Environmental regulation, public environmental concern, and pollution reduction.

Selecting the national water ecological civilization city (NWECC) policy as the starting point, this paper investigates whether environmental regulation might mitigate pollution discharge by the channel of public environmental concern. The results indicate that the NWECC policy has the effect of reducing pollution while significantly enhancing public environmental concern. The mediating effect analysis indicates that the NWECC policy reduces urban pollution via public environmental concern. The heterogeneity study shows that the pollution reduction effect of the NWECC policy is more apparent in cities with low economic development levels, low administrative levels, and low water resource endowments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]