XVIII IWRA World Water Congress Beijing China 2023
Sub-theme 6: Innovation for Water Governance and Management
Author(s): Prof. Chazhong Ge, Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning
Co-author(s): Dr. Feng Long, Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning
Keyword(s): Water Quality, Successful Code, Water Pollution Control
Oral: PDFAbstractOne of the Chinese government’s top priorities is to enhance the water quality, especially in light of the country’s recent rapid economic growth and reform and opening up. Various measures such as emission permit system, pollutant emission standard, environmental protection tax, gradually known as integrated approaches, have been applied in water pollution control. As a consequence, water contamination has been successfully reduced, and over the last few decades, water quality has greatly improved. However, according to the statistical data on China’s groundwater quality, 76.1% of the 2833 shallow groundwater quality monitoring wells were categorized as bad to very bad with the major water pollution indicators being chemical oxygen demand, Nitrate Nitrogen, etc. Given these findings alongside the fact of China’s unprecedented economic growth, it can be seen that the study of the relationship between water pollution and such growth plays an important role in evaluating the water environmental policy, judging the water pollution status and future evolution trend in China, as well as holding great significance for sustainable development. The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is an important tool to analyze the relationship between environment and economic development. Under EKC hypothesis, based on the data of 30 provinces in China over 2003-2020, this paper overviews the course of water pollution control in China, and investigates the relationship between water pollution discharge—waste water, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen and economic growth—GDP per capita, based on a comparison of the results from two variable coefficient panel data models—a Locally Weighted Smoothed Regression Estimator and Smoothing Scatterplots Model, which is a nonparametric model, as well as a Semi-parametric Seemingly Unrelated Regression Model, which considers the contemporaneous correlation of water pollutants that most previous studies have ignored, by controlling provincial factors (including natural endowments, environmental regulations, and industrial structure etc.). This paper aims to explore whether there is an EKC in China’s progress toward better water quality, identify the critical factors that have the greatest impact on this progress, and provide implications for further strengthening water pollution control measures to serve as a decision-making guide for pertinent agencies.