Interactions Between Resource Consumption, Environmental Pollution And Economic Development In Under-developed Area

As the economy develops, the worldwide problems of resource shortage, environmental pollution and ecological degradation are getting worse due to the increasing disturbance of economic activities on natural system. In this context, human concerns about various environmental problems during the economic process. So the studies on the relationship between economic development and resource consumption, environmental pollution became the focus of related scientific fields. Current studies agree that the traditional "linear model of economic production" leads to the present situation of aggravating resource and environmental problems, but as to the relationship-curve, evolution of relationship and its driving factors, there are many controversial views. With a low level of economic development, an extensive economic development mode and fragile environment, under-developed area, which is at the early or medium stage of industrialization and urbanization, faces the dual pressure of economic development and environmental protection. Therefore, the studies on economic development and environment have profound practical and theoretical significance for under-developed area in switching the economic development model and making sustainable development policy.This thesis takes the Central Gansu province (includes Lanzhou City, Baiyin City, Linxai Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Dingxi City, and Ganan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture), an under-developed area in Northwest of China, as the research area. First, the thesis analyzed the temporal coupling path between resource consumption, environmental pollution and economic development, to elucidate the coupling mechanism. Then the characters of spatial distribution of the coupled relationship have been unveiled by comparing the coupled relationship in different research area. Secondly, the thesis evaluated the impacts of resource input and environmental pollution factors on the economic efficiency by comparing the variation of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) under the different conditions. Third, the main social-economic driving factors of resource consumption and environmental pollution have been identified, and the impacts of driving factors have been evaluated as well. At the end of the thesis, based on the previous analytical results, the policies for sustainable development of coupled resource-environmental-economic system have been proposed. The content of this thesis are summarized as following:(1) The thesis applied Johansen co-integration test model to verify if there is a stable long-term equilibrium relationship between the indicator of resource consumption, environmental pollution and economic development in various variable system which includes Energy-Environmental-Economic, Water-Environmental-Economic, and Environmental Load-Environmental Pollution-Economic variable system. Subsequently, by adopting Generalized Impulse Response and Variance Decomposition model, the thesis respectively analyzed the two-way impulse-response relationship between energy consumption, air pollution and economic development; water consumption, water pollution and economic development; total resource consumption, total pollution and economic development. Then the characters of spatial distribution of the coupled relationship have been unveiled by comparing the coupled relationship in various research areas.(2) Using the DEA-Malmquist index model, the thesis evaluated the impacts of natural resource input (energy, water and total inputs) on economic efficiency through comparing variation of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) under different conditions.(3) The thesis applied STIRPAT and partial Least Square (PLS) to indentify the main social-economic driving factors which influent resource consumption and environmental pollution significantly in research area. And the impacts of the driving factors on resource consumption and environmental pollution have been evaluated subsequently.(4) Based on the previous analytical results, the thesis proposed some policy suggestions for sustainable development of coupled resource, environmental, economic system in central Gansu Province.