Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 237, 10 November 2019, 117649
Journal of Cleaner Production

The effect of urbanization on environmental pollution in rapidly developing urban agglomerations

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117649Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Policies impacted environmental protection significantly in urban agglomerations.

  • The impacts of urbanization on environmental pollution fluctuated periodically.

  • Policies promoted the coordination of urbanization and environmental protection.

  • Urbanization development paths should be set according to different topography.

Abstract

China is experiencing a rapid urbanization that is unprecedented in human history. This has significantly improved the well-being of residents, but has also caused serious environmental problems in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration (BTHUA). Therefore, the study constructed the indexes of urbanization and environmental pollution based on the existing literature, used the analytic hierarchy process, entropy method and the principle of minimum information entropy to obtain the subjective, objective and comprehensive weights of the evaluation indexes respectively, and took BTHUA as an example to study the effects of urbanization elements and subsystems on environmental pollution from 2000 to 2015 by using geographically and temporally weighted regression model. This study reached the following conclusions. (1) The urbanization index increased rapidly from 0.157 in 2000 to 0.438 by 2015. National policies have significant impacts on environmental protection in urban agglomerations. (2) The service industry level, fiscal revenue, resident income, education level, Internet application were factors that reduced environmental pollution. The urbanization rate, population agglomeration, economic development, industrial development, urban construction, and transportation construction were factors that aggravated environmental pollution. (3) The impacts of urbanization on environmental pollution fluctuated periodically, with the period of fluctuation being consistent with China's five-year plan. National policy has significantly promoted the coordinated development of urbanization and environmental protection, although there was a lag effect. The effects of the trends in population, economic, social, spatial, and comprehensive urbanization factors on environmental pollution were basically the same, but the degree of each effect differed. (4) Urbanization improved the environmental quality in mountainous areas, but aggravated the degree of local environmental pollution in plains and coastal areas. The rate of urbanization of urban agglomerations differed, with the rate of urbanization lagging behind in mountainous areas, whereas it was excessive in plains and coastal areas.

Introduction

China is urbanizing at an unprecedented rate in human history (Roger and Yao, 1999). China's urbanization rate increased from 17.9% to 58.52% between 1978 and 2012, with an average annual growth rate of 1.04%. Its speed and scale of urbanization are much higher than those of other countries during the same period. It is the largest urbanization proving ground in the world (Bai et al., 2014). This rapid urbanization has promoted China's social and economic development, but has also accelerated the exploitation of limited resources, causing many environmental pollution problems (Wu et al., 2014). These are mainly wastewater pollution caused by the daily activities of urban residents(Ng et al., 2014), Carbon emissions from urban expansion (Lai et al., 2016), industrial wastewater pollution (Nedved and Jansz, 2006), industrial smoke and dust pollution (Lamb, 2010), industrial solid waste pollution (Cai et al., 2018) caused by industrial production, and atmospheric pollution caused by fuel combustion, such as SO2(Liu and Wang, 2017), PM10 (Chen et al., 2018), PM2.5 (Wang and Fang, 2016), and CO2(Zeng et al., 2008). These environmental pollution problems have placed tremendous pressure on China's resources and environment. In recent years, the Chinese government has successively promulgated a green economy strategy (Liu and Diamond, 2008), sustainable development strategy (Normile, 2008), and new-type of urbanization strategy (Yang and Peng, 2017) to promote environmental protection and resource conservation (Wible, 2012), ensure Environmental Sustainable Development(Lu et al., 2015) and accelerate the construction of an ecological civilized society. Therefore, there is an urgent need to conduct interdisciplinary, multi-directional, and multi-scale global urban scientific research guided by the above issues to achieve the harmonious development of the giant human-earth complex system (Acuto et al., 2018). It is of great scientific and practical significance to explore the interactive coercing relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment and to study the impact of urbanization on environmental pollution.

Early studies of the relationship between urbanization and environmental pollution focused on the relationships among economic growth, population growth, resources, and the environment. In 1991, the American economists Grossman and Krueger introduced the Kuznets curve into studies of the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution. They hypothesized an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) (Grossman and Krueger, 1991, ), and considered that there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth (Grossman and Krueger, 1995). Dinda proved that the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution in developed countries conforms to the EKC hypothesis (Dinda, 2004). Population growth is also a key factor that positively affects environmental pollution (Andrew and Jorgenson, 2010). However, urbanization is a comprehensive process, including the transition of the population, economy, society, and space. The effects of urbanization on environmental pollution are different in countries and regions with different degrees of development(Grimm and Faeth, 2008). Phetkeo et al. studied the impact of urbanization on energy use and carbon emissions in 99 countries using population, per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the urbanization level, industrial structure, and other indicators. It was found that urbanization reduced energy use in low-income countries, increased energy use in middle-income and high-income countries, and had a positive effect on carbon emissions in all countries studied (Poumanyvong and Kaneko, 2010). Martínez-Zarzoso proved that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between urbanization and carbon emissions in developing countries (Martínez-Zarzoso and Maruotti, 2011). Song found that the coupling relationship between the ecological environment and urbanization quality was diversified in Wuhan metropolitan area (Song and Hu, 2018).

The studies referred to above mainly conducted analyses at the country or region scale. There have been few studies of urbanization and environmental pollution in urban agglomeration areas. Urban agglomeration refers to the highly developed spatial form of integrated cities. Cities are highly integrated within an urban agglomeration, which suggests that the internal elements of urban agglomeration are strongly concentrated in large cities (Fang and Yu, 2017b). Compared with urban areas, the conflict between urbanization and environmental protection in urban agglomeration areas is more prominent and serious, and environmental pollution presents more complex problems (Fang et al., 2016). The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration (BTHUA) is the strategic core area for national economic development in China and the main region where new urbanization is occurring (Fang et al., 2017). Urbanization in BTHUA has increased significantly, with the urbanization rate increasing from 38.99% to 62.72% between 2000 and 2015. At the same time, BTHUA is an ecologically fragile area (Wang et al., 2018), and also the most polluted area (Wang et al., 2017), with serious ecological degradation occurring on land, serious shortages of water resources, and a weak carrying capacity of resources and the environment. With the acceleration of urbanization in the BTHUA, environmental pollution has become increasingly serious, and the conflict between further urban development and environmental pollution has become increasingly prominent. In 2016, an average of 56.8% of all days in BTHUA had good air quality, 80 days less than the national average. Among the 74 cities for which the state published air pollution data, nine of the 10 cities with relatively poor air quality were in the BTHUA, and the concentrations of six pollutants were higher than the national average. As the seat of the capital, the government attaches great importance to the environmental problems in the BTHUA. Under the government's governance system of "from top to bottom, environmental protection responsibilities are decomposed layer by layer and included in the post responsibility system", the BTHUA has achieved remarkable results in urban environmental governance. The experience in cooperative governance for regional joint defense, joint control, and joint action could be used as a reference by other developing countries. There is an urgent need to deeply analyze the interaction and coupling relationship between urbanization and environmental pollution in the BTHUA, to explore the particularity and influencing factors of environmental pollution during the urbanization process, to further analyze the impact of urbanization factors on environmental pollution at different spatial scales, and to summarize the unique mode of environmental governance and optimal regulation in urban agglomeration areas.

This study used panel data from 2000 to 2015 to study the impact of urbanization factors and subsystems on environmental pollution in the BTHUA. First, indexes of urbanization and environmental pollution were constructed based on the existing literature. Then, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and entropy method were used to empower indicators subjectively and objectively. A comprehensive evaluation model was applied to measure the index values of urbanization and environmental pollution and their respective subsystems. Second, the least square method was used to determine the impact of different urbanization elements on environmental pollution. Third, the Time-space geo-weighted regression model was used to analyze the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of urbanization factors and system impacts on environmental pollution. Finally, some suggestions were proposed to promote the coordinated and sustainable development of urbanization and environmental protection of urban agglomerations, with a view to providing a reference model for urban development and environmental governance in developing countries.

The analysis structure of this paper is as follows. The second section describes the research area, data sources, and builds a comprehensive evaluation index system for urbanization and environmental pollution, the third section discusses the research methods, the fourth part analyzes the research results, the fifth part discusses some of the research results; the sixth part is the conclusions of the study, include the limitations and future prospects.

Section snippets

Study region, data sources, and the evaluation index systems

The research area of this paper is the BTHUA. The data mainly comes from the yearbook data of 2001–2016. The evaluation index system includes the urbanization index system and the environmental pollution indicator system, as detailed below.

Research methods

In this paper, the maximum and minimum standardization methods are used to preprocess the data. The analytic hierarchy process and entropy method are used to perform subjective and objective comprehensive weighting. The system index evaluation method is used to calculate the urbanization and environmental pollution system evaluation index. The spatial-temporal weighted regression model is used to analyze the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of the effects of urbanization on

Analysis of urbanization and environmental pollution characteristics

The entropy method and AHP were used to synthesize the weightings of the indicators. The urbanization and environmental pollution index values were calculated according to formulas (1)–(13). To analyze the time-series trend of the urbanization and environmental pollution index values, urbanization and environmental pollution index trend graphs were constructed for different regions (Fig. 2).

Discussion

During the rapid urbanization of the BTHUA, the extensive economic development model of "high energy consumption, high pollution, and high emission" has caused a series of environmental problems, such as haze, water pollution, and ecosystem destruction. There is an urgent need to investigate the impact of urbanization factors on environmental pollution at different spatial scales.

  • (1)

    The urbanization quality and environmental pollution levels in megacities and large cities are significantly higher

Conclusion

The extensive economic development model of high energy consumption, high pollution, high emissions has triggered a series of environmental pollution problems, such as smog, water pollution and industrial waste, in the process of rapid urbanization of BTHUA. Research on the mechanism of the impact of urbanization on environmental pollution at different spatial scales, has become an urgent need of academic and political circles. This paper can draw the following conclusions based on the above

Funding

This study was primarily funded by the National key research and development plan (2017YFC0505702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41771181) and Open Fund Project of New Urbanization Research Institute of Tsinghua University (TUCSU—K—17015—01)

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0505702), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41771181), and Open Fund Project of New Urbanization Research Institute of Tsinghua University (TUCSU—K—17015—01).

Longwu Liang is an academic master student in urban geography at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He mainly engaged in urban and regional planning, urbanization and environmental effects research, focusing on the environmental pollution effects of urbanization in urban agglomerations.

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    Longwu Liang is an academic master student in urban geography at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He mainly engaged in urban and regional planning, urbanization and environmental effects research, focusing on the environmental pollution effects of urbanization in urban agglomerations.

    Zhenbo Wang is an associate researcher and master's tutor at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He mainly engaged in urban and regional planning, urbanization and environmental effects research, focusing on the environmental pollution effects of urbanization in urban agglomerations.

    Jiaxin Li is an academic master student in urban geography at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She mainly engaged in urban and regional planning, urbanization and environmental effects research, focusing on the environmental pollution effects of urbanization in urban agglomerations.

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