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As a developing country with insufficient water resources, China's water environment management and performance evaluation have important research value. The three provinces (Henan, Hubei, and Hunan) in central China with typical significance in geographical location and water resources governance were selected as research objects in this paper. Based on the principal component analysis (PCA) method and the pressure-state-response (PSR) model, a comprehensive evaluation system for the water environment in those three provinces during 2011–2017 was established in this paper. The evaluation results show that: (1) The water environment management and performance evaluation of the three provinces in central China were generally poor in 2011–2012, but the overall trend was rising; (2) in 2013–2014, the situation was improved compared to the previous two years, but needed further enhancement; (3) in 2015–2017, the water environment management and performance of the three provinces showed significant improvement. Among them, the Hubei Province had the highest water environment evaluation value (1.692), and the Henan Province had the most significant progress (from 0.043 to 1.671). The contributions of this paper are: (1) The comprehensive evaluation model based on PCA and the PSR model was constructed to analyze the sustainable development of water environment in central China; (2) the performance evaluation system for water environment management, which could comprehensively evaluate the performance of water environment treatment and effectively reveal the correlation between various indicators, was established. The principal factors in water environment management can be obtained by this evaluation system. Based on the analysis of the reasons underlying the above changes, the corresponding policy recommendations for improving water environment management and performance in central China were suggested in order to provide a reference for further improvement of water environment management in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abnormity of climate change poses environmental concerns and indirectly promotes the development of low-carbon economic growth pattern. Climate change mitigation technology innovations contribute significantly to achieve environmental goals in China, and thus, technological cooperation has become a strategic choice for the Chinese provinces to achieve technological breakthroughs. Based on 3, 280, 808 patents, this study uses social network analysis (SNA) method and similarity measurement to discuss the evolution process and structural features of the spatial correlation network to analyze the patent data from 1985 to 2020. The process for the research is as follows. First, a form solution of the correlation problem to calculate the minimum Euclidean distance is available in the field of social network. Second, the European distance is used to measure the similarity between provinces, and then, SNA is used to construct the spatial correlation network. Finally, the similarity of growth trend of provincial patent applications in different years from a nonlinear perspective is described, so as to calculate the potential provincial linkage strength. The results demonstrate that low-carbon technology innovation in China takes the form of a network structure. The network exhibits significant characteristics of regional agglomeration, and several central provinces exert the role of mediation and transmission, such as Tianjin, Hubei, and Henan. The study contributes by illustrating the current situation of green technology innovation and provides a critical theoretical foundation for the government when formulating future low-carbon economy development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Chinese government's early handling of COVID-19 has been perceived as aggressive and oppressive. Many of the most radical measures were adopted in Henan province, immediately north of Hubei, the pandemic's epicentre in China. However, little is known about how rural residents—a group systematically disadvantaged in Chinese society—responded to authorities' draconian restrictions. Methods: To understand the lockdown measures and rural community responses at the grassroots level, face-to-face interviewers were conducted with both village cadres and villagers from two Henan villages in May and June 2020. The interviews were analysed with qualitative content analysis methods, with the coding process guided by the concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptability from the literature on disaster risk reduction. Results: We found that the lockdown measures were indeed radical and disproportionate relative to the level of risk presented; however, they were largely accepted by villagers. This contradiction can be explained by two key contributing factors: (i) shared interests of individual villagers and the converged goal of government and civil society, and (ii) tacit flexibility in COVID-19 adaption strategies to tackle conflict resulting from goal diversion between citizens and local governments. Conclusions: These findings highlight the nuances of ground-level politics. Despite their 'radical' nature, the lockdown measures were not implemented as simple top-down coercion. Instead, they involved, importantly, the bottom-up, localised response of villagers, and they were negotiated and adapted according to local circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]