Accuracy of Environmental Monitoring in China: Exploring the Influence of Institutional, Political and Ideological Factors

Daniele Brombal
Additional contact information
Daniele Brombal: Department of Asian and North African Studies, University Ca’ Foscari Venice, 30123 Venice, Italy

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: Environmental monitoring data are essential to informing decision-making processes relevant to the management of the environment. Their accuracy is therefore of extreme importance. The credibility of Chinese environmental data has been long questioned by domestic and foreign observers. This paper explores the potential impact of institutional, political, and ideological factors on the accuracy of China’s environmental monitoring data. It contends that the bureaucratic incentive system, conflicting agency goals, particular interests, and ideological structures constitute potential sources of bias in processes of environmental monitoring in China. The current leadership has acknowledged the issue, implementing new measures to strengthen administrative coordination and reinforce the oversight of the central government over local authorities. However, the failure to address the deeper political roots of the problem and the ambivalence over the desirability of public participation to enhance transparency might jeopardize Beijing’s strive for environmental data accuracy.

Keywords: China; environmental monitoring; accuracy; decision making; institutions; politics; ideology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/324/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/324/ (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:9:y:2017:i:3:p:324-:d:91267

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 ().