The Regional Difference Analysis On The Water Pollution Emission And Influence Factors In China’s Coastal Areas

The eastern coastal areas are the most concentrated regions of the population andsocial economy in China. Along with the rapid development of economy,environmental pollution has become increasingly prominent, and severely restricts thesustainable development of the areas. How to reduce the environmental pollution,realize the coordination development of economy and environment have become acommon concern of the country. Based on this, we choose China’s coastal areas as theresearch object, adopt the comprehensive evaluation, curve fitting and graycorrelation analysis method to analyze the differences of water pollution emissionlevels and the coordination with economic development, explore the factorsinfluencing the levels of water pollution emission, so as to provide theory basis for theformulation and implementation of differentiated water pollution reduction targets andregulating policies. After the study, the main conclusions are as follows:Firstly, both industrial and domestic water emission intensities of China’s11coastal provinces and cities have indicated the trend of gradual decrease from2003to2010. There are great disparities between different regions, and the disparities tend toenlarge. From the perspective of the reduction potential of pollution emission intensity,industrial water pollution emission intensities generally have higher reductionpotential than that of domestic source. Through comprehensive comparing, Hainan,Hebei, Liaoning and Fujian have higher reduction potential. From the urgency ofstrengthening the pollution reduction, Hebei and Tianjin have higher urgent degrees.And each area must take corresponding measures to reduce pollution emissionsaccording to the condition of water pollution pressure.Secondly, through qualitative and quantitative analysis, we find that for industrialwater pollution emission intensity, Shandong, Guangdong and Hainan have highercoordination levels between pollution emission intensities and economic development,but Shanghai and Zhejiang have lower ones; For domestic water pollution emissionintensity, Shandong, Hebei and Zhejiang have higher coordination levels, whileShanghai and Hainan have lower ones; As the whole, the underdeveloped coastalregions usually have higher coordination levels relatively, which reflects the existenceof "advantage of backwardness". Thirdly, through the grey correlation analysis we find that no matter for industrialor domestic water pollution emission intensity, the composition effects andtechnological effects always are the main factors influencing inter-regional disparitiesand intra-regional changes, and the scale effects mainly influence the disparitiesamong regions, but have smaller influence on the internal changes of regions.Therefore, in order to shrink regional disparities of water pollution emissionintensities, the coastal areas should firstly balance the differences of the scales andlevels of economic development. Meanwhile, they should also strengthen structuraladjustment, and promote technological progress to reduce emission intensities fromthe intra-regions.