| Since the entry of the 21st century, with effective control of the point pollution, the non-point source pollution, especially the agricultural non-point source pollution, has gradually become the most serious environmental problem in China. Agricultural non-point source pollution whose destructive force increases gradually is the main source of water and soil pollution, which not only degrades the agricultural ecological system and endangers agricultural safety, but also does harm to the residents' health through water and food and becomes public hazard jeopardizing the national quality. What's more, because of the small scale of production form of China's rural households, it is difficult to control and regulate the agricultural non-point source pollution and it will become more and more prominent with the rapid development of national economy. Therefore, in recent years, the central government has attached great importance to rural environmental problems which are characterized with agricultural non-point source pollution, listed the protection and treatment of rural environment as one of the basic national policies and enacted many laws, regulations and rules to regulate agricultural non-point source pollution. In the "Proposal of CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 11th Five-year Plan for National Economic and Social Development" and the "Guiding Opinion of CPC Central Committee and State Council on Promoting the Construction of a New Socialist Countryside", the new socialist countryside is clearly defined as "incorporated higher productivity, better living standard, communal civility, democratic management, as well as a clean and tidy look", indicating that the control and regulation of agricultural non-point source pollution is of great strategic meaning. It is seen from above background information that the research on China's agricultural non-point source pollution is of great significance.Based on previous research, the dissertation makes analysis on the social and economic background of the emergence of agricultural non-point source pollution, its microscopic action mechanism and the policy system for its control and regulation by theories of development economics, environmental economics and agricultural economics and approaches of mathematical economics and modern econometrics, so as to understand the social and economic laws of the emergence and aggravation of agricultural non-point source pollution to provide scientific proof for its prevention and treatment. After reviewing the spatio-temporal characteristics of China's agricultural non-point source pollution and its functioning mechanism and coupling relationship with economic development from the macroscopic perspective, the dissertation analyzes the effect of rural households' behavior, like that of production and management and technology application, on non-point pollution with rural households as object of study, revealing the essential relationship between rural households and the agricultural non-point source pollution. Furthermore, it analyzes how to optimize rural households' behavior to promote the treatment of agricultural environmental pollution, seeking means to treat and improve China's agricultural non-point source pollution from both the macroscopic and microscopic perspectives. On the basis of previous analysis, the dissertation analyzes the feasibility of adjusting corresponding policies and tries to establish policies for controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution in order to optimize rural households' behavior, all of which will provide theoretical and practical support for the implementation of the strategy of sustainable development of rural areas and construction of a new socialist countryside, realizing the win-win goal of harmonious development between human beings and nature.The main content and conclusions of the dissertation are as follows.Firstly, the dissertation recognizes and grasps current situation, features and spatio-temporal characteristics of China's agricultural non-point source pollution, finding that China's agricultural non-point source pollution is of great destructive power and deeply hidden. With analysis of the agricultural non-point pollutant by corresponding statistical and econometrical approaches, it is found that the indices of agricultural non-point pollution increase linearly as time passes when analyzing time series data while using spatial characteristics the selected indices indicate regional agglomeration to a certain degree and the discharge of main non-point pollutant (fertilizer, pesticide and excretion of livestock and poultry) is in a sequence of eastern area, central area and western area.Secondly, with previous studies the dissertation makes analysis of the effect of economic development on agricultural non-point pollution from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is found that the economic development exerts both deteriorating and optimizing effect on the non-point pollution, that the applied force is different in different stages and that the relationship between economic development and non-point pollution is characterized with the inverted "U". According to this, the dissertation establishes rural households' profit function, including the endowment of agricultural environment, discharge of agricultural non-point pollution and income per capita to testify the EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve) hypothesis about economic development and agricultural non-point pollution. Moreover, when simply fitting the curve of the relationship between economic development and agricultural non-point pollution by using main characteristic variables of China's current economic development, it is found that current economic development in China will aggravate the agricultural non-point pollution. The following empirical analysis in the dissertation supports the result of the theoretical study. It is found that there is causality between three categories of the indices of agricultural non-point pollution and the economic development through error correction model and Granger causality test, that the relationship between the two is characterized with the inverted "U" and the turning point is rather high through the analysis of panel data and that most provinces and cities in China are still in the stage that agricultural non-point pollution increases rapidly as a result of economic development.Thirdly, by analyzing the microscopic mechanism of reducing the discharge of agricultural non-point source pollution, the dissertation finds out the microscopic reason why agricultural non-point source pollution aggravates with the economic development that rural households' utilization of the environment and resources is irrational which is caused by market failure and government failure, heightening the peak value of "Environmental Kuznets Curve" and postponing the arrival of its turning point. Therefore, it is necessary to make rural households' consciousness and behavior of utilizing the environment and resource rational.Fourthly, the dissertation makes survey and analysis on the effect of rural households' consciousness on non-point source pollution and the influencing factors by CVM (Contingent Valuation Method). It is found that the fairly important influencing factor that causes agricultural non-point source pollution is fanners' weak environmental consciousness, which is closely connected with their concurrent business, family income and educational level. Thus, it is the effective way to increase farmers' income and strengthen their education to improve their environmental consciousness.Fifthly, the dissertation makes analysis on the effect of rural households' production behavior on agricultural non-point source pollution and its optimization. It is found that agricultural non-point source pollution can be lessened through large scale of land utilization, high organizing degree, much input of labor force of high quality and permanent investment in agriculture and that current rural households' production behavior in China is not favorable for reducing the discharge of agricultural non-point source pollution which is approved by testifying the investigated data of 300 rural households from Jianghan Plain. Based on rural households' production behavior, the dissertation further analyzes the effect of agricultural polices on non-point source pollution, through which it is found that the increase of land price, drop of the price of agricultural means of production and the policy of comprehensive subsidy for the increase of the price of agricultural means of production aggravate the non-point source pollution while policies of the minimum purchasing price and direct subsidy lessen the pollution. It is concluded that rural households' production behavior and agricultural policies which can influence rural households' behavior should be adjusted.Sixthly, through the analysis on the effect of rural households' adoption of environment-friendly technologies on non-point source pollution, it is found that rural households' behavior of technology adoption is unfavorable for those environment-friendly technologies. On the other hand, through reviewing relevant literature of empirical analysis, it is found that there is positive correlation between the adoption rate of environment-friendly technologies and farmers' educational level, income level and social status while negative correlation between that and age. Accordingly, the dissertation puts forward inducing measures to increase the adoption rate of environment-friendly technologies, including reducing the adoption risks and increasing economic stimulus and so on.Seventhly, from the perspectives of control measures, market measures and the mechanism of public participation, the dissertation makes comparison of the policies for controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution of different countries. It is found that developed countries have merits in controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution, including perfect system of laws and regulations, efficient control and regulation system, complex controlling and regulating measures, diversified measures of economic stimulus and full use of public role and so on.Eighthly, the dissertation makes analysis of current situation of the control and regulation of China's agricultural non-point source pollution and advances to establish the system for its control and regulation, including the financial sharing mode that the financial support should be primarily shared among relevant bodies with polluters bear corresponding expense as complement, the controlling and regulating means which is economic stimulus oriented and complemented with the administrative control and regulation, the controlling and regulating measures which are the combination of ecological compensation and ecological tax and expense, the controlling and regulating mode which is original treatment oriented and complemented with terminal treatment, and a series of measures for implementing such system.The innovative points of the dissertation are as follows.Firstly, the topic selected is pioneering and exploratory, for agricultural non-point source pollution emerges with the rapid development of China's economy and is of great destructive power and fair complexity which is determined by China's unique path of economic development and its endowment of nature and environment. With reference to relevant overseas theories and researching approaches and China's national condition, the dissertation makes systematic analysis and exploration of agricultural non-point source pollution from both the technological and economic perspectives, including the functioning mechanism among agricultural non-point source pollution and the macroeconomic development and the rural household economics and the policies for controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution.The second innovative point lies in the content. The dissertation makes theoretical and empirical analysis of the functioning mechanism between agricultural non-point source pollution and economic development, obtaining a series of valuable conclusions that the economic development exerts deteriorating and improving effect on agricultural non-point source pollution, that the curve of economic development and agricultural non-point source pollution is characterized with the inverted "U", that the characteristics of agricultural non-point source pollution are different during different stages of economic development and that rural households' irrational utilization of the environment and resources results in the dilemma of "EKC" transition. The dissertation also analyzes the effect of rural households' consciousness and behavior on non-point source pollution and the influencing factors from the theoretical and empirical perspectives. It is found that rural households' consciousness and behavior is not favorable for reducing the discharge of agricultural non-point source pollution. By establishing rural households' behavior model, it analyzes the effect of agricultural policies on non-point source pollution, through which it is found that part of the agricultural policies lead to aggravating the non-point source pollution and that it is necessary to bring the goals of agricultural environment into the system of policy goals to adjust agricultural policies. In addition, the dissertation advances the pointed and operable framework and suggestion for controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution, including that optimizing rural households' behavior can lessen the effect of non-point source pollution caused by economic development, that it is necessary to establish the system for controlling and regulating agricultural non-point source pollution with economic stimulus as main means and that agricultural policies should be adjusted and integrated and so on.Thirdly, the research approaches used in the dissertation are innovative. Cointegration theory and Granger causality test are used to prove the relationship between economic development and variables of agricultural non-point source pollution, as well as fixed effect model with panel data to testify the inverted "U" characteristic of their relationship, regression method to analyze the influence of the characteristics of rural households' production behavior on agricultural non-point source pollution and CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) to rural households' consciousness of non-point source pollution and their willingness to pay. Through the analysis, the dissertation finds some significant and reliable conclusions that the agricultural non-point source pollution rises in step with GDP per capita, that rural households' consciousness is closely connected with their concurrent business, family income and educational level and that the management which is characterized with high level of farmers' education, large operative scale of agricultural land and no renting of land can lessen the discharge of non-point source pollution.Although the dissertation has discussed the problems existing in China's agricultural non-point source pollution by theoretical study, empirical study and policy study, there are much work needed to do in the future study, for the selected topic is involved with both the economics and environment science.As to the theoretical research, the relationship between economic development and agricultural non-point source pollution can be further illustrated by mathematical model. The relationship can be brought into endogenous growth model to discuss the influence of economic development on agricultural non-point source pollution in the closed and open trade systems respectively. Besides, the influence of pollution treatment on economic development should be further analyzed, the effect of rural households' production behavior on non-point source pollution should be incorporated into rural households' model and the effect of agricultural policies on the non-point pollution can be studied from the dynamic perspective.In the empirical research, more work should be done. With regard to the selection of original data, we can use the monitoring data of the farmland environment to do further analysis. There is a shortage of first-hand data to validate the research on rural households' adoption of technologies. In addition, the research approach can be innovated, like the validation of the "EKC" between economic development and agricultural non-point source pollution and the transmission mechanism between the two can be discussed by simultaneous equations.Concerning the policy research, the effect of different policies should be studied in details via simulating the implementation effect of different policies with the investigation of typical regions.
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