Universities' Scientific and Technological Transformation in China: Its Efficiency and Influencing Factors in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Zou L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8675682 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Combining freshwater consumption and wastewater emissions into a unified analysis framework and utilizing the epsilon-based measure (EBM) model with the characteristics of radial model and non-radial model, this paper evaluates green water use efficiency (GWUE) of 11 provincial-regions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) and investigates its spatiotemporal differences during the period 2005-2014, on basis of which the contribution rate of each input-specific green water use inefficiency in the overall green water use efficiency and the potential of freshwater-saving and wastewater emissions reduction are also calculated. The Theil index is used to explore the sources of the provincial gap of green water use inefficiency, and a random-effect panel Tobit model is applied to test the impact of the influencing factors of green water use inefficiency in the YREB. It is found that green water use inefficiency of the YREB is relatively low and regional differences is significant during the sample period, indicating a large potential of water-saving and water pollution reduction, and narrowing BGAP and WGAP of the Upstream is the key for improving green water use inefficiency in the YREB. The panel Tobit regression results show that economic development, technological innovation, water use structure, water resources endowment, environmental regulation and regional differences all play positive/negative effects on green water use inefficiency in the YREB, while these factors' influencing direction, degree and significance are significantly different. The conclusions of our study can provide considerably valuable information for the YREB to reserve water resources and reduce wastewater emissions.
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Project description:Green innovation is an important driving force to promote the sustainable development of urban society and economy. This paper constructs an evaluation index system containing social undesirable outputs, and uses the Super-SBM model and the Malmquist-Luenberger index to evaluate green innovation efficiency in 42 cities along the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2013 to 2017. Additionally, spatial autocorrelation analysis is used to study the spatial correlation of green innovation efficiency. Finally, the coupling coordination degree model is used to study the coupling coordination degree between green innovation efficiency and high-tech industries. The following results were obtained. (1) The average value of green innovation efficiency increased from 1.0446 to 1.0987, and the annual average growth rate of total factor productivity of green innovation was 1.1%. (2) Green innovation efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt had a significant spatial positive correlation, but the types of agglomeration among cities in different sections of the Yangtze River were quite different. (3) The coupling coordination degree between green innovation efficiency and the development level of high-tech industries in the cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt was in the basic coordination stage. Based on the research results, we suggest that cities in this belt further enhance the interactive relationship between green innovation and economic development and promote the coordinated development of economy and society.
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Project description:The air pollution characteristics of six ambient criteria pollutants, including particulate matter (PM) and trace gases, in 29 typical cities across the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from December 2017 to February 2018 are analyzed. The overall average mass concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, CO, NO2, and O3 are 73, 104, 16, 1100, 47, and 62 µg/m3, respectively. PM2.5, PM10, and NO2 are the dominant major pollutants to poor air quality, with nearly 83%, 86%, and 59%, exceeding the Chinese Ambient Air Quality Standard Grade I. The situation of PM pollution in the middle and lower reaches is more serious than that in the upper reaches, and the north bank is more severe than the south bank of the Yangtze River. Strong positive spatial correlations for PM concentrations between city pairs within 300 km is frequently observed. NO2 pollution is primarily concentrated in the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou urban agglomeration and surrounding areas. The health risks are assessed by the comparison of the classification of air pollution levels with three approaches: air quality index (AQI), aggregate AQI (AAQI), and health risk-based AQI (HAQI). When the AQI values escalate, the air pollution classifications based on the AAQI and HAQI values become more serious. The HAQI approach can better report the comprehensive health effects from multipollutant air pollution. The population-weighted HAQI data in the winter exhibit that 50%, 70%, and 80% of the population in the upstream, midstream, and downstream of the YREB are exposed to polluted air (HAQI > 100). The current air pollution status in YREB needs more effective efforts to improve the air quality.
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Project description:The income imbalance between urban and rural areas has seriously affected social fairness and justice and has become a key factor restricting the sustainable development of the economy and society. The analysis of the spatiotemporal laws and causes of urban-rural income disparity is of great significance to realizing the coordinated and integrated development of regional urban and rural areas. In this study, the coefficient of variation, Theil decomposition index, spatial autocorrelation method and GeoDetector model were used to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of the urban-rural income gap and its driving force in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2017. The results show that the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in the study area shows a trend of rapid growth from 2000 to 2017. The urban-rural income gap in the study area showed an inverted "U"-shaped development process as a whole, and the relative difference showed an increasing trend. Regarding the spatial pattern, the study area showed a significant east-west differentiation pattern. The spatial distribution of the urban-rural income gap in the study area has an obvious positive spatial correlation, that is, the phenomena of high-value agglomeration and low-value agglomeration were significant. The economic development level, the industrial structure, the regional development policy, transportation, topographical conditions and resource endowments can strongly explain the spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap in the study area. The spatial differentiation pattern of the urban-rural income gap is affected by both natural factors and socioeconomic factors. Among them, socioeconomic factors are the dominant factors, followed by natural factors. There is a significant interaction between natural factors and socio-economic factors, and the combination of socio-economic factors and adverse natural factors can significantly affect the regional urban-rural income gap.
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Project description:Global lake systems have undergone rapid degradation over the past century. Scientists and managers are struggling to manage the highly degraded lake systems to cope with escalating anthropogenic pressures. Improved knowledge of how lakes and social systems co-evolved up to the present is vital for understanding, modeling, and anticipating the current and future ecological status of lakes. Here, by integrating paleoenvironmental, instrumental and historical documentary resources at multi-decadal scales, we demonstrate how a typical shallow lake system evolved over the last century in the Yangtze River Basin, an urbanized region containing thousands of shallow lakes. We find abrupt ecological shift happened in the lake ecosystem around the 1970s, with the significant reorganization of macrophyte, diatom and cladocera communities. The lake social-ecological system went through three stages as the local society transformed from a traditional agricultural before 1950s to an urbanized and industrialized society during the recent thirty years. The timing and interaction between social, economic and ecological feedbacks govern the transient and long-term dynamics of the freshwater ecosystem. Our results highlight the importance of accounting for the long-term dynamics and feedbacks between ecological, social and economic changes when defining safe operating spaces for sustainable freshwater ecosystem management.
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