Spatial Disequilibrium and Dynamic Evolution of Eco-Efficiency in China’s Tea Industry

Abstract

Eco-efficiency is a significant target for evaluating the agricultural ecosystem and measuring sustainable agricultural development through quantitative analysis. It is also an essential part of constructing the ecological tea garden, which offers a directional function in realizing the green development of the tea industry. After measuring the eco-efficiency of China’s tea industry using the super-efficiency SBM model, this paper analyzes the spatial disequilibrium and dynamic evolution trend of the eco-efficiency in China’s tea industry through the method of Dagum Gini Coefficient and Kernel Density Estimation. The results show that the level of eco-efficiency in China’s tea industry was improved overall, and the spatial disequilibrium was significantly reduced. The differences within the tea region decreased as follows: tea regions in Southwest China, South China, south of the Yangtze River, and north of the Yangtze River; the overall difference in the eco-efficiency in the tea industry mainly comes from the contribution of the interregional difference in tea regions, and the second contribution comes from the intraregional difference in tea regions and the difference in super-variable density. The eco-efficiency of the tea industry has been improved both nationally and within the top four tea regions; the disequilibrium between areas and within the tea region has been largely alleviated, but there is still room to optimize the input–output structure and promote the eco-efficiency.

Spatial–Temporal Evolution of Interprovincial Ecological Efficiency and Its Determinants in China: A Super-Efficiency SBM Model Approach

“…They found that economic factors, environmental governance, and technological progress were major determinants affecting ecological efficiency. Zhang, H. (2022) [24], Jiang, W. (2023) [25], and others, based on the Malmquist ecological efficiency index, studied the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of interprovincial ecological efficiency in China. They discovered that the ecological efficiency in eastern regions was generally higher than in western regions and exhibited an overall upward trend over the years.…”

Analysis of drying characteristic, effective moisture diffusivity and energy, exergy and environment performance indicators during thin layer drying of tea in a convective-hot air dryer

“…China is one of the six major tea producing countries in the world, accounting for approximately 42% of the global production. According to research reports from some relevant institutions, the production of tea reached 2.97 million tons in 2020 (Jiang et al, 2023;Shu et al, 2023;Zhang et al, 2023). However, freshly harvested tea has high moisture content and needs to be dried and dehydrated through the drying process to reduce the moisture content below 5%.…”