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The innovative environmental system known as the river chief system (RCS) was developed in China to limit water pollution by appointing provincial, prefectural, county, and township officials as "river chiefs" as guardians of every river under their control. Our research project developed a quasi-natural experiment to investigate if the RCS effectively reduces the intensity of industrial water pollution. A multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) method was employed in the experiment with a total of 3808 samples from 272 prefecture-level cities. The samples gathered represented the years from 2007 to 2020. Our results demonstrated that the southern region has far more industrial water contamination than other locations, and the intensity of industrial sewage discharge decreased by 10.25% in pilot cities following the implementation of the RCS compared with what we observed in non-pilot cities. Furthermore, according to the mechanism analysis we used, cities that increased investment in technical advancement and modernized industrial structures may also account for this decreasing trend. Additionally, the results of geographical heterogeneity demonstrate that the RCS's influence on curbing industrial water pollution is greater in cities with a higher intensity of environmental regulation and higher fiscal balance pressure than in locations with low environmental regulation and low fiscal balance pressure. In summary, the Chinese government needs to continue to strengthen the RCS's implementation; this can be done by adjusting to local circumstances as needed and by carrying out the policy accurately and effectively across the country. Our research sheds light on how to prevent water pollution in China and in other countries and supports the positive effects and effectiveness of RCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial water pollution has become one of the largest threats to China's sustainable development and human welfare. Although China has implemented numerous policies in the past decades that have achieved remarkable success, there has been little analysis of the costs of mitigating industrial water pollutants. Understanding the heterogeneity and convergence patterns of abatement costs among Chinese provinces is crucial for cost-effective policies, such as a national trading system. We use a directional distance function model to estimate the abatement cost of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH4, and then conduct a convergence analysis of abatement cost to check the patterns of mitigation and convergence. We show that the mean industrial abatement cost across Chinese provinces is 610 Yuan/kg for COD and 4614 Yuan/kg for NH4. At the steady state, the abatement cost is about 786 Yuan/kg for COD and 2235 Yuan/kg for NH4. As theory suggests, a β-convergence pattern is observed for the abatement cost across Chinese provinces. In other words, it is theoretically feasible for China to build up an integrated national trading system for water pollution. We conclude that a pollutant-based trading system is needed and should be updated year by year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As eco-compensation is considered an effective economic instrument for controlling the industrial water pollution in transboundary basin, this study aims to explore a transboundary eco-compensation mechanism for Songhua River Basin that is one of the seven major drainage basins in China. Using a panel dataset of eleven cities in this basin tracked from 1992 to 2016, we empirically examined the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis by analyzing the relationship between economic development and industrial water pollution. Then, we developed two econometric models to quantify the wastewater discharge allowance and eco-compensation of investigated cities, respectively. The results specifically reveal the inverted U-curve effects of GRP (gross regional product) on industrial wastewater discharge, which displays an evidence of EKC in the field of transboundary water pollution in China. Moreover, our results verify the polluter pays principle that polluter should be responsible for its pollution behavior through paying of eco-compensation. Our results further interpret that the emissions trading program can help protect the ecosystem by allowing the wastewater discharge allowance to trading market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]