Ecological Environmental Quality in China: Spatial and Temporal Characteristics, Regional Differences, and Internal Transmission Mechanisms

Jiehua Lv () and Wen Zhou
Additional contact information
Jiehua Lv: College of Economics and Management, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China
Wen Zhou: College of Economics and Management, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin 150040, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: In recent years, ecological environmental problems such as the greenhouse effect, soil erosion, climate change, and biodiversity reduction have become more and more salient, and ecological environmental quality has gradually become a research hotspot. This paper constructs an index system for evaluating ecological environment quality based on the pressure–state–response (PSR) model, which contains three elemental layers, natural resources, ecological environment, and government inputs, measures the ecological environment quality index by using the “vertical and horizontal layer by layer” scatter degree method, and discusses the spatial and temporal evolution trends of ecological environment quality in each province and six regions in China during 2005–2020. This paper further measures the regional ecological environment quality differences by using the Thiel index and analyzes the transmission mechanism within the pressure–state–response model by using the mediation models. The results show that the ecological environment quality of all Chinese provinces and six regions has improved significantly during the period under study, the response system and state system scores have improved significantly, the unbalanced development of ecological environment quality within north China has improved the most, and there are significant direct and mediation effects among the subsystems within the ecological environment quality with high system transmission efficiency. Therefore, the government should improve the quality of the ecological environment by seeking cross-provincial linkage development, improving the level of pollution control, and formulating relevant standards and laws and regulations.

Keywords: ecological environment quality; the “vertical and horizontal layer by layer” scatter degree method; regional differences; mediation effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3716/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3716/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3716-:d:1071895

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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