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Russia has a serious problem of environmental pollution. As a party to the Paris Agreement, Russia is pivotal in participating in and advancing the global environmental governance agenda. By presenting and analyzing the main environmental policies enacted by the Russian Government after the Paris Agreement, this paper found the following new features of Russian environmental policy: Developing a new ecological concept of harmony between human and nature; Restructuring administrative institutions and strengthen the common responsibilities of environmental policy subjects such as enterprises, social groups, and the public; Strengthening the modern management of natural resources; Focusing on developing other policies that match environmental policies; Attaching importance to the construction of federal nature reserves and national parks. This paper has some enlightenment on Sino-Russian environment protection co‐ operation: Strengthening exchanges and mutual learning between China and Russia in green and low-carbon publicity and education; Learning from the development and management experience of Russian natural resources and nature reserves to consolidate and improve carbon sink capacity; Deepening Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of low carbon energy transition; Expanding Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the process of pursuing a Chinese path to modernization that advocates the promotion of harmony between humanity and nature, dealing with the synergy of multi-target environmental regulation policies is an important task towards the modernization of China's governance system and capacity. In this context, can synergistic environmental policies more effectively promote industrial transformation and upgrading when facing the two strategic tasks of building a beautiful China and achieving the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality? Existing research has no answer to this question. This study used the policy of establishing ' acid rain and SO2 pollution control zones' and the low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment of environmental policy synergy and combined the influences of the effective government and the efficient market within a unified analytical framework. Using the panel data of 282 prefecture level cities and above in China from 2003 to 2020, this study used the difference-in-differences model to examine the impact of the constraints of the dual environmental objectives, i.e., pollution control and carbon reduction, on the transformation and upgrading of regional industries. The results showed that: (J) Comparing with a single environmental regulation, the synergistic effects of the pollution control and carbon reduction policies were better at promoting regional industrial transformation and upgrading, and the conclusion consistently held through a series of robustness tests. © The mechanism analysis showed that under the dual environmental objectives, the effective government could stimulate regional industrial transformation and upgrading via the regulatory effect of fiscal expenditure. Simultaneously, the efficient market could motivate micro-enterprises to generate relocation and innovative compensatory effects to realize the transformation and upgrading of regional industries. Further research revealed distinct heterogeneity in the transformation and upgrading of regional industries under the dual environmental objectives. The zones with the two pilot policies had a more pronounced impact on the industrial transformation and upgrading of eastern regions, non-traditional industrial bases, regions with heightened environmental consciousness, and areas with superior environmental infrastructure. This study suggests that: ( Local governments should coordinate the overall situation and avoid the blind development of energy-intensive and highly polluting projects. © They should maximize the financial sector's role as a mainstay, attracting and directing more social capital towards green and low-carbon industries. © They should divide and implement national targets for reducing pollution and carbon emissions based on local conditions, and explore experiences and models that can be popularized and replicated. ® They should increase innovation incentives to encourage the synergy of low-carbon technology and low-pollution emission control technology. ® They should also deploy tailored policies that cater to specific regional conditions, foster the profound integration of regional resources, and maximize the potential advantages of each region's synergistic development in pollution control and carbon reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resource allocation efficiency is one of the most important themes of economic research, so research on environmental policy and resource allocation is an important aspect to evaluate the economic effects of environmental policies. This paper first briefly reviews the research context of the theory of resource reallocation and resource misallocation and then analyzes the conceptual implications and accounting methods of resource reallocation and resource misallocation. Secondly, this paper takes the theoretical assumptions and mechanisms of different models as the main line, systematically sorts out the relevant literature on the impact of environmental policies on resource reallocation and resource misallocation, summarizes and reviews relevant theoretical and empirical research, and puts forward the shortcomings of the research and future direction of expansion. Finally, this paper makes a brief comment on the research status of China’ s environmental policies and resource allocation and puts forward their research prospect. This paper finds that: ① From the perspective of resource reallocation, environmental policies affect the reallocation of resources across firms or within firms by changing the entry and exit conditions, inhibiting the degree of product market competition, and changing product mix. By distorting factor prices, these policies lead to the deviation of the equilibrium allocation of factors from the optimal allocation of firms, thereby causing resource misallocation. ② The conclusions on how the initial distortion affects the resource reallocation effect of environmental policies, or whether environmental policies can mitigate the resource misallocation caused by the initial distortion, differ de⁃ pending on the form of the initial distortion. ③ The existing literature on environmental policies and resource allocation is insufficient in terms of research perspectives, research methods, and research scenarios, and the research conclusions on the impact of environmental policies on resource allocation efficiency usually depend on the relevant assumptions and research scenarios of benchmark models. The theoretical analysis results and the degree of influence under different frameworks of benchmark models are different. This paper believes that, based on the Chinese scenario, theoretical breakthroughs in the measurement of the micro-mechanisms and effects of environmental policies affecting resource allocation, environmental policies and industrial transformation and upgrading, environmental policies and resource space mismatches, etc., may be a marginal contribution of China’ s research on development economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The river chief system is a policy innovation to deal with water pollution implemented by local governments from the bottom and the central government from the top in China. It is of theoretical and practical significance for preventing water pollution, protecting the water environment, and building ecological civilization to comprehensively review the diffusion mechanism of the river chief system and empirically test its implementation effect and influence mechanism. We used the DID model to evaluate the impact of the river chief system on water pollution based on the micro-enterprise data of the Yangtze River Delta matched with the statistical database of in‑ dustrial enterprises and the green development database. We found that the result did not satisfy the common trend hypothesis, so we used the multi-period DDD model to identify the implementation impact of the river chief system on the discharge of water pollutants in enterprises and to examine the transmission mechanism of its impact on pollution discharge. The results showed that: ① The river chief system had a significant impact on the reduction of water pollutants in the water pollution industry and could significantly prevent water pollution in the Yangtze River Delta. ② The implementation of the river chief system could improve corporate environmental perfor‑ mance by increasing investment in environmental innovation and reducing production, while reducing their total factor productivity in the short term. ③ The implementation impact of the river chief system had a heterogeneous ownership and policy motivation, which had a stronger regulatory effect on private enterprises. State-owned enterprises with stronger environmental awareness had a greater selfdrive for emission reduction, but the regulatory effect on state-owned enterprises was weak. The enterprises in the region that actively implemented the river chief system had better emission reduction and pollution control effects, while the implementation of the river chief system at the request of the superior government weakened the impact of the river chief system policy. In the process of fully im‑ plementing the river chief system, local governments should continue to fully implement the policy, guide enterprises to continuously in‑ crease innovation investment to improve their pollution control ability through technological upgrading, enhance their environmental awareness through strengthening social supervision, and actively carry out appropriate innovation on the environment protection system so as to improve the motivation and subjective initiative of governments at all levels to strictly implement the river chief system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the panel data of 204 prefecture-level cities in China from 2004 to 2019, this paper used the double-difference method to study the impact of ecological civilization demonstration area policy on ecological efficiency with the help of“quasi-natural natural experiment”from ecological civilization demonstration area. Results showed as follow.（1）Overall, the implementation of ecological civilization demonstration area policy has significantly promoted the improvement of ecological efficiency. At the same time, various robustness tests such as excluding the influence of other policies, counterfactual testing, replacing sample data, and propensity score matching-based difference-in-difference（PSM-DID）were carried out to ensure the reliability of the results.（2）Heterogeneity analysis showed that ecological civilization demonstration area policy had a more significantly effect on the improvement of ecological efficiency in the large cities and cities in eastern and central regions.（3）Mechanism analysis showed that ecological civilization demonstration area policy can improve the ecological efficiency of cities by driving technological innovation and optimizing industrial structure. Accordingly, it is proposed to further summarize the effective practices of the ecological civilization demonstration area policy. And a combination of policies should be carried out based on the consideration of heterogeneity factors. In addition, it is also necessary to focus on transforming and upgrading advantageous industries and stimulating innovation capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The policy implementation gap in the field of environment has attracted much attention. An analysis of the existing literature has found that the gap was a result from some unreasonable institutional arrangements. However, local governments' environmental policy implementation behaviors are not completely consistent with the research. Given the unchanged nature of the existing institutions that restrict the local governments' implementation enthusiasm, their implementation behaviors are not continuously depressed, but fluctuate from time to time. In other words, the implementation gap of environmental policies does not always exist. Based on the signaling theory, this paper explored the causes of the 'time-varying gap', trying to supplement the existing literature, and sought possible ways to reduce or eliminate the gap. This paper studied the statistics of environmental signals transmitted by the Chinese central government through documents (394 copies) and various media outlets from 2000 to 2015 and coded 26 items from the dimensions of credibility/reliability, powerfulness and transparency according to the signaling theory, and constructed the balanced panel data of central environmental signals and 31 provincial governments' environmental regulation behaviors in China's mainland from 2000 to 2015. The results of the regression analysis showed that the central government's environmental signal was the source of local governments' environmental regulation behaviors; the credibility, powerfulness and transparency of the documents could significantly affect the environmental regulation behaviors of the local governments. Therefore, in order to reduce the environmental policy implementation gap, the central government signals, especially the document signals, should be used more effectively in practice. It is of great importance to strengthen the credibility, intensity and clarity of the documents, with a focus on the issuance of documents with small quantity but high quality, and a focus on the use of the clarity attribute, so as to better mobilize the enthusiasm of local governments in environmental governance. This paper not only supplements the literature on the theme of environmental policy implementation gap, but also overcomes the limitations of the existing environmental governance literature which pays too much attention to the insufficient implementation of environmental policies in China, thus extending the research vision to the theme of maintaining policy compliance, and providing a low-cost method for the effective stimulation of the local governments' environmental governance behaviors under the current institutional arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of the increasing uncertainty of environmental policies and pressure on environmental protection, how to effectively promote the realization of both low-carbon development and economic growth in the industrial sector through two-way FDI needs urgent attention. On the basis of the data of 33 industries from 2004 to 2017, low-carbon total factor productivity (LCTFP) was measured by the non-oriented EBM-Malmquist-Luenberger model, and environmental policy uncertainty was measured by the frequency of relevant keywords based on the 10 major newspapers of the Huike database on China's mainland. On the basis of a theoretical analysis, the study examined the main effect between two-way FDI and LCTFP from the two dimensions of depth and breadth, tested the moderating effect of environmental policy uncertainty, and discussed the heterogeneity of industry and environmental policy uncertainty. The conclusions showed that: 1) Both the depth and breadth of IFDI and OFDI inhibited the improvement of industrial LCTFP, IFDI behavior supported the pollution paradise hypothesis, and two-way FDI exerted a complementary effect, effectively suppressing carbon emissions. 2) Environmental policy uncertainty afected the scale and direction of two-way investment decision, yet had a nonlinear and opposite impact on IFDI and OFDI. 3) Environmental policy uncertainty exerted a significant positive moderating effect on the relations between the breadth of IFDI, the depth of OFDI and LCTFP, and a negative moderating effect on the relations between the depth of IFDI, the breadth of OFDI and LCTFP; the reverse green technology spiilover effect of the breadth of OFDI benefited LCTFP. 4) The relationship between two-way FDI and LCTFP was heterogeneous under poUution-intensive industries and relatively clean industries as well as high and low environmental policy uncertainty. The depth of OFDI in poUution intensive industries promoted LCTFP, indicating the occurrence of carbon transfer; the effect of the breadth of IFDI and the behavior of OFDI was significantly reduced under low environmental policy uncertainty. The policy implications of this study include raising the environmental protection threshold of foreign-invested enterprises, strengthening reverse technology spiilover of foreign investment enterprises, and promoting the transition of two-way investment enterprises from 'pollution paradise' to 'pollution halo'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental protection tax is an important tool for China to deal with environmental problems when the country' s environmental governance faces severe challenges. China' s current environmental protection tax system is largely an extension of the sewage charging system. There are some problems, such as the need to adjust the tax base, unreasonable tax rates, imperfect preferential policies, and the need to improve the efficiency of tax collection and management. Comprehensively evaluating the impact of environmental protection tax and optimizing the design of the environmental protection tax rate from the perspective of economic, environmental, and innovation synergy is of great value to improving China' s environmental governance system and realizing the transformation of the green economy. This study theoretically analyzed the impact of environmental protection tax on enterprise development; constructed a simulation model to analyze the impact of environmental protection tax; and numerically simulated the comprehensive impact of different environmental protection tax implementation intensity (IEPT) from 2006 to 2019 by using the mixed data of Chinese micro-enterprises and provincial panels and the scenario analysis method to predict the multi-dimensional impact of environmental protection tax in 2030. The results showed that: ① From 2006 to 2019, China' s environmental protection tax rate was at a low level, which was less than the optimal IEPT. The relationship between the optimal IEPT and the synergy index was 'inverted-U' shaped; that is, with the continuous rise of IEPT, the synergy index also showed the trend of rising first and then fluctuating and declining. ② Over time, the optimal IEPT showed an overall upward trend. ③ When the development level and demands of the economy, environment, and innovation became different, the optimal IEPT would also change. Finally, this study puts forward policy suggestions for China' s environmental protection tax reform: ① After fully investigating the operation status and innovation development status of regional inter-industry enterprises, we should consider further refining regional and industrial heterogeneous pricing strategies within the scope of regional environmental carrying capacity. ② A dynamic adjustment mechanism for the tax rate of environmental protection tax should be established to gradually increase the tax rate and give full play to the policy effect of environmental protection tax. ③ The environmental protection tax should be used to establish a special fund for innovation support, to avoid bringing higher environmental costs to innovative enterprises due to the increase in the environmental protection tax rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scarcity of resources in the environment determines the inevitable conflict between economic growth and environmental protection, and the environment as a public good determines that environmental protection and ecological management should be included in the scope of government regulation. Taking the panel data of 30 Chinese provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) as the sample, this study first constructed the index system of high-quality economic development with the five major development concepts of 'innovation, coordination, openness, greenness, and sharing' as the guide. Based on the shortcomings of the existing measurement methods in equalizing the weight distribution of indicators, we proposed the combination of the coefficient of variation method with the entropy weight method to measure the comprehensive index of high-quality economic development. Secondly, the random forest algorithm was used to filter the variables based on the importance of model variables. Finally, we empirically investigated the heterogeneity in the impact of environmental regulatory policy synergies on high-quality economic development using penalized panel quantile regressions that fully accounted for the characteristics of data outliers. The results showed that there was significant heterogeneity in the impact of environmental regulation policy synergies on high-quality economic development. Specifically, the result showed that: 1 The combination of Policy 2 and Policy 3 had the best synergy effect in regions with lower levels of high-quality economic development (0.1 quantile), and the synergistic effect of the three policy combinations was optimal in regions with more developed levels of high-quality economic development. 2 Policy synergies had a positive impact on high-quality economic development, with a 'U'-shaped change, i.e. as the degree of policy synergies increased, the level of high-quality economic development tended to fall first and then rise. 3 The output elasticity value of policy synergies did not cross the 'inflection point' in regions with less developed levels of high-quality economic development. This result somewhat inhibited high-quality economic development, supporting the 'cost of compliance' argument. However, the output elasticity values of the better developed regions crossed the 'inflection point'. The findings supported the 'innovation compensation theory'. Therefore, to reduce inter regional differences, cooperation between governments at all levels and relevant departments should be strengthened to continuously promote policy synergies and improve the efficiency of policy combinations, which will not only benefit the ecological environment, but also improve factor productivity and energy efficiency, thus promoting quality inter-regional economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart cities are a product of the integration of the new urbanization process and information technology development in China, while inclusive green growth is an important strategic concept for economic development transformation. Whether the smart city pilot policy can promote inclusive green growth in China still needs to be tested. Based on panel data from 210 prefecture level and above cities from 2009 to 2020, this study used the multi-period difference-in-differences method to learn the impact of the smart city pilot policy on inclusive green growth in China, followed by a series of robustness tests. In addition, the sub-system path, location heterogeneity, and spatial spillover effects of policy effects were also examined. The results showed that: (J) The construction of smart cities would have a significant positive impact on inclusive green growth, and the policy effects would gradually increase over time. The construction of smart cities had a significant promoting effect on both economic growth and green growth, but the impact on inclusive growth was not significant. © There was significant regional heterogeneity in the impact of smart city construction on inclusive green growth. There was a significant positive impact in the eastern and western regions, a significant negative impact in the northeast region, and an insignificant impact in the central region. © The policy effects of smart city construction had significant spatial spillover characteristics. Smart city construction could significantly promote economic growth and green growth in adjacent non-pilot areas but could only significantly promote economic growth in adjacent pilot areas. Therefore, in the critical period of China's economic transformation and upgrading, in order to enhance the promotion of the pilot policy on inclusive green growth, on the one hand, the construction of smart cities should focus on promoting inclusive growth and formulating reasonable pilot goals according to local conditions based on the resource endowment of each region. On the other hand, it is necessary to promote the exchange of piloting experience and innovation resources among regions and arrange the investment level of innovation resources reasonably to avoid the occurrence of ' depression effect' and ' siphon effect.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enterprise optimal plan model and comparative analysis are adopted in this paper to analyze the effects of pollution taxes, marketable emission permits, pollution standards and abatement subsidies on enterprise emission abatement, technology adoption incentives, the aggregate emission and the implement cost of the four environmental policy instruments. Conclusions are as follows: the major influences of enterprise abatement are technology adoption ability and the rigorousness of environmental policy; the major influences of the enterprise violation are the rigorousness of environmental policy and the government monitoring while independent of abatement technology adoption. From the technology adoption incentives, pollution standards with perfect compliance is higher than pollution standards with imperfect compliance which is higher than pollution taxes, pollution taxes is equal to abatement subsidies which is higher than tradable emission permit; from the control on the aggregate emission, on the possibility of technology improvements, pollution taxes, abatement subsidies and pollution standards will be the stone, however, tradable emission permit is the worst, if the enterprises maintain the current technology, pollution taxes, abatement subsidies, marketable pollution permits and pollution standards will have the same policy effects. From the enforcement cost of different environmental policy instruments, pollution taxes, abatement subsidies and pollution standards are the same, while tradable emission permit will be the lowest in enforcement cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural environmental issues are receiving more and more attention from all walks of life, and rural environmental governance is vital to rural rejuvenation. Based on the consideration of heterogeneity and the theory of institutional economics to build a decisionmaking framework for farmers' environmental behaviors under the pressure of environmental policy regulation, this paper analyzed the logical mechanism of environmental policy and farmers' environmental behaviors from the perspective of games. And the micro-survey data of farmers in Hubei, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces were used to empirically test the relationship between environmental policies and farmers' environmental behaviors. The research results showed that environmental policies could promote rural households to participate in rural environmental governance, but the positive impact of environmental policies would only gradually emerge when the household income reached a certain level, and there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between the intensity of environmental policies and farmers' environmental behaviors. Relatively speaking, the restrictive effect of environmental administrative policies on farmers 'environmental behaviors was stronger than the incentive effect of environmental economic policies on farmers 'environmental behaviors. For farmers in areas with higher levels of economic development - it was better to use environmental administrative policies to restrain farmers 'environmental behaviors than to use economic policies to encourage farmers. For different types of farmers, environmental policies played a better role more able in encouraging large-scale households to participate in rural environmental governance. Small-scale farmers would significantly weaken the impact of environmental policies on farmers' environmental behaviors. In addition, environmental administrative policies and environmental economic policies played a mutually regulating role, i, e., environmental economic policies could help strengthen the restraining effect of environmental administrative policies - and the implementation of environmental administrative policies was also conducive to strengthening the incentive effect of environmental economic policies. Based on this, it is necessary to relax the environmental administrative control on small-scale farmers and lowincome farmers. It is also necessary to strengthen the restrictive effect of environmental administrative policies on large-scale households and high-income groups. Related supporting measures should be further improved to make up for the shortcomings of a single policy - and a virtuous circle should be formed for the mutual promotion of administrative and economic policies in order to improve the effectiveness of rural environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to explore the impact of technological innovation on economic performance all regions in China is studied from different environmental regulation. The panel data of 30 provinces from 2007 to 2017 are collected, and variables reflecting environmental regulation and technological innovation are designed. Multivariate linear regression analysis is used to verify how technological innovation affects economic performance before and after environmental regulation is added. The results show that technological innovation has a significant positive impact on economic performance, and technological innovation has still a positive impact on economic performance after addingenvironmental regulation.The eastern region is superior to the central and western regions in terms of environmental regulation policy, technological innovation and economic performance, and in dealing with the relationship among those three. Therefore, on the basis of implementing appropriate environmental regulations, the government encourages technological innovation and increases D expenditure appropriately, which is conducive to improving sales revenue of new products and increasing economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To explore the focuses and potential issues of the current childrenJ s health policy system for informing policy decision 一 making. Methods This study constructed a two 一 dimensional analysis framework of policy tools 一 stakeholders, and the content analysis method was used to quantitatively analyze 36 children s health policies in China. Results The study coded a total of 542 nodes for policy tools. The environment - based policy tools, supply - based policy tools, and demand 一 based policy tools accounted for 43. 7%, 36. 5%, and 19. 7%, respectively. There were 464 nodes of stakeholders, and administrative agencies, hospitals, primary health care facilities, children and families, health care workers, and other agencies accounted for 61, 4%, 13. 6%, 3. 7%, 8.0%, 3. 2% and 10. 1%, respectively. Two 一 dimensional analysis revealed that children and families focused on demand 一 based policy tools (16 out of 34 nodes), primary healthcare/hospitals/health care providers focused on supply - based policy tools (20 out of 26, 41 out of 85, and 10 out of 15 nodes), and administrative agencies focused on environmental policy tools (170 out of 351 nodes). Conclusion The continuous launch of childrenJ s health policies indicates that the government ensures the principle of Children First. However, the current policies on the supply of children, s health services, the training of pediatric personnel, and PHC are inadequate. The government should focus on improving the supply of children, s healthcare services, expanding the pediatric workforce, and constructing an integrated service system for children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To summarize the key elements and shortcomings of relevant policies in the field of mental health in China, so as to provide reference for the formulation and improvement of follow-up policies in the field of mental health in China. Methods Using NVivollPlus software and content analysis method, a two-dimensional analysis framework of "policy tool-policy object" was constructed to quantitatively analyze 141 relevant policy texts in the field of mental health at the national level from 1999 to 2023 in China. Results China has paid growing attention to mental health, and the National Health Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs were the core departments of policy formulation. The internal structure of supply-oriented policy tools was out of balance, and the application of environmental policy tools was insufficient. Demand-based policy tools were the least used, accounting for 49.96%, 28.36%, and 21.68%, respectively. The policy object was concentrated in the whole system, health system, and education system, accounting for 32.81%, 24.59%, and 21.94%, respectively. Conclusion It is suggested that the policy design balance the structure of policy tools, increase the supply of resources, apply strategies and measures, strengthen mental health education and promotion, strengthen community grass-roots mental health services, and standardize the development of social mental health service institutions so as to improve mental health and mental hygiene policy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper systematically measures the per capita grey water footprint in 31 provinces in the mainland of China during 2000- 2014. Capital and labor factors which are most critical in production factors are first introduced into the research about driving effect of per capita grey water footprint, besides, traditional environmental efficiency factors and technical efficiency factors are coupled. Subsequently, the driving effect of the above factors on per capita grey water footprint is analyzed synthetically by using the extended Kaya identity and LMDI model. The results show that: 1) Nationwide, the biggest reduction of per capita grey water footprint comes from technical efficiency effect, the reduction effect of capital output has been improved in recent years, and the most increment effect is from capital deepening (the annual average value exceeds 52.29 m3 per capita). 2) The spatial distributions of the technical efficiency effect, the capital output effect and the capital deepening effect are all high in the northwest and low in the southeast; environmental efficiency and technical efficiency have greater decrement effect on the per capita grey water footprint in Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong, and technological efficiency and capital output are more favorable for the reduction of per capita grey water footprint in other provinces; in addition, capital deepening can lead to significant increase in per capita grey water footprint in all provinces, and it causes the increment over 400 m3 per capita in Tibet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are the spatial carriers of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin’s nine provinces（regions). With the help of eco-efficiency, we can reveal the coordinated development of ecology and economy. In the existing studies, urban eco-efficiency is usually measured under the same external conditions, but little consideration is given to the differences of cities. By constructing a three-stage super-efficiency SBM model after excluding external environmental factors, this paper calculated the ecological efficiency of 57 cities in nine provinces（regions） of the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2019, and further analyzed the spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics of urban ecological efficiency in nine provinces（regions） of the Yellow River. The results show that compared with the traditional super-efficiency SBM model, the three-stage super-efficiency SBM model is more reasonable. After excluding the influence of environmental variables such as income level, industrial structure, environmental policy and foreign direct investment, the urban eco-efficiency of nine provinces（regions） in the Yellow River Basin decreases slightly. In terms of time evolution characteristics, the eco-efficiency value of most cities in the nine provinces（regions） of the Yellow River Basin shows a fluctuating downward trend, and the eco-efficiency of cities in the upper reaches decreases significantly. In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, most cities in the nine provinces（regions） of the Yellow River Basin are concentrated in low eco-efficiency areas, showing an alternating spatial distribution trend of “low-high-low-high” from west to east. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to better participate in the Arctic environmental governance and enhance the status in the environmental governance system, the indigenous peoples in Arctic area are committed to emphasizing the value of the indigenous knowledge through knowledge supply, so as to obtain intellectual power. The indigenous knowledge supply is based on the organizational basis including indigenous organizations, the Arctic Council and relevant research institutions, as well as the institutional basis of the "Ottawa Traditional Knowledge Principles". Indigenous knowledge plays an important role in providing raw data, improving the knowledge system, building regional consensus and helping the indigenous self-determination process. However, due to factors such as the Arctic environmental governance mechanism, the stability of the Arctic region, the fragmentation of the relationship between indigenous knowledge supply and Arctic environmental policy formulation, and the differences in values and research methods between indigenous peoples and the Western world, the process of knowledge supply for Arctic indigenous peoples is relatively slow. Knowledge collaborative production under the guidance of indigenous knowledge holders can break through the limitations of indigenous knowledge supply and is an effective way to improve indigenous knowledge supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an important measure for China􀆳s pollution control, the environmental protection tax gives each provincial government the right to independently determine and adjust the specific applicable tax amount of pollutants within the specified scope. Studying the emission reduction effects of environmental protection tax from the perspective of increasing the applicable tax amount of pollutants has important theoretical value for the next step of adjusting pollution control measures. Using the panel data from 248 prefecture-level cit⁃ ies from 2015 to 2020, this study took the increase in the applicable tax amount of environmental protection tax in some provinces in 2018 as an external policy impact, and used the difference-in-differences method to empirically analyze the emission reduction effects of the Environmental Protection Tax Law on increasing the applicable tax amount of pollutant discharge. The study also analyzed the heterogeneity of foreign investment scale, regional location, and applicable tax increase between cities. The results showed that: ① In⁃ creasing the applicable tax amount of pollutants could significantly reduce pollutant emissions, the regression results of the DID model showed that the applicable tax on SO2 significantly reduced industrial SO2 emissions by 16.8% for each increase in SO2. The above re⁃ sults passed the robustness test. ② Heterogeneity analysis showed that the emission reduction effects were obvious in the central re⁃ gion, but those in the eastern and western regions were not significant. The scale of foreign investment was positively correlated with the emission reduction effects, and cities with a higher level of foreign investment were more affected by the policy, which could reduce pol⁃ lutant emissions by about 0.2% relative to the average. The pollution effects of the lower level of foreign investment were lower and the emission reduction effect of the policy was not significant. ③ Further research showed that the emission reduction effects of the applica⁃ ble tax amount increase of SO2 between 25% and 100% higher than the standard were better than the emission reduction effects of a more than 100% increase. However, it was not the higher the better for the applicable tax amount increase; better emissions reduction effects could be achieved by being maintained within a reasonable range. Based on the above research conclusions, it is proposed to im⁃ plement a regional coordinated environmental regulation policy, that is, the central and local governments negotiate to adjust the local environmental protection tax pollutant collection standards and increase the applicable tax amount of pollutants within an appropriate range. Furthermore, the range of the applicable tax amount of pollutants should not exceed 100%, and the quality level of foreign invest⁃ ment should be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to explore the impact of governmental low-carbon environmental policy on manufacturing/remanufacturing technology choice and to promote resources recycling and reusing, an automotive parts manufacturing/ remanufacturing system dynamics model of technology choice with the consideration of government incenting low carbon policy like carbon tax and subsidies is built. Based on simulation analysis of carbon tax and subsidies scenarios, we find that it is necessary to strengthen the government environmental policy enforcement to guide and promote the auto parts companies to choose low-carbon remanufacturing technology and to promote the development of China's automobile manufacturing industry. Among them, the combination of carbon taxes and subsidies policy may be a good policy to lead enterprises to choose remanufacturing. But the remanufacturing industry in China is just at the preliminary stage, the government need to strengthen environment conservation education and to standardize the recycling market in order to speed up the healthy development of Chinese auto parts remanufacturing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of pilot zones for green finance reform and innovation (PZGFRI) is one of the important green finance policies in China and also an important means to achieve the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality. To further study the improvement effects of the PZGFRI on air quality, this study selected near-ground ozone concentration as the research object and empirically analyzed the impact of the PZGFRI on urban near-ground ozone pollution using the panel data of 215 cities in China from 2014 to 2019 by using the differential method and the synthetic control method. It further explored the moderating effect of foreign direct investment and financial development level and carried out robustness test by using event study, the placebo test, substitution of explained variables, control of other environmental policies, and quarterly data. The conclusions were as follows: ① During the sample period, the PZGFRI significantly reduced near-ground ozone pollution. There was heterogeneity in the impact of the PZGFRI in different geographical regions on near-ground ozone pollution. ② In the samples from the national level and the eastern region, foreign direct investment itself did not directly cause a significant‘ Pollution Heaven’ effect, but the increase of foreign direct investment was not conducive to the control of ozone pollution in the PZGFRI and indirectly caused the‘ Pollution Heaven’ effect. However, in the central and western regions, the increase of foreign direct investment was conducive to promoting the control of ozone pollution in the PZGFRI, which indirectly brought about the‘ Pollution Halo’ effect. ③ In the samples from the national level and the eastern region, the financial development level had no significant impact on ozone pollution itself, but the PZGFRI had a better effect on controlling ozone pollution in cities with a higher financial development level, i.e., the improvement of financial development level had strengthened the control effect of the PZGFRI on ozone pollution. However, in the central and western regions, the improvement in the financial development level did not significantly enhance the ozone pollution control effect of the PZGFRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China' s goal of achieving peak carbon emissions by 2030 is the fundamental foundation for its scheduled achievement of carbon neutrality by 2060. Taking 280 prefectural-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019 as the research object and the achievement of the carbon peak goal by 2030 as the rigid constraint, this study proposed the logic of 'symbiosis-co-governance-sharing' and focused on the characteristics of symbiosis on carbon emissions and air pollution. On the basis of the quantitative decomposition of the annual goal of reaching peak carbon emissions and the identification of the profit and loss deviation on both carbon emissions and air pollution, this study examined the co-governance synergistic effects of carbon and air pollution and the sharing paths. The results showed that: (1) The goal of reaching peak carbon emissions played a significant synergistic role in reducing pollution and carbon emissions, which could promote the development of cities from deviation to balance and optimization and promote the urban function of making ' bad to good, good to better, and better to best, (2) The synergistic effects of the carbon peak goal on reducing pollution and carbon emissions showed a significant heterogeneous selection effect. In China' s western cities, resource-based cities, environmental protection key cities, and first-mover cities, these effects played a more important role and had a stronger influence. (3) The sharing paths of the synergistic effects lay in the dual perspectives of 'internal' and 'external' source management-process control-end-of-pipe blocking and the dynamic matching of external environmental policy uncertainty. In the continuous promotion of the ' dual carbon' goals, close attention should be paid to carbon reduction and the optimization of the design of multiple sharing paths to enhance the synergistic effects of carbon and pollution reduction. In specific, we should: (1) strengthen source management, control total fossil energy consumption at the source, adjust industrial structure, and focus on energy saving and consumption reduction; (2) strictly control process management, investigate the pollution transfer phenomenon caused by differences in environmental regulation levels and the consequences of profit and loss deviation, and promote the construction of green transportation system through multi-wheel drive; (3) highlight end-of-pipe blocking, implement the whole process of governance, monitoring, and emission reduction, enhance green innovation and fully utilize carbon reduction and sink increase; (4) use dynamic adjustment to achieve internal and external matching and timely implement environmental policies according to local conditions so as to achieve adjustment and precise regulations on time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasonable risk-taking is an important prerequisite for corporate green transformation. How environmental regulation policies affect corporate risk-taking is an issue worthy of discussion under the background of the development of economic and social green transformation. Based on a theoretical analysis of the effects of environmental regulations, this study used the data of China’ s A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2019 to empirically test the impact of environmental regulation policies on corporate risk-taking. The study found that: ① The strengthening of environmental regulations would significantly increase the level of corporate risk-taking. ② The mechanism test found that both the ‘dynamic effect’ of environmental regulations promoting technological progress and market competition efficiency and the ‘pressure effect’ aggravating enterprises’ production costs and the degree of enterprises’ shadow banking activities would lead to a rise in the level of corporate risk-taking. ③ The regional innovation environment and the cost transfer ability of enterprises significantly affected the policy effect of environmental regulations on improving corporate risk-taking. ④ Further re⁃ search showed that environmental regulations promoted corporate risk-taking, reduced the environmental performance of enterprises, and improved the default risk of enterprises, indicating that the negative effect brought by ‘pressure effect’ occupied a dominant position. This study has not only enriched the research on the effects of environmental regulation policies, but also expanded the research horizons of factors affecting corporate risk-taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As urban agglomerations have become the main spatial organization form in China, it is of great significance to carry out environmental cooperative governance based on urban agglomerations. Research on the interaction of environmental regulation enforcement among cities can provide a new explanation for the competition and cooperation in terms of pollution control in urban agglomerations. This article selected three types of environmental regulation policy tools: market-incentive, command-and-control, and their combinations, and analyzed the interaction pattern of environmental regulations based on the theoretical mechanism derivation and the two zone spatial Durbin model by using the panel data of 103 cities in China. Then, the SLX model was used to explore the impact of the interaction of environmental regulations on the cooperative governance of pollution in five urban agglomerations. The results showed that the market-incentive environmental regulation was not fully implemented, which meant that some cities adopted a 'race to the bottom' strategy in response of the competition with their neighbors. After combining market-incentive environmental regulation with command and-control environmental regulation, the pattern of environmental regulation interaction between cities changed from ' race to the bottom' to 'race to the top'. This interactive characteristic was particularly significant in the Yangtze River Delta and the Chengdu Chongqing urban agglomerations. However, the 'racing to the top' characteristic of these two urban agglomerations had different effects on the intercity environmental cooperation: there was a synergy effect caused by strong spillover effect of environmental regulation implementation in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration rather than in the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming al offering more profound and clear understanding of product environmental footprint ( PEF) for scholars, PEF main content was concluded from its meaning and implementation steps, by collecting PEF relative information, reading and referring to the literature and guide. Then, the relationship with EU environmental policy was analyzed. Product environmental sign and organisational environmental footprint (OEF) were also introduced. Meanwhile, considering the effects to Chinese export trade, some measures were suggested. The results indicate that most content of PEF is the same with life cycle assessment (LCA) , but PEF is more clearly and detailed, with strict requirements, offering a more uniform implementation standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to promote the integration of industry and education policy system to better assist the development of integration of industry and education in Anhui Province, a two-dimensional analysis framework has been established based on the use of policy tools and the perspective of resource supply. Regarding the policy documents that encourage enterprises to participate in vocational education, the coding analysis of policy units can find that there is an imbalance in the frequency and focus of the use of policy tools in the process of policy implementation, and the differences in the supply of resources between the government and vocational schools. The suggestions for this are as follows: adjust and control the internal structure of supply-based policy tools, increase and adjust the use of demand-based policy tools, increase the use of environmental policy tools, and adjust resource supply according to the development direction of vocational education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy-consuming right trading system is a market-oriented environmental regulation policy based on source control in China, the implementation of which aims to help the realization of the goal of controlling total energy consumption and energy intensity and to promote green development. Based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2012 to 2019, this article theoretically analyzed the mechanism of the action of the energy-consuming right trading system; applied the multi-period PSM-DID method to empirically test whether the energy-consuming right trading system had achieved win-win development for both the environment and the economy; and tested the robustness of the findings by replacing variable settings, adding control variables, and applying placebo tests. In addition, the short-term and long-term impact paths of the environmental and economic effects of the energy-consuming right trading system are theoretically analyzed and empirically tested respectively. The findings were as follows: (1) The implementation of the energy-consuming right trading system effectively reduced the total emission and emission intensity of energy pollutants and realized positive benefit for the environment. Besides, the reduction in emission intensity was more significant. (2) The energy-consuming right trading system not only increased the quantity of economic development, but also pulled up the economic growth rate, thus realizing a positive benefit to the economy. (3) The results of the dynamic effect analysis showed that the energy-consuming right trading system did not have a persistent effect on the total amount and intensity of pollution emissions. But it had a more significant and persistent effect on the rate and level of economic development. (4) Since the energy-consuming right trading system was in the early pilot stage, it mainly achieved environmental and economic dividends through the short-term path of improving energy efficiency and not the long-term path of industrial structure upgrading or energy structure adjustment. Based on this, we should further build and improve the energy-consuming right trading market and improve the design of the system to ensure standardization, convenience, and transparency during the operation and enhance the degree of marketization. It is also of great importance to accelerate the development of new energy, new technologies, and new industries to promote green transformation and decarbonization in the energy industry. Furthermore, we should build a comprehensive and coordinated environmental policy system by promoting the coordinated implementation of the energy-consuming right trading system with other environmental regulation policies based on emission control, realizing the benefits of ' 1 + 1 >2.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Purpose/Significance] In the digital age, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies based on intelligent algorithms have a huge impact on people's lives, and one representative technology is deepfake technology. It is a derivative technology that appears naturally in the development of AI technology, and is mainly used in speech synthesis, AI face changing, etc. However, the abuse of deepfake technologies has caused varying degrees of threat to national security, social and public security, and privacy and reputation. Therefore, it is necessary for the government to formulate policies to guide the behavior of deepfake technology subjects. [Method/Process] Through online research, it is found that the United States and the European Union have paid much attention to the alienation of deepfake technology, and have formulated a series of policies to govern it. Therefore, the deepfake technology policies of the United States and the European Union were selected as the research object. This paper adopts the "X-Y" two-dimensional analysis framework to analyze the deepfake policy text. The X dimension is the basic policy tool, and the Y dimension is the perspective of how to deal with technology alienation. Finally, a comprehensive analysis of the two was carried out, that is, the application of policy tools in dealing with technology alienation is studied. This paper uses Nvivo12 to complete the coding of policy tools, codes the policy terms one by one according to the selected policy tool types, and then analyzes the coding results and draws conclusions. [Results/Conclusions] The deepfake technology policies of the United States and the European Union have certain characteristics in content, such as focusing on environmental policy tools, paying more attention to the governance of technology, individuals and organizations, and focusing on the publicity and education of technology ethics. But in general, it is based on its existing system to increase the governance of the alienation phenomenon of deepfake technology, so as to strengthen the mutual promotion and integration of new policies and old policies. For China, the governance of deepfake technology alienation should be started as soon as possible. Specific measures include formulating deepfake technology alienation governance plans, promoting government-led deepfake technology innovation practices, realizing the combination of technology ethics and policy tools, actively participating in international governance of deepfake technology alienation. In addition, this paper takes the deepfake technology policies of the United States and the European Union as an example, which has certain limitations, so in the future research, we will expand the selection of samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green credit policies are effective tools to promote green and low-carbon transitions, but green credit limits the commercial bank credit lines of high-polluting industries, which are an important part of the local industrial economy. Therefore, green credit poli⁃ cies will cause local governments to resort to industrial trade-offs between economic development and environmental policy require⁃ ments in the implementation of environmental regulations, which could influence the development of green credit. Under the back⁃ ground of the implementation of green credit policies, this article firstly used the evolutionary game model to analyze the impact of local government environmental regulation intensity on the development of green credit by analyzing the game between local governments and highly polluting enterprises. Secondly, based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2007 to 2019, this article empirically examined the impact of environmental regulation intensity on the development of green credit. Finally, the influencing mechanisms and regional heterogeneity were discussed. The results showed that: ① There was a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between local government environmental regulation and green credit development. Among them, public supervision had a certain moderating effect. ② Corporate environmental information disclosure, financing constraints, government subsidies, and tax levels were the main influencing mechanisms. ③ Further heterogeneity test results showed that environmental regulation could not effectively improve the development of green credit when the region was dominated by energy-intensive industries, and the impact of environmental regulation on the development of green credit was more significant in the eastern region than in the central and western regions. The results also showed that in order to further promote the development of green credit, the intensity of local government environmental regulation should be appropriately strengthened and the leading role of government-oriented policies in green finance should be further enhanced. It is suggest⁃ ed that we should improve public environmental awareness and promote the positive moderating effect of public supervision on environ⁃ mental regulation in the process of green credit; enhance corporate social responsibility awareness; strengthen corporate environmental information disclosure; increase the degree of financing constraints of financial institutions on high-polluting enterprises; and accelerate the green transformation and upgrading of high-polluting enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of achieving the 'dual carbon' goals of peaking carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, meeting emission reduction targets while ensuring stable economic growth is the economic development model China is seeking now. Therefore, exploring the mechanism of environmental regulation in China's economic growth, especially on technological progress, will help to analyze the mechanism of environmental policy on sustainable economic development. In this article, we used the SBM model to measure the green total factor productivity in the subdivided industries of the manufacturing industry in China from 2003 to 2018, and decomposed technological progress to examine the factor preference characteristics of biased technological progress, and finally used a panel regression model to empirically test the mechanism of environmental regulations on green total factor productivity and technological progress and their decomposition terms. The results showed that: 1 Green total factor productivity in China's manufacturing industry was generally increasing year by year, and technological progress was the main source of its growth. Environmental regulation showed an inverted U shaped relationship with green total factor productivity and technological progress, and the intensity of regulation was currently on the left side of the inflection point, and the increase in environmental regulation intensity helped to promote the growth of green total factor productivity and technological progress in China's manufacturing industry. 2 From the internal influence mechanism of technological progress, the results of biased technological progress factor preferences showed that the characteristics of input-biased technological progress factor preferences changed with the stage of economic development, and output-biased technological progress was more biased toward CO2 output, but it showed an improving trend year by year. The effects of environmental regulations on input-biased technological progress, output-biased technological progress, and scale technological progress were all significant, and the increase in the intensity of environmental regulations helped to enhance input-biased technological progress and reduce output-biased technological progress so as to save the input of production factors and reduce CO2 output. 3 The degree of opening to the outside world, capital intensity, and government subsidies all had positive effects on green total factor productivity and technological progress, and strengthening these factors could help to improve the economic development of the manufacturing industry. The study found that current technological progress had a certain 'carbon lock-in' effect on carbon emissions, and environmental regulations were not effective in reducing coal use. By measuring the current situation of China's manufacturing economy and the effect of environmental regulations, this study provides theoretical support for promoting China's green and high-quality economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous increase in the number of elderly care service policies issued, the policy system has become more and more complex, resulting in negative incentives, misalignment and waste for the resources supply driven by policies. Therefore, based on the background of chaotic supply of elderly care service resources, this article summarizes the fundamental problems of elderly care service policies. Then, this article divides the policy into two parts of policy objectives and policy instruments. Policy objectives include service promotion, standard establishment, platform construction, and product research, and policy instruments include demand policy, supply policy, and environmental policy. This article measures the comprehensiveness, consistency and balance of the policy mix, to characterize the interactions between different policies and the correlation of indicators within policies. Finally, it constructs an econometric model to analyze the impact of policy mix on supply of elderly care service resources. The results show that there is a certain synergy between the policy mix and the supply of elderly service resources. The supply of elderly care service resources is greatly affected by policy mix, so scientific and reasonable policy mix is conducive to improving the effect of the supply of elderly care service resources. The future policy design of elderly care services should improve the comprehensiveness and consistency, balance the policy objectives of elderly care services, improve the coordination of policy instruments, and pay attention to the demand policy to drive the supply of elderly care service resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts the general mode of environmental policy analysis to make a preliminary design of the carbon emission control policy based on the targets of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. In the process of achieving the 'carbon emissions peak' target, the sources of carbon emissions are mainly to ensure the use of more advanced existing technologies and control carbon emissions by im⁃ proving energy efficiency. The most advanced technologies need to be adopted to reduce carbon emissions before new emission sources are allowed to enter the market. In the process of achieving 'carbon neutrality', the renewable energy industry gradually matures and begins to replace fossil energy on a large scale. The reduction of carbon emissions from fossil fuel sources must continue as long as the cost of carbon reduction remains lower than the cost of renewable energy. The basic policies for air pollutant emission control are tech⁃ nology-based emission standards and a fixed source discharge permit system. The formulation of carbon emission performance stan⁃ dards by different industries is feasible, but this measurement is inadequate for realizing the targets of carbon emission reduction. The inclusion of carbon emissions in the pollutant categories of emission permits is necessary. In the management of greenhouse gases, in⁃ cluding carbon dioxide, the temporal and spatial differentiation of traditional air pollutants can be ignored entirely. The reduction of car⁃ bon emissions is a national-scale policy, and there is no need to divide the national-scale target into smaller regional targets. Instead, specific emission reduction goals must be formulated based on the characteristics of specific industries. The contribution of the carbon emission sources itself may not be the most important in terms of emission reduction, but the main goal should be the provision of moti⁃ vation and funds for the country' s energy transition while reducing carbon emissions. The carbon tax policy has the natural advantage of achieving these targets. In addition, the carbon emission trading policy is also essential because it will stimulate businesses to develop advanced technologies and further reduce emissions. Therefore, the simultaneous implementation of these two policies is recommended, meaning that enterprises choosing the carbon emission trading policy can be exempt from the carbon tax policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a typical meteorological disaster, drought has made serious impacts on human being. Especially during the recent decades, the frequency of drought has increased along with climate change. Researches on the change in the drought occurrence and its impacts will become more important to reduce the negative impacts of climate change. In this study, the agricultural region of Shan-Gan-Ning region, which was located in the eastern part of the Northwestern China and belonged to arid and semi-arid region, was chosen as the study area due to its vulnerability to climate change. Spring wheat and winter wheat were 2 main crops in this region and selected as the research crops. The trends in agricultural drought and its impact of crop yield were analyzed by drought index and crop growth simulation. Palmer drought severity index (PDSI), was used to analyze the change of agricultural drought in different periods and regions. It was based on the water balance in soil and considered the previous soil moisture, which had been widely used to analyze the temporal and spatial distribution of agricultural drought. The trends of precipitation, temperature and PDSI in different months from 1961 to 2010 were investigated. Then the impact of drought on crop growth of wheat was analyzed by the crop growth simulation. Crop growth model, which was built based on the crop growth mechanism, could simulate the change of soil water deficit and crop growth in a long period. It had become an important method to the research on the impact of climate change on the crop yield. The crop growth under rainfed and efficient irrigation scenarios was simulated by the environmental policy integrated climate (EPIC) model. The crop yield under the efficient irrigation scenario could eliminate the negative impact of water deficit and reflect the impact of local condition on crop growth such as solar radiation and temperature. The rainfed condition showed the synthesized effect of local condition. The crop yield gap between those 2 scenarios was recognized as the impact of water deficit by lower precipitation. Over the past 50 years, it showed a significant increasing trend in temperature in this region, especially in January and February. There were significant decreasing trend in the precipitation in April, July and September. Increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation would result in more serious water deficit condition. PDSI had a significant decreasing trend in the eastern part of Northwest China in 1961-2010. The number of months with severe drought (PDSI was less than -3.0) showed a significant increasing trend. Both of them indicated that drought had become more severe and more frequent. Especially in April, July and September, PDSI was much less than before because of the decreasing trend of precipitation in these months. Since many important crop growth stages were in those months, drought during this period would have more serious impact on the crop yield. Those stations that were distributed in the central part of this region had a larger negative trend in PDSI, because of the more reduction in precipitation. Based on the crop growth simulation, almost all the stations had an increasing trend on crop yield reduction caused by water deficit over the past 50 years. The situations in the central part of study area, especially for the northwestern stations in winter wheat growth region, had larger change range in the yield reduction. All of those stations had more serious water deficit condition because of the decreasing trend in precipitation, especially in April, which was jointing and heading stage and key to crop growth. The PDSI in those stations also had decreasing trend. The central parts of the study region should be more concerned by the agriculture and water resource managers, especially in April, July and September. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation is the key to achieving a win-win situation between economic growth and environmental pollution control. Informal environmental regulation, represented by ENGOs, is playing an increasingly important role. This article used the 'Pollution Information Transparency Index' (PITI) of 113 cities in 2008, jointly published by two ENGOs (IPE and NRDC), as a quasi-natural experiment, and evaluated the 'net effect' of green innovation of informal environmental regulation by the identification methods of DID and DID-PSM. The main research conclusions were as follows: (1) Informal environmental regulation did induce urban green innovation. After passing a series of parallel trend tests, DID-PSM regression tests and placebo tests, the results were still robust. (2) From the perspective of regional heterogeneity, it was concluded that more attention was paid to informal environmental regulation in the eastern and western regions, which responded more positively to the release of PITI, while the central region received less impact. From the perspective of time trend, the green innovation effect induced by informal environmental regulation was the strongest in the first year of policy implementation, and then showed a trend of weakening year by year. (3) The green innovation effect of informal environmental regulation was more obvious in cities with higher level of government environmental information disclosure. In addition, the information diffusion level of cities also affected the green innovation effect to a certain extent. In comparison with the level of urban information diffusion, the green innovation effect of informal environmental regulation was more significantly affected by the level of environmental information disclosure. (4) After eliminating a series of other environmental policy shocks that were likely to affect urban green innovation activities, such as carbon emissions trading pilots in the same period, carbon emissions trading pilots in five provinces and eight cities, and sulfur dioxide emissions trading pilots, the green innovation of informal environmental regulation still existed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, local governments have caused controversy for their failure in environmental governance. In this regard, the academic community has made theoretical explanations from various perspectives such as fiscal federalism, local government corporatization, decentralization and authoritarianism, and political promotion championships. However, these theories are limited by the 'political market imagination' of the state; they fail to fully and accurately understand the environmental governance behaviors of local governments, and also fail to give a satisfactory answer to the coexistence of selective implementation and innovative governance of local governments. Based on the analysis framework of 'value concept-system structure-behavior choice', this paper explains the dual action logic of legitimacy pursuit and profit-seeking tendency of local governments' environmental governance from three aspects; the construction of ecological state strategy under the pursuit of legitimacy, the conflict of local governments' attribute under super large governance and the balance of local governments' decision-making under the distribution of attention. It is found that under the background of the central governments' continuous strengthening of ecological civilization construction and the growing public environmental demand, local governments will respond to the environmental policy of the central government and the public's environmental demand in an open area for the sake of legitimacy, but under the influence of profit-seeking tendency, local governments will try their best to promote their own interests, and at an implicit level, they will take strategic operations, such as textual-style environmental governance, deformed-style environmental governance, campaign-style environmental governance, and prototype-style environmental governance, to resolve the internal conflicts and tensions between the legitimacy pursuit and the profit-seeking tendency. In the face of the strategic operations of local government environmental governance, it is necessary to further promote the compilation of environmental codes and the environmental rights into the Constitution, cultivate the 'people-centered' sense of responsibility and the moral emotion of treating nature well, scientifically divide the administrative power among different levels of government and design a scientific performance evaluation mechanism, as well as strengthening the motivation of local governments in the pursuit of legitimacy by strengthening environmental supervision and natural resources assets accountability, so as to encourage local governments to fulfill the responsibility of environmental governance with sound environmental law enforcement, healthy environmental morality and reasonable allocation of financial relationship between resources and responsibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limiting pollutant emissions and improving the environment quality to build a green and modern country has been a long-term goal of China's sustainable development. The environmental regulation intensity will also be strengthened as time goes. Comprehensively evaluating the effects of the improvement of environmental regulation intensity on FDI will provide a reference for the formulation of future policies. As there are differences between the effects of 'pollution total control' and 'pollution equivalent control', this paper took the data of Chinese cities of 1995-2017 as a sample, used the quasi natural experiment of the adjustment policy of SO2 sewage charge collection standard, and adopted the DID, PSM and nonlinear estimation methods to explore the effects of 'pollution equivalent control' environmental regulation represented by this policy on FDI location choice. Result of this study showed that the adjustment policy of SO2 sewage charge collection standard implemented in all provinces since 2007 had obvious inhibitory effects for the entry of FDI in regions, and the conclusion passed a robustness test. It demonstrated that the effects of China's environmental regulation intensity on FDI were mainly 'pollution havens effects'. According to a regional heterogeneity analysis, the inhibitory effects of this policy on northern cities are stronger than those on southern cities. In addition, the result of nonlinear estimation suggested that during the implementation of the policy and with the strengthening of SO2 sewage charge collection, the impact of the adjustment policy of SO2 sewage charge collection standard on FDI demonstrated a U shape, indicating that the impact of China's environmental regulation intensity on FDI had multiple effects and influence channels. To explore it, this study used China Industrial Business Performance Data of 1998 -2012, and carried out a mechanism analysis with the DDD and other methods. The study showed that this policy had inhibitory effects on FDI of SO2 high-polluting industries, and had promotion effects on FDI of high-tech industries. It also had inhibitory effects on FDI of non-SO2 high-polluting and non-high-tech industries, but the effects were less significant than those on FDI of SO2 high-polluting industries. Given the above views, 'pollution havens effects' and 'pollution halo effects' can both work in China, but there are differences among their applicable objects. These findings will provide some references for China's environmental policy formulation in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

【Objective】 The present paper aimed to study the spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors of high-standard farmland in Xinjiang, in order to provide decision-making basis and data support for the construction of high-standard farmland in Xinjiang in the future.【Method】 In the study, GIS spatial analysis technology, nuclear density analysis and geographic detector were used to study the spatial differentiation and influencing factors of high-standard farmland in Xinjiang. 【Results】(i) Through the spatial analysis of nuclear density, it was found that the high-standard farmland in Xinjiang was obviously clustered spatially, and there were two significant high-density agglomeration areas in northern and southern Xinjiang, with Tacheng area and Changji Prefecture as the ‘polar core’ in northern Xinjiang, and Aksu area and Kashgar area as ‘polar core’ in southern Xinjiang.(ii) From the perspective of the distribution of construction potential, counties and cities with high construction potential were mainly distributed in the western prefectures of Xinjiang division, and counties and cities with low construction potential were mainly distributed in the eastern prefectures of Xinjiang zoning. The counties and cities with lower construction potential in southern Xinjiang were the most distributed, and the research units in the higher construction potential area had no obvious concentration in space, and the research units in the high construction potential area were mainly distributed in the Tacheng area and Aksu area in northern Xinjiang and the Aksu region and Kashgar area in southern Xinjiang. The counties with high construction potential were mainly distributed in the left prefecture of Xinjiang division, and the counties with low construction potential were mainly distributed in the right prefecture of Xinjiang division.(iii) At the county scale, policy factors had a greater impact on the scale of high-standard farmland construction, and the core interaction factors of each district were related to policy factors; At the plaque scale, it was significantly affected by socioeconomic factors, and the core interaction factors were all related to socioeconomic factors and traffic location factors. The interaction detection results mainly included two interaction types: Nonlinear enhancement and two-factor enhancement, and each influence factor had obvious interaction enhancement effect on the construction scale of high-standard farmland under different partitions. 【Conclusion】 The spatial accumulation of high-standard farmland in Xinjiang is obvious, and natural environmental factors and policy regulatory factors are the main driving factors affecting the construction scale of high-standard farmland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the strategic background of implementing the new development concept, there is an important question to be answered about whether the' responsibility to people' water pollution control policy can promote corporate green innovation while improving the environment. Based on the panel data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2019, this paper empirically tested the impact of the implementation of the river chief system on corporate green innovation using the multi-period DID method. This research concluded that the river chief system could significantly improve corporate green innovation. After a series of necessary tests, such as the parallel trend test and placebo test, the conclusion remained robust. The mechanism analysis showed that the policy effect of the river chief system was mainly realized through two channels, namely, internal incentive and external pressure, and that the effect of external pressure was stronger than that of internal incentive. Further research showed that the governance power of local river chiefs had a lax effect at the boundaries of prefecture-level cities, and the promotion incentives of officials also affected the policy effect to a certain extent. More importantly, under the policy background of the river chief system, local officials were more active in water pollution control and could also monitor enterprises far away from the rivers. In addition, the results of the heterogeneity analysis showed that: ① Compared with small enterprises, large enterprises received more attention from policymakers, and the river chief system had a stronger regulatory impact on large enterprises, whose green innovation level had a more significant improvement. ② Compared with private enterprises, state-owned enterprises responded more positively to the river chief system policy, and the green innovation output stimulated by the policy was higher. ③ Compared with other industries, enterprises in the water pollution industry were less affected by the river chief system policy. This paper found that these enterprises mainly dealt with environmental governance pressure by reducing production rather than focusing on green innovation. This study provides a policy basis for implementing the environmental regulation policy of' responsibility to people' and for realizing the dual goals of environmental protection and economic development. It also provides theoretical support and practical inspiration for the refined implementation of environmental regulation policies from multiple perspectives, such as internal incentives, external media supervision, and enterprise heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an essential factor of production in economic development, land is an important tool for local governments to boost economic growth. The goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality will push local governments to change the extensive mode of attracting high energy-consuming and high-pollution enterprises by transferring industrial land at low prices. The lowcarbon city pilot policy is important for China to achieve green and low-carbon economic transformation and sustainable development. This policy will inevitably influence the land transfer behavior of local governments in heavily polluting industries. Based on the panel data of 286 cities from 2007 to 2019, this paper took the low-carbon city pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and used the time-varying difference-in-differences method to empirically study the relationship between the pilot policy and the land transfer behavior of local governments. The results showed that: ① The implementation of the low-carbon city pilot policy significantly reduced the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries. The above conclusions still held after a series of robustness tests. ② The impact of the low-carbon city pilot policy on land transfer in heavily polluting industries was affected by the intensity of environmental regulation of local governments and the tenure of officials. The stronger the intensity of environmental regulation in the pilot city became, the more the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries were reduced. When the tenure of the secretary of the municipal CPC committee in the pilot city was less than or equal to 3 years, the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries were significantly reduced. However, the age of the secretary of the municipal CPC committee had no significant impact on the land transfer in heavily polluting industries. ③ Heterogeneity analysis showed that non-resource-based cities, cities with high levels of economic development, and large cities displayed a higher reduction in the area and number of land transfers in heavily polluting industries. Based on these, this paper puts forward suggestions from three aspects: we should further promote the low-carbon city pilot policy, add environmental objectives to the assessment system of officials to increase the constraints of environmental objectives, and formulate and implement environmental policies in accordance with local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive investigation and analysis of the effects of policies on energy conservation and emission reduction or envi⁃ ronmental regulation have important reference value for the specific implementation of environmental regulation policies. Based on the provincial panel data of China from 2000 to 2019, the present study took the introduction of the Action Plan for Air Pollution Prevention and Control as a quasi-natural experiment and used the DID approach to conduct causal identification. Eight provinces or municipali⁃ ties in the three regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta were selected as the treatment group and the other provinces as the control group. The regional differences in energy mismatch effects of environmental regulation poli⁃ cies were evaluated by comparing the sample areas in the treatment group and the control group. According to the empirical analysis, environmental regulation policies had a significant negative effect on energy mismatch, i.e., the greater the intensity of environmental regulation policies, the stricter the constraints on enterprises, and the higher the internalized cost of enterprises. The continuous im⁃ provement in energy marginal output of 'forced' enterprises made the energy mismatch index higher. Combined with typical facts, it was found that the current environmental regulation policies had a role in promoting the over-distribution of energy mismatch. Specifi⁃ cally, after 2013, when the energy mismatch index in many regions exceeded 1, they did not show a trend of approaching 1, but instead continued to rise at a fast speed. Further research showed that regional differences in environmental regulation policies led to regional differences in energy mismatch effects, which were realized through different levels of implementation intensity of local governments. That is, the stronger the implementation intensity of local governments in accordance with the central environmental regulation require⁃ ments, the higher the energy mismatch index. Finally, based on the research conclusions, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the improvement of environmental regulation policies in the next stage. First, the institutional arrangement of regional differences in en⁃ vironmental regulation policies is a 'double-edged sword'. Although it can make the regions have a target based on their local realities, it is not conducive to the construction of a large unified domestic market. Second, it is suggested that energy market reform be accelerat⁃ ed, that prices play a leading role, and that the role of the market in energy allocation be enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem provides necessary ecological service function through material cycle, energy flow and information transmission, and the change of the ecosystem structure can change the ecosystem process and service function. It is of great significance to study the response process of ecosystem service function to the change of ecosystem structure for the efficient allocation of environmental resources and the rational formulation of environmental policy. In this paper, the change of ecosystem structure and service function in Fuping Basin of the Daqinghe River in recent 30 years was studied by using remote sensing images. The results showed that: 1) The ecosystem structure in the study area changed obviously during 1985- 2015. Construction land, forest land, cultivated land and water area increased 139.57% , 90.66%, 68.79% and 6.55% respectively. Unused land and grassland decreased -83.48% and - 54.92%, respectively. The increase in forest land was mainly at the cost of grassland and unused land that 622.67 km2 of grassland and 431.45 km2 of unused land were turned into forest land, the transfer rates being 28.8% and 18.22% , respectively. The expansion of cultivated land was mainly at the cost of unused land and grassland that 1 063.50 km2 of unused land and 831.41 km2 of grassland were turned into cultivated land. Construction land was mostly transferred from cultivated land and unused land that 441.91 km2 of cultivated land and 259.51 km2 of unused land were turned into construction land. Over the 30 years, unused land mainly turned into cultivated land and forest land. 2) The value of ecosystem services in the study area in 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 was 44.29×108, 44.62×108, 44.65×108, 58.08×108, 51.71×108, 53.22×108, 52.72×108 yuan respectively. The highest value was in 2000. Forest land contributed the largest amount of the ecosystem value in the study area, followed by cultivated land and grassland. As for the value of single ecosystem service, soil formation and protection had the largest contribution rate, followed by biodiversity maintenance, gas regulation and climate regulation. 3) The increase of service value in the study area was due to the conversion of the grassland to woodland and the unused land to woodland. The loss of the service value was due to the conversion of the cultivated land to the construction land and the loss of forest land into cultivated land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the concept that environmental monitoring units are treated as a government laboratory extension mechanism, the environmental protection departments should transform their work from site supervision and administration and graduaHy into on-site supervision and regulation of data ; should guide social forces, and promote the social construction of environmental monitoring, environmental monitoring system of government, enterprises, social institutions to participate in the joint. The paper explores to push the operation of government laboratory quality management system into monitoring members, and push the monitor for the government into the form of contract, to regulate the management model in the form of a contract. We have to improve the monitoring station construction, strengthen enterprise self monitoring ability configuration, and standardize social monitoring institutions. They can not only conform to the monitoring of social requirements but also be in accordance with the environmental protection system of " monitoring station mode" to provide environmental services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the impact of environmental regulation, an important measure promoting the construction of ecological civiliza⁃ tion, on green total factor productivity has increasingly become a hot spot. This article attemptd to consider the spatial effect in order to study the nonlinear spatio-temporal impact of investment-oriented environmental regulations dominated by government pollution control on green total factor productivity. Firstly, from the perspective of intra-regional and inter-regional interaction, it revealed the theoretical mechanism of investment-oriented environmental regulations affecting green total factor productivity and examined the characteristic facts of its nonlinear influence relationship. Secondly, based on the goal of green and low-carbon transformation, the non-radial SBM di⁃ rectional distance function method, including outputs such as carbon emissions and PM2.5, was used to measure the provincial-level green total factor productivity from 2001 to 2019 and to decompose the contributions of pure efficiency, technological progress, and scale efficiency. Thirdly, this article selected spatial econometric models based on the Queen adjacency weight matrix and the geograph⁃ ical distance weight matrix to analyze the nonlinear spatio-temporal impact of investment-oriented environmental regulations on green total factor productivity. The multi-threshold model was further used to test the regional impact mechanism of investment environmentaloriented regulation on green total factor productivity. The research results showed that: ① Compared to 2001-2011, the national green total factor productivity growth increased significantly from 2012 to 2019, and the regional gap in green total factor productivity had a narrowing overall trend. ② When considering spatial effects, there was an inverted U-shaped relationship between investment-oriented environmental regulations and green total factor productivity. This degree of influence had temporal and spatial heterogeneity, that is, the degree of inverted U-shaped influence was more prominent during 2001-2011 and in the central and western regions. It showed that the degree of inverted U-shaped influence was related to the effect of technological progress. ③ From the perspective of spatial spillover effects, green total factor productivity had significant spatial correlation characteristics, and investment-oriented environmen⁃ tal regulations at the national level had a significant positive spatial spillover effects on green total factor productivity. The spatial spill⁃ over effects of different periods and regions were heterogeneous. ④ When the energy consumption per unit GDP met a certain threshold condition, the improvement of investment-oriented environmental regulation could have a positive effect on green total factor productivi⁃ ty. Finally, countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from the aspects of comprehensive environmental regulation tools, con⁃ struction of regionally coordinated and efficient environmental regulation policies, exploration of cross-regional ecological compensation mechanisms, strengthening green technology transformation, and adjusting industrial structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to expound the present situation and the potential risk of soil cadmium (Cd) in Guangxi, the paper collected and analyzed literatures about soil Cd in Guangxi which were published in recent 20 years. Based on the uniform criteria, 60 references were selected involving more than 30 areas in Guangxi, 7 090 samples. The paper summarized the distribution of soil Cd content distribution and the situation of soil Cd content exceeding the standard in Guangxi, so as to provide reference for relevant research, environmental policy making and environmental management. Results show that the soil Cd content in Guanxi ranges 0.040-244.1 mg·kg-1, with arithmetic mean and geometric mean 12.23 and 1.884 mg·kg-1, respectively. There were great differences in soil Cd concentration distribution between different functional areas. The average background soil Cd content in the research area is 0.153 mg·kg-1. The geometric mean of Cd content in agricultural soils and urban soils of non-mining areas were 0.467 and 0.320 mg·kg-1, respectively. The geometric mean of Cd content in the soil of mining area and in agricultural soil of mining area were 7.147 and 6.643 mg·kg-1, which were 46.71 and 43.42 times of the background soil Cd content. The majority of farmland soils are maintained at moderate pollution levels. Soils in several counties such as Nandan, Huanjiang, Jinchengjiang and Daxin were greatly affected by the pollution in mining area. There are areas not involved in the collected literatures. We recommend that control measures should be taken in Nandan, Jinchengjiang, Big Huanjiang, Yangshuo and Diaojiang areas, major investigations should be made in Baise Debao, Pingguo, Tiandong and Tianyang aluminum ore producing areas, and monitors on agricultural soil surrounding the mining area should be done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of uncertainties during resource utilization could perceive the underlying uncertainties in advance, thus conversely improving resources and environmental policy design to avoid risk, so nowadays much attention is paid to the research of uncertainties during resource and environmental management. Land use as a kind of important socio-economic activity also suffers from serious uncertainties, and especially the spatial characteristics make that more complicated. Up to now, many literatures have studied the uncertain quantities optimization of land resource, i.e., uncertain land use structure optimization, however that is not enough. Due to different preferences of land use on spatial units, land use planning demands spatial optimization based on the result of land use structure to guide human activities spatially, the uncertainties continue to propagate on space, and finally the flexible space of land resource spatial optimization is formed, which has important implications for formulating land use policy. This paper studies how to designate the flexible space for land resource spatial optimization under uncertain conditions. Firstly the uncertainties during land use optimization were analyzed systematically from views of population, economic, policy and nature variations, while excluding the uncertainties of spatial parameters, and at the same time the numerical expression of uncertainties was defined as uncertain indices to be dealt with. Secondly based on the comprehensive consideration of existing uncertain variables, the interval number was selected to represent the uncertain indices, which were brought into an interval programming model to obtain the flexible size of land use structure optimization, corresponding to the interval size of maximum objective value, in which only economic benefit was set as pursuit, and ecological and social demands were embodied into the constraints. Since the interval sizes of different land use areas were obtained, it was necessary to allocate them spatially to form the flexible space. Thus thirdly, a spatial optimization method was established, in which fitness and spatial distribution such as compactness and contiguity were considered during allocating land use types to spatial units, because it was considered that the final suitability of certain unit to some land use was affected by the conditions of its neighboring units. For each land use type, corresponding metric was selected to evaluate its fitness to spatial units, and we also regulated the influential rule of core cell to its neighbors on fitness. Combining the 2 sides, this method automatically identified which cell could be changed, until the area of changed cell reached the set threshold. Therefore in this way, the lower and upper limit area of each land use type were allocated on space, generating 2 optimization boundary scenarios, the overlapped part of that was defined as optimized boundary, while different part was supposed as flexible space of spatial optimization for that land use type. Lastly Yangzhou, an eastern China city, was taken as a case to illustrate the application of the flexible space designation approach, also providing reference for management policy making of Yangzhou. We could find that: the emergence of flexible space is due to uncertainties, and flexible space is designated to accommodate uncertainties; flexible space designation can perceive and deal with underlying uncertainties in advance, thus improving the effectiveness of land use policy. This research can provide theoretical basis and technical support for flexible space designation of current Chinese general land use planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in carbon sources and sinks in terrestrial ecosystems are closely related to the evolution of land use / cover change （LUCC）. The mechanisms of land use change on carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems were investigated to provide theoretical references to understand the influence of spatio-temporal evolution patterns on regional carbon stocks. Based on the LUCC data of 1980—2020, the spatio-temporal dynamics of LUCC of the Yili Valley in 2030 were simulated through multi-criteria evaluation（MCE）, cellular automata （CA）, and Markov chain models. InVEST model explored the spatio-temporal evolution pattern of carbon stocks in the Yili Valley terrestrial ecosystem from 1980 to 2030 under the land use change. The results showed that the MCE-CA-Markov model predicted LUCC data set and the actual LUCC in 2000, 2010, and 2020, and their Kappa coefficients were 0.929 1, 0.875 5, and 0.929 7, respectively, indicating that model simulation was highly generalized and could be used to accurately assess the spatio-temporal evolution of carbon stocks in subsequent years; the InVEST model estimated that the total carbon stock of the Yili Valley was 1 114.95 Tg in 1980, and it would show a decreasing trend until 2030, with a cumulative net decrease of 65.9 Tg. The retreat of forest and grassland area was the dominant factor leading to the decrease in carbon stock; and the spatial distribution of carbon stocks in the Yili Valley was generally characterized by a nested distribution of high value areas around low value areas. The high value areas of carbon density were distributed in the southern and northern mountainous forests and grasslands, while the low value areas were concentrated in the central valley plains. Studying the impacts of land use change on the carbon stock of terrestrial ecosystems can provide data support for carbon pool management in the study area, and subsequently, provide theoretical reference for the formulation of carbon sequestration and environmental protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the Northeast China including the 3 provinces of Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin was regarded as study area where maize, rice and soybean were main food crops. Simulation of spatial competition of the 3 crops under 4 future combined scenarios of IPCC CO2 emission and socio-economic development (urbanization rate and governmental purchasing price for food crops) was conducted for the year of 2030 by application of the FCS (farmer crop selection) model () and EPIC (environmental policy integrated climate) model. The 4 final scenarios were A2C1D1, A2C1D2, B2C2D1 and B2C2D2. A2C1D1 represented a combination scenario by IPCC A2 option, farmers having no income when going to city to do temporary work and prices for food crop purchased by government doubling. A2C1D2 meant a combination scenario by IPCC A2 option, farmers having no income when going to city to do temporary work and prices for food crop purchased by government quadrupling. B2C2D1 was a combination scenario by IPCC B2 option, farmers having income when going to city to do temporary work and prices for food crop purchased by government doubling. B2C2D2 denoted a combination scenario by IPCC B2 option, farmers having income when going to city to do temporary work and prices for food crop purchased by government quadrupling. In comparison with simulation results in 2009, the conclusions were: 1) For the first scenario of A2C1D1, percentage of maize acreage to total arable land decreased to 77.36% from 82.3%, and meanwhile there was an increase from 7.7% and 10% to 8.93% and 13.71% for soybean and paddy rice, respectively; spatially, maize acreage declined in the fringe areas between the Lesser Xing'an Mountain and the Haerbin Plain, but in the Liaohe Plain acreages of soybean and rice went up respectively. 2) For the second scenario of A2C1D2, percentage of maize acreage to total arable land decreased to 75.56% and meanwhile that of soybean and paddy rice increased to 9.52% and 14.92%, respectively; spatially the change was very similar to that of the scenario of A2C1D1. 3) For the third scenario of B2C2D1, due to a little bit higher urbanization rate than present and present purchasing price by government doubling, percentage of maize acreage to total arable land increased to 84.16%, and meanwhile soybean and paddy rice increased to 9.52% and 14.92%, respectively; maize acreage rose in the fringe areas between the Lesser Xing'an Mountain and the Haerbin Plain, while in the Liaohe Plain acreages of soybean and rice went down respectively, which was contrary to that of the A2C1D1scenario. 4) For the fourth scenario of IPCC B2C2D2, due to a little bit higher urbanization rate than present and present purchasing price by government quadrupling, percentage of maize acreage to total food crops acreage decreased to 80.06%, and meanwhile soybean and paddy rice increased to 9.01% and 10.93%, respectively. There was not obvious change in space. Since 2030 is not far from present, there are not very dramatic changes of food crops in space for all the 4 scenarios. We also don't consider extreme events' effect on spatial competition of food crops because cognition and judge of farmers will not be influenced by that. In terms of present practical situation in China, we deduce the scenarios of B2C2D1 and B2C2D2 maybe more accord with reality. Moreover, B2C2D2 will be more beneficial to optimizing agricultural layout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reuse of recycled water is of great significance for increasing the supply of water resources and alleviating the pollution of the water environment. However, the public's rejection of recycled water has negative influences on the promotion of recycled water reuse. In order to solve this problem, this study took the behavior guiding policy of recycled water reuse as the research object. The related self-construction index, which measures the interaction between individuals and groups, was selected as the design basis of different individual interaction rules. On this basis, the agent-based model (ABM) was constructed to simulate the effect of different policies. Firstly, a questionnaire survey was carried out in the arid area of Northwest China, and the artificial neural network model of individual decision-making was trained on the basis of the first-hand data obtained. By embedding the neural network model into the ABM model, the individuals' decision-making in the simulation process was realized. The results showed that: (1) The demonstration guiding policy had a good effect on all kinds of recycled water reuse behaviors. (2) At the same time, the effect of environmental motivation stimulating policy and knowledge popularization policy could be enhanced or weakened with the increase of human contact degree of recycled water reuse behavior. The environmental motivation stimulating policy had a substantial impact on the recycled water reuses with a high contact degree. (3) The knowledge popularization policy had a good effect on the reuse behavior of recycled water with low human contact, but it even harmed the reuse behavior of recycled water with high contact. According to the research conclusion, the following policy recommendations are put forward: When a promotion policy of recycled water reuse is made, attention should be paid to distinguishing different types of recycled water reuse behavior and appropriate guiding policies should be chosen. As the demonstration guiding policy has an excellent guiding effect on all types of recycled water reuse behaviors, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the demonstration project of recycled water reuse. For the category of recycled water reuse with high human contact, attention should be paid to the publicity of its environmental protection attribute to stimulate the publi's motivation for environmental protection. As for the category of recycled water with a low human contact degree, attention should be paid to the dispelling of the public's misgivings by strengthening the popularization of relevant knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy congestion effects refer to the abnormal economic phenomenon that output decreases with the increase of energy input. In order to investigate energy congestion effects in manufacturing sector and improve its low-carbon operational capability. Energy congestion effects are decomposed into desirable energy congestion and undesirable energy congestion according to the heterogeneity of output. The RAM-DEA model is used to establish the desirable energy congestion and undesirable energy congestion models under natural disposability and managerial disposability respectively. An empirical study on 28 sub-industries of Chinese manufacturing sector is conducted. Empirical results show that; Undesirable energy congestion have occurred in the manufacturing sector and the degree of undesirable energy congestion is increasing since 2000. Especially in the year of 2014, the amount of 962.6 million tons of coal equivalent are wasted. Most of China's manufacturing industries have poor performance of energy efficiency and there are huge gaps among sub-industries. If energy inefficiency is decomposed into congestion inefficiency and pure technical inefficiency, the traditional manufacturing industries are mainly suffered from congestion inefficiency, and the advanced manufacturing industries are mainly suffered from pure technical inefficiency, while the traditional chemical industries and energy intensive industries are suffered from both congestion and pure technical inefficiency. Additionally, the occurrence of desirable energy congestion had been improved in terms of both frequency and quantity from 2000 to 2014, which indicates that more and more China's manufacturing industries are undergoing a low-carbon technology innovation. The research conclusions have important policy implications for energy-saving and emission reduction, industrial structure optimization, as well as risk warning mechanism establishment for the over-capacity in the manufacturing sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore the cost evolution and technological diffusion of CCS in the policy context by building an economy-environmental endogenous technological model. We find that CCS is difficult to get its long-term cost advantage, as compared to wind and nuclear, and the increasing of fuel cost should be responsible for this; Resource usage of CO2 could hedge against the use cost of CCS to some extent, while only the fuel cost is relatively stable, would this hedge effect be significant; The effect of CO2 resource usage on the penetration of CCS heavily depends on the CO2 amount used as resource, the introduction of subsidy policy will significantly improve this effect and promote CCS diffuse earlier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]