental protection (GAEP) can signal work priorities and resource allocations to firms, promoting them to implement more carbon reduction actions. Based on the data of listed manufacturing firms in China from 2012 to 2021, this paper measures the GAEP and firms' carbon reduction actions through textual analysis, and then examines the relationship between GAEP and firms' carbon reduction actions. We find that the GAEP could improve firms' carbon reduction actions. This study further indicates that the increase in GAEP leads to the better allocation of environmental subsidies, thereby further positively impacting on firms' carbon reduction actions, and we also demonstrate the positive moderating effect of government-firm relationship. In addition, GAEP could be a stronger effect for state-owned enterprises and the firms located in the eastern and central China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Public environmental concerns inhibit the market entry of polluting enterprises. • Public environmental concerns affect enterprise entry with heterogeneity. • Environmental regulation, investment and innovation are internal mechanisms. • Public environmental concerns can reduce the emission intensity of new enterprises. • Public environmental concern can encourage new enterprises to layout boundary. When constructing a multigovernance environment system, it is important to systematically study the impact of the public's environmental concern on the behavior of polluting firms. In relation to the market entry of polluting firms, this paper explores whether public concern for the environment can effectively reduce the likelihood of such firms entering the market to achieve control of pollution emissions at the source. Benchmark analysis shows that an increase in public environmental concern can inhibit the market entry of polluting firms in the region. Heterogeneity analysis shows that public environmental concerns exert a stronger effect on preventing the market entry of nonstate-owned firms and firms in developed regions than on other firm types. Mechanism analysis shows that improving the severity of environmental regulations, encouraging firms to make greater investments in environmental protection, and inducing firms to pursue additional environmental R&D innovation are effective mechanisms by which public environmental concern restrains the market entry of polluting firms in the region. Expansion analysis demonstrates that public concern about the environment can lessen the pollution emission intensity of new firms and promote certain new firms to carry out boundary layout. This research offers a scientific basis and policy reference that can serve to guide the public in actively participating in environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional collaborative governance has become one of the most significant trends in environmental protection due to its importance in suppressing pollution transfer. This paper employs panel data from 285 cities in China during 2003–2019 and a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) method to evaluate the influence of regional collaborative governance on air pollution. Results show that regional collaborative governance significantly reduces air pollution. Heterogeneity assessment suggests that the inhibiting impact of regional collaborative governance on air pollution is long-term and increases temporally, whereas the spillover effect of regional collaborative governance is only significant in a specific range and decays spatially. In addition, the mechanism analysis reveals that regional collaborative governance reduces air pollution by increasing environmental regulation intensity, improving environmental governance efficiency, and promoting environmental protection technology. This study provides useful policy insights for policymakers seeking green and sustainable development to curb air pollution and improve environmental quality. • The impact of regional collaborative governance on air pollution is examined. • We employ a multi-period difference-in-differences approach. • Regional collaboration significantly reduces air pollution emissions. • Local effects increase temporally whereas spillover effects decay spatially. • The strongest inhibition comes from promoting environmental protection technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatio-temporal pattern of vegetation disturbance by open-pit mining activities such as the disturbance area and magnitude are important for coordinated development of surface mining and environmental protection. This paper proposes an automatic method (Auto-VDR) for identifying vegetation destruction and restoration of various open-pit mines. The proposed method consists of three steps: construction of the sample dataset, identification of disturbance types, and extraction of disturbance time and magnitude. First, a sample dataset with three types was constructed according to the interannual trends of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in mining areas: "Restoration after destruction (RAD)", "Destruction without restoration (DWR)" and "No destruction (ND)". Second, in order to accommodate to various open-pit mines with different background conditions (original vegetation cover prior to mining, loss rate and magnitude of vegetation due to mining, etc.), the "Shape-based distance" was used to match the NDVI curves of each pixel to the three disturbance types. Third, the disturbance time and magnitude in the destroyed regions were extracted based on the vegetated/bare ground threshold (α). The Shendong coal base in China was selected as the study area consisting of 133 open-pit coal mines. Annual NDVI was generated using Landsat time-series data. The maps of vegetation destruction and restoration caused by surface mining during 1990–2021 were drawn with accuracies of 0.82 and 0.87, respectively. The identification accuracy of the Auto-VDR is higher than Landsat-based detection of Trends in Disturbance and Recovery (LandTrendr) and Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC). The results show that from 1990 to 2021, a total of 400.08 km2 of vegetation has been destroyed, accounting for 35.93% of the study area. Furthermore, restoration activities mainly began in 2010, lagging mining activities by approximately three years. The accumulated area of restoration was 177.91 km2 and accounts for 15.98% of the study area. The vegetation destruction at the Shendong coal base has gone through four stages, with 2008, 2015 and 2018 as splits, corresponding to the developing stage of the China coal industry. In particular, the area of vegetation destruction per year reached the maximum of 61.16 km2 in 2008, which was 1.38 times the total area mined over the past 17 years. There were 14% of the 133 open-pit mines in Shendong coal base with a restoration rate of 0.8 and 59% of the mines with a restoration rate of 0.5. This method has been demonstrated to be able to extract vegetation destruction and restoration processes accurately and rapidly for various open-pit mines at a scale of coal base, which provides an important reference for supervising the impact of mining on the environment and assessing the effectiveness of ecological restoration. [Display omitted] • An automated method for identifying vegetation disturbance of open-pit mines. • The method is applicable to various open-pit mines at a large scale of coal base. • Higher accuracy (overall accuracy = 0.82 and 0.87) compared to other algorithms. • Maps of vegetation disturbance caused by surface mining were drawn. • A total of 400.08 km2 of vegetation has been destroyed in Shendong coal base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]