The Impact of Air Pollution on the Protection of World Cultural Heritage in China

Bo Xiao, Lanyu Ning, Zixiang Lin, Shiyi Wang and Hua Zang ()
Additional contact information
Bo Xiao: National Institute of Cultural Development, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Lanyu Ning: National Institute of Cultural Development, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Zixiang Lin: Institute of Quality Development Strategy, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Shiyi Wang: National Institute of Cultural Development, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China
Hua Zang: School of Economics and Business Foreign Languages, Wuhan Technology and Business University, Wuhan 430065, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 16, 1-14

Abstract: The damage of air pollution to cultural heritage is widely known. However, the quantitative effects still need to be explored at a holistic level. Different from existing research which focuses on the “model calculation” methods, this paper uses an econometric approach to assess the overall impact of air pollution on the sustainable protection of world cultural heritage in China. Based on the data of the annual monitoring report from 2014 to 2020 released by the China World Cultural Heritage Monitoring Platform, this paper uses the thermal inversion as an instrument variable of air pollution to estimate the overall effects of air pollution on all world cultural heritage sites in China. The results indicate that almost all the air pollutants (except for CO) have significantly negative effects on heritage. The damaging effects of gaseous pollutants including SO 2 , NO 2 and O 3 is greater than that of particulate pollutants such as PM2.5 and PM10. Rainfall can exacerbate the worsening effects of gaseous pollutants, but will mitigate the negative effects of particulate pollutants; the windy weather may weaken the negative impact. In addition, environmental regulations from the local government can also alleviate the negative influence of air pollution on heritage protection. This research can provide a more comprehensive environmental prevention policy reference for the protection of world cultural heritage.

Keywords: air pollution; world cultural heritage; sustainable protection; econometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10226/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10226/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:16:p:10226-:d:890709

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().