40 years rural environmental protection in China: Problem evolution, policy response and institutional change

Abstract

Since 1973, China's rural environmental problems have changed a lot, and many new environmental protection policies were issued in the same time. However, rural environmental protection has not been paid enough attention in a long run. Herein, the evolution of the rural environmental problems and the corresponding environmental policies in the past 40 years in China were firstly discussed based on four stages, that is, 1973 to 1979, 1980 to 1989, 1990 to 1999, and 2000 to present. Furthermore, the changes of the environmental management agency in the past 40 years were also systematically reviewed. Lastly, four targeted suggestions were put forward for future rural environmental protection in China.

Coupling Coordinated Analysis of Digital Village Construction, Economic Growth and Environmental Protection in Rural China

“…The Global Moran's I can determine whether there is spatial correlation in coupling coordination, but it cannot reveal which specific provinces exhibit spatial clustering [68]. To address this limitation, this paper introduces the Local Moran's I: (14) where is the Local Moran's index for province ; measures the disparity between the coupling coordination of province and the overall average level of all provinces, while assesses the relative level of coupling coordination among neighboring provinces of province compared to the average level. Using these two parts as the horizontal and vertical axes, the Moran scatterplot, composed of provinces, can be divided into four quadrants corresponding to High-High, Low-Low, High-Low, and Low-High aggregation classifications.…”

“…At the same time, China's environmental protection efforts have primarily targeted industrial and urban areas, resulting in relatively insufficient resources and funding for preventing agricultural and rural pollution [12,13]. This has led to severe ecological damage in rural areas, marked by pollution from pesticides and fertilizers, solid waste, livestock and poultry feces, and vegetation destruction [14]. Hence, policymakers need to persistently focus on rural coordinated development, enabling more people to enjoy the benefits of economic growth.…”