Spatial Pattern Of Regional Synergistic Governance Of Air Pollution In The Yangtze River Economic Belt

The Report to the 20th CPC National Congress clearly proposed to promote coordinated regional development,in-depth implementation of the coordinated regional development strategy,give full play to the comparative advantages of each region,build a regional economic pattern with complementary advantages,and jointly promote regional high-quality development.Green development is an important part of high-quality development,and the implementation of environmental policies will inevitably have an important impact on high-quality economic development while affecting environmental quality,advancing ecological civilization,and promoting sustainable economic and social development.And air pollution is different from other pollution,more mobile,broader diffusion,with strong spatial mobility and correlation,regional is more prominent.The only way to truly achieve regional joint prevention and control is to carry out synergistic governance of air pollution between regions or cities to ensure a sustained improvement in air quality.The regional synergistic governance for air pollution is in line with the requirements of coordinated regional development and promotes high-quality development.The Outline of the People’s Republic of China 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives for 2035（14th Five-Year Plan）proposes to deepen the joint prevention and control of air pollution,strengthen regional synergistic governance,improve the joint prevention and control mechanism,and form the optimal model of air pollution governance.However,as the main force of air pollution governance,the local government has not yet clarified the issue of"with whom to synergize"in the process of the regional synergistic governance of air pollution,and is unable to form a reasonable spatial pattern,which hinders the process of the regional synergistic governance of air pollution in China.The current research focuses on the theoretical mechanism of regional synergistic governance of air pollution,the synergistic pollution governance among provinces in China and the effectiveness of regional synergistic governance of air pollution in Beijing,Tianjin,Hebei and Yangtze River Delta.In the context of unbalanced and insufficient development of each region in China and the requirement of promoting precise and scientific pollution control,the reference value for the comprehensive implementation of regional synergistic governance strategy of air pollution is insufficient.While Yangtze River Economic Belt spans the eastern,central and western regions of China,covering11 provincial administrative regions and urban clusters such as the Yangtze River Delta,Chengdu-Chongqing and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.The unbalanced and inadequate development situation in Yangtze River Economic Belt is a microcosm of the unbalanced and inadequate regional development in China.Promoting efficient air pollution governance in Yangtze River Economic Belt is not only an exploration of China’s high-quality development path,but also an important national strategy for China.Therefore,the study on the spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is not only an exploration of the refined zoning control of the whole Yangtze River basin by unit and the construction of a spatial pattern of regional efficient governance of air pollution with complementary advantages,which is an inevitable requirement for the construction of ecological civilization,but also promotes the comprehensive implementation of regional synergistic governance strategy of air pollution in China and has important research value.Based on the Collective Action Theory,Intergovernmental Competition Theory,Synergistic Governance Theory and other related theories,this thesis takes the regional synergistic governance of air pollution as the general grasp,the strategic interaction of environmental governance among local governments as the tool,and the improvement of ecological and environmental quality as the core,and selects two air pollutants,PM_2.5 and SO₂,from 110 prefectures,16 autonomous prefectures,3 provincial municipalities and 1forest area in the whole Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2011 to 2019 as the research samples.The main research is on the necessity and feasibility of regional synergistic governance of air pollution,the design of zoning scheme and the characteristics of regional synergistic state,answering the questions of"with whom to synergize",forming a scientific and reasonable spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution,and providing a reference basis for achieving precise and scientific pollution control and coordinating comprehensive and efficient governance of air pollution.Using spatial econometric models and spatial cluster analysis,this thesis investigates the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and inequalities of air pollution,the spatial spillover effects of air pollution governance,the zoning scheme design of regional synergistic spatial pattern for air pollution and the characteristics of regional synergistic states in Yangtze River Economic Belt.The main research contents and conclusions include the following aspects.Firstly,the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of air pollution in Yangtze River Economic Belt.This thesis applies the exploratory spatial data analysis and the social network analysis to compare and analyze the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of air pollution in Yangtze River Economic Belt in terms of both the environmental quality pollution and the emission pollution.On this basis,the spatial econometric model is applied to analyze the formation mechanism,action mechanism and influence mechanism of air pollution asymmetry.It is found that air pollution in Yangtze River Economic Belt shows significant spatial agglomeration characteristics,but the spatial agglomeration characteristics of different air pollution types vary greatly.And the degree of air pollution emission and affected degree show asymmetric characteristics,showing the characteristics of air pollution asymmetry.Secondly,the spatial spillover effects of air pollution governance in Yangtze River Economic Belt.Based on the perspective of individualized characteristics and spatial association,this thesis applies the spatial econometric model and the social network analysis to study the spatial spillover effects of environmental regulations on air pollution governance in Yangtze River Economic Belt.This thesis also provides an in-depth analysis of the spatial heterogeneity of the pollution control efficiency of environmental regulations and the interactive characteristics of individualized strategies of environmental regulations.It is found that environmental regulation presents significant inhibitory effect and spatially differentiated pollution control efficiency on air pollution and spatial spillover effect,and environmental regulation has significant control effect on air pollution in neighboring cities.However,due to the strong spatial mobility of the environmental quality pollution,the environmental quality pollution is weakly influenced by environmental regulations.The spatial heterogeneity of the pollution control efficiency of environmental regulations in Yangtze River Economic Belt verifies the inefficiency of territorial-based governance and the necessity of breaking down administrative barriers for zonal governance,as well as the feasibility of regional synergistic governance for air pollution.Thirdly,the zoning scheme design for regional synergistic governance of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.In order to achieve both the goal of root cause governance and the scientific,rational and precise governance of air pollution,forming a reasonable spatial pattern and finally achieving comprehensive and efficient governance of air pollution,this thesis selects two types of air pollution,the environmental quality pollution and the emission pollution,as the basis of synergistic regional division,and designs a zoning scheme for 130 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt based on a hybrid spatial clustering algorithm of the scale space algorithm and the spatial K-means algorithm.Fourthly,characteristics of regional synergistic governance status of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Zone.Based on the study of the spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,this thesis applies the synergistic degree model to construct the synergistic degree index.And the spatial econometric model is applied to analyze the characteristics of regional synergy status among cities in each synergistic region.It was found that the degree of regional synergistic governance of air pollution presented more efficient pollution control efficiency in the synergistic region,which could realize the regional synergistic governance of air pollution and showed higher synergistic effect on the environmental quality pollution.China is in a period of economic transformation and rapid development,the regional collaborative management of air pollution is an important support for the construction of ecological civilization,and a major opportunity to promote the green transformation of economic structure,accelerate the formation of green production and lifestyle,and boost high-quality development.Based on the research results,130 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone are used as examples to outline the framework of regional synergistic air pollution management policy system and formulate specific policy recommendations to promote regional synergistic development of air pollution in China.First,China should accelerate the construction of regional collaborative governance mechanism for air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,deepen the joint prevention and control mechanism,and promote regional collaborative governance of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.Secondly,relevant parts should set differentiated targets,precise and scientific pollution control,promote the science of pollution control level,and strengthen the regional synergy of air pollution control.Again,the central government promotes inter-provincial government exchanges and cooperation,weakens the effect of border barriers,strengthens inter-governmental exchanges and cooperation,equalizes the formulation and implementation of pollution reduction policies,and promotes synergy and efficiency.Finally,the central government strengthens cooperation and communication among local governments,establishes a diversified compensation mechanism and promotes the marketization of the mechanism.This thesis explores the spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt,which not only enriches the research system and research methods of regional synergistic governance of air pollution and provides a new perspective of air pollution governance research,but also finds new evidence of spatial flow of air pollution through comparative analysis,and the research findings verify the synergistic effect of the regional synergistic governance of air pollution,which helps to promote the process of regional synergistic governance strategy of air pollution at the national level and other practical implications.The marginal contributions of this thesis are mainly reflected in three aspects.Firstly,it introduces Collective Action Theory,Inter-fiscal Competition Theory,Collaborative Governance Theory and other related theories into the study of spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution,and constructs a research system of the spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution.This thesis not only complements the existing studies,but also answers the questions of"with whom to synergize"and the spatial pattern of regional synergistic governance of air pollution.The findings of this thesis provide new ideas and reference bases for the central government to formulate and implement regional collaborative air pollution governance strategies and local governments to make decisions in the process of air pollution governance.Secondly,based on the characteristics of air pollution and relevant legal documents,air pollution is divided into the environmental quality pollution and the emission pollution,and PM_2.5and SO₂ are taken as representative pollutants respectively,and the existence of air pollution asymmetry is found by comparing and analyzing the spatial clustering characteristics of different kinds of air pollution,which is not only a supplement to the existing air pollution related studies,but also provides further understanding of the characteristics of air pollution Finally,this thesis extends the inter-regional correlation metric from environmental regulation spatial correlation analysis,spatial clustering method and synergy measure method.The spatial pattern research model of the regional synergistic governance of air pollution constructed in this thesis is applicable to different regions and for different pollutant types,with good applicability,and provides a reference for related academic research and government governance.