Impact of an official accountability audit on industrial structure adjustment:a case study of environmental regulation in China

As a unique environmental regulation in China,the official accountability audit was piloted in 2014.With a focus on prioritizing the ecological environment,officials in pilot districts have implemented economic construction,adjusted industrial structures,and promoted coordinated development between the economy and environment.The effects of implementation have garnered widespread attention from society.However,there is limited research on the impact of an accountability audit on industrial structure adjustments.Using the“Accountability Audit of Officials for Natural Resource Assets(Trial)”released in 2015 as a quasi-natural experiment,this study collected panel data from 279 cities between 2013 and 2017.It then empirically analyzed the impact mechanism and effects of the accountability audit on industrial structure adjustment using the Propensity Score Matching and Difference-in-Differences model.The research findings indicate that the accountability audit directly impacted industrial structure adjustment,promoting the upgrading of the primary industry to the secondary industry and restricting the development of the tertiary industry.In addition,the audit is beneficial for enterprise entry,but not conducive to technological innovation,and has no significant impact on foreign direct investment.This conclusion fills a gap in the existing research and provides valuable insights for policymakers.

Research on the Relationship Between Environmental and Economic Coupling Systems in Bohai Bay Area Based on a Vector Autoregression(VAR)Model

This study analyzed the impact of land-based contaminants and tertiary industrial structure on economic development in the selected Bohai Bay area,China.Based on panel data spanning 2011-2020,a vector autoregressive(VAR)model is used to analyze and forecast the short-run and long-run relationships between three industrial structures,pollutant discharge,and economic development.The results showed that the environmental index had a long-term cointegration relationship with the industrial structure economic index.Per capital chemical oxygen demand(PCOD)and per capita ammonia nitrogen(PNH_(3)N)had a positive impact on delta per capita GDP(dPGDP),while per capita solid waste(PSW),the secondary industry rate(SIR)and delta tertiary industry(dTIR)had a negative impact on dPGDP.The VAR model under this coupling system had stability and credibility.The impulse response results showed that the short-term effect of the coupling system on dPGDP was basically consistent with the Granger causality test results.In addition,variance decomposition was used in this study to predict the long-term impact of the coupling system in the next ten periods(i.e.,ten years).It was found that dTIR had a great impact on dPGDP,with a contribution rate as high as 74.35%in the tenth period,followed by the contribution rate of PCOD up to 3.94%,while the long-term contribution rates of PSW,SIR and PNH3N were all less than 1%.The results show that the government should support the development of the tertiary industry to maintain the vitality of economic development and prevent environmental deterioration.

Intrusion Detection System for Smart Industrial Environments with Ensemble Feature Selection and Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Smart Industrial environments use the Industrial Internet of Things(IIoT)for their routine operations and transform their industrial operations with intelligent and driven approaches.However,IIoT devices are vulnerable to cyber threats and exploits due to their connectivity with the internet.Traditional signature-based IDS are effective in detecting known attacks,but they are unable to detect unknown emerging attacks.Therefore,there is the need for an IDS which can learn from data and detect new threats.Ensemble Machine Learning(ML)and individual Deep Learning(DL)based IDS have been developed,and these individual models achieved low accuracy;however,their performance can be improved with the ensemble stacking technique.In this paper,we have proposed a Deep Stacked Neural Network(DSNN)based IDS,which consists of two stacked Convolutional Neural Network(CNN)models as base learners and Extreme Gradient Boosting(XGB)as the meta learner.The proposed DSNN model was trained and evaluated with the next-generation dataset,TON_IoT.Several pre-processing techniques were applied to prepare a dataset for the model,including ensemble feature selection and the SMOTE technique.Accuracy,precision,recall,F1-score,and false positive rates were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed ensemble model.Our experimental results showed that the accuracy for binary classification is 99.61%,which is better than in the baseline individual DL and ML models.In addition,the model proposed for IDS has been compared with similar models.The proposed DSNN achieved better performance metrics than the other models.The proposed DSNN model will be used to develop enhanced IDS for threat mitigation in smart industrial environments.

Research Progress of Maternal Environmental Effects in Resource-based Regions

Heavy metal pollution is common in resource-based regions.However,the morphological,physiological and biochemical mechanisms of plants transmitting environmental information to their offspring in environments polluted by heavy metals have not been studied yet.Taking soybean,an annual self-pollinated plant in Huang-Huai-Hai region,as the research object,the morphological,physiological and biochemical indexes and heavy metal enrichment and distribution characteristics of plants under heavy metal stress were monitored continuously for about three generations,and the trans-generational differences of soybean reproduction,vegetative growth,stress resistance and life cycle in heavy metal stress environment were elucidated.The results will be helpful to better understand the long-term adaptive strategy of plants to heavy metal stress and provide the theory basis for ecological security of soybean and other crops under heavy metal stress.

Does Environmental Regulation Weaken Industrial Competitiveness?Inspirations from China’s Iron and Steel Sector

China＇s economic growth is heavily influenced by exports, while reconciling environmental regulation and economic growth requires handling the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness well. The effects of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness are largely subject to the institutional design of environmental regulation. Despite numerous studies on the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness, a consensus has yet to be reached. Aside from differences in research methodology, these studies failed to give sufficient consideration to the impact of environmental regulation on industrial competitiveness. Such effects can be negative or positive depending on the design of environmental regulatory policy. This paper has investigated the relationship between environmental regulation and the competitiveness of China＇s iron and steel industry and discovered that tighter environmental regulation does not diminish the competitiveness of the iron and steel industry since the policy design of environmental regulation accommodates the tolerance of advanced production capacity and includes a reasonable cost sharing mechanism. This discovery is of important reference for China to develop rational policy design to balance the relationship between environmental regulation and industrial competitiveness.

Environmental Regulation,Pollution Treatment Productivity,and Industrial Environmental TFP in China

Amidst growing environmental protection intensity by the Chinese government, this paper investigates the effects of environmental regulation on China＇s industrial pollution treatment productivity and environmental TFP. By estimating China＇s pollution treatment productivity between 2001 and 2008 and analyzing environmental regulation intensity and the effects of the relevant factors and pollution treatment productivity using panel data, this paper discovers that （1） pollution treatment productivity contributed a significant share of about 40% to industrial environmental TFP during the investigation period; （2） environmental regulation may not necessarily cause adverse impacts on pollution treatment efficiency and productivity but demonstrates a U-shaped relationship： when the share of pollution treatment cost in industrial value-added is above the range of 3.8%-5.1%, environmental regulation is likely to promote pollution treatment productivity and thus environmental TFP Judging by the estimation result, enhancing environmental protection and expediting the development of ecological civilization are conducive to China ＂s economic transition towards an intensive, efficient, circular, and sustainable development pattern. China＇s current industrial development has the capacity to tolerate a rather demanding level of pollution treatment and management and China needs to further rely on energy conservation and the environmental production industries to promote the progress of pollution treatment technologies.

Does strict environmental regulation enhance the global value chains position of China's industrial sector?

Given the vital importance of global value chains(GVCs)position for a country's international competitiveness,this paper tries to investigate the impacts of environmental regulation on the GVCs position of China's industrial sector.Using the latest value-added decomposition method,we first measure the GVCs position of China's industrial sector from 2003 to 2014.Subsequently,both two-stage least squares(2 SLS)method with panel data and mediating effect model are employed to empirically examine the effects of environmental regulation on China's position in GVCs.The results indicate that environmental regulation has significantly upgraded the GVCs position of China's industrial sector,and the effect is more evident for the sub-sectors with originally lower GVCs position.The mediation effect test shows that increasing R&D investment is an important channel through which environmental regulation affects the GVCs position of China's industrial sector,which verifies the existence of the Porter hypothesis.Further analysis finds that the enhancement of GVCs position of China's industrial sector caused by environmental regulation is mainly achieved through reducing the backward GVCs position.

Impact of environmental regulations on the efficient control of industrial pollution in China

The continuous progress of industrialization is a fundamental cause of China’s increasingly severe environmental pollution problem.Improving the efficiency of industrial pollution control is an inevitable choice to effectively decrease pollution emissions,thus winning the battle of pollution prevention and control.In this paper,we used the stochastic frontier analysis(SFA)model to measure the provincial efficiency of industrial pollution control based on the input and output data of industrial pollution control of 29 administrative provinces in China from 2000 to 2017.On this basis,a spatial econometric model was used to explore the influence of environmental regulation intensity on the efficiency of industrial pollution control.In addition,the spatial spillover effect of pollution reduction was thoroughly examined.The results show that:(1)The efficiency of industrial pollution control in China has improved year by year,but the overall efficiency is still low,with the average value increasing from 0.165 in 2000 to 0.309 in 2017.Furthermore,there is significant regional heterogeneity with the highest efficiency level in the east and lowest efficiency level in the west.(2)By increasing the financial and material input,the efficiency of industrial pollution control has increased.However,the increase of human input has not been so helpful.(3)The global Moran’s I index is significantly greater than zero,indicating a strong spatial correlation and agglomeration in the efficiency of industrial pollution control,which is reflected in high-high agglomeration in the eastern region and low-low agglomeration in the western region.(4)Stringent environmental regulation has a positive effect on improving the efficiency of industrial pollution control.It also imposes a positive spatial spillover effect,indicating a strategic interaction and coordination of regional pollution control.In line with this,related proposals have been made to optimize the investment structure for environmental pollution control,establish a flow mechanism for the factor market,and strengthen the environmental responsibility awareness of state-owned enterprises.On this basis,we expect to provide a policy for improving the efficiency of industrial pollution control and promoting regional joint pollution control in China.

Environmental Policies and Strategies in Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry: Gains, Challenges and Prospects

The paper reviews environmental policies and strategies in the Nigerian oil and gas industry sector, assessing its efficiency, challenges and prospects. Essentially, the study established that the Environmental Policies and Strategies of Nigeria Oil and Gas Industry have impacted positively on the Nigerian environment over the years, especially in the area of awareness creation for all stake-holders. In terms of challenges, inefficiency of the regulators due to inadequacy of logistics, poor environmental data base, duplication and overlaps of regulators functions are some of the challenges identified. The prospect of environmental policies and strategies in Nigeria is generally considered to be bright, considering the fact that the industry is still evolving. Relevant recommendations were made on how to achieve improvements.

Monitoring and Environmental Assessment of Seawater in West Central Africa: Case of the Kribi Industrial and Urban Port Complex in Cameroon, Guinea Gulf

This study is the first of a series of a project on the development and implementation of environmental protection policies, before, during and after the construction of the Kribi Industrial and Urban Port Complex (KIPC). The results will equip the State and scientific structures concerned with the protection of people, water resources and the environment as a whole. This includes reference data on the state of marine pollution in the region dating from the end of realization of the first phase of KIPC known as Kribi Deep-Water Harbor (KDWH). Accordingly, the aim of this work is to assess the current state of KIPC and its surrounding by quantifying the preliminary parameters of suspended matter (SM);to analyze the physical and chemical parameters, chemical pollution indicators for anions and major cations and organic pollution indicators of four water samples taken from four different sites in the project area by filtration and weighing, pH meter, turbid meter, titration, colorimetry and titrimetric methods. The analysis of these samples and these parameters provides results which are slightly similar to international standards. This suggests that the environment remains relatively healthy. Hence, continuous management and monitoring of the parameters and pollution factors is strongly recommended.

Spatial effect of environmental regulation measures on industrial structure upgrading from the empirical analysis of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas

This paper investigates the spatial effect of environmental regulation measures on the upgrading of industrial structure in the integrated development strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and its surrounding areas.In order to reflect the effect of the environmental regulation and different regulation measures more truly,this paper constructs indices of the environmental regulation measures through the results of policy texts quantification.On the basis of the previous research,this paper divides environmental regulation into the following types:personnel and administrative measures of command and control;market-oriented fiscal,taxation,financial and other economic measures;guidance measures.Spatial panel regression results show that administrative measures of command control and market-oriented fiscal measures have a significant role in promoting regional industrial structure upgrading,but not conducive to the advancement of the industrial structure of adjacent areas.Their roles in promoting and inhibition are counteracted,which causes the total effect of industrial structure upgrading of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and the surrounding areas are not significant.Personnel measures,financial measures,other economic measures and guidance measures do not have the short-term effect and spatial effect on the upgrading of industrial structure.

The impact of environmental regulations on international competitiveness of textile industry in China

A greater focus of environmental protection is directed toward environmental regulations in China. This paper focuses on environmental regulations and their impact on textile industry. The academic circle does not reach a consensus on the relationship between environmental regulations and international competitiveness. Some hold the view that environmental regulations lower international competitiveness while others think that environmental regulations improve both environment and economic performance. This paper aims to analyze the impact of the environmental regulations on the international competitiveness of textile industry in China. This study starts with theories relative to this subject; the second part, based on the impact mechanism of environmental regulations on competitiveness, analyzes the environmental impact on textile from the perspective of cost and market. The conceptual exploration comes to the conclusion that environmental regulations make a negative impact on the international competitiveness on the cost side and improve it by means ofinnovation and product differentiation on market side; the third part gives time series evidence to examine the impact. In this part the Pearson Correlation Analysis is conducted based on the data of China's textile industry of the period from 1991 to 2005. It turns out to prove that the negative environmental impact on cost side exceeds the positive environmental impact on market side, namely, environmental regulations deteriorate the international competitiveness in textile industry as a whole during the inspected period.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY IN CHINA

The radiological environmental impact assessment of the nuclear industry in China has been completed. The effective dose equivalents to the critical groups are mainly within the fluctuation range of the average naturhl background radiation dose in the provinces, and below the dose limits. The annual average collective effective dose equivalent from the nuclear industry is approximately 23 man·Sv. According to the nuclear power planning of China, it is estimated that the annual collective effective dose equivalent from the nuclear fuel cycle and the application of radioisotopes is 59 man·Sv in 2000 a.

Medium-term and Long-term Environmental Economic Policies on Thermal Power Industry in China Seen from the New Environment Protection Law

In the newly revised Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China that has been implemented since January 1,2015,there is a lot of emphasis on environmental economic policies. In this paper,according to the current situation of environmental pollution and protection in thermal power industry,it is proposed that based on the new environmental protection law,it is needed to study various environmental economic policies on thermal power industry and analyze the effects on environmental cost of thermal power enterprises at the macro level. At the micro level,it is necessary to control environmental cost of thermal power enterprises effectively,and establish a suitable environmental management system for environmental economic policies including environmental cost accounting and trading of emission rights,thereby improving environmental management level of thermal power enterprises.

Comparative Analysis of Meteorological Environmental Factors in Three Major Chemical Industrial Parks of Lianyungang City

Based on the meteorological observation data of three meteorological stations in three major chemical industrial parks of Lianyungang city( Xuwei petrochemical industrial park-Xuwei saltern automatic weather station,Yanweigang chemical industrial park-Yanweigang automatic weather station,and Lianyungang chemical industrial park-Duigou chemical industrial park automatic weather station) as well as lightning data of Jiangsu thunder and lightning monitoring network from 2007 to 2014,meteorological environmental factors(wind,temperature and lightning) in the three major chemical industrial park of Lianyungang City were analyzed,and climate feasibility demonstration was conducted. In this paper,the common points of the meteorological environment of construction projects in the three major chemical industry parks were obtained,and the planning,design and operation of chemical projects were advanced reasonably according to different meteorological environment,thereby maximizing social and economic benefits.

Environmental Impacts of Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate on Neighboring Residential Area in Lahore, Pakistan

Industries have contributed for human development by improving human life styles, increasing human life expectancy rate, providing more and more jobs. Still industrialization has many negative impacts on the environment and especially on human health. This investigation was carried out to probe the impacts of Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate on Township area, Lahore. During this investigation wastewater monitoring and ambient air monitoring had been done. Samples from main industrial drain were collected for wastewater analysis and seventeen parameters including pH, temperature, color, odor, turbidity, conductivity, chemical oxygen demand (COD), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chlorides, oil/grease, total suspended solids (TSS), total dissolved solids (TDS), ammonia-nitrogen (NH3 - N2), iron, sulfate, nickel and chromium were investigated. Among them pH, total suspended solids, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia-nitrogen were found exceeding the NEQS limits. The ambient air samples were also collected and five parameters of ambient air including particulate matter (PM10), nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and noise were monitored. Among them only particulate matter was exceeding the WHO guidelines. Although there were few parameters like pH, TSS, BOD, COD and NH3 - N2 of water and PM10 of air, which do not lie within the national environmental quality standards (NEQS) limits but proper monitoring is needed to be done so that parameters may not cross their permissible limits in future. This problem must be taken into consideration by both the management of Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate and Governmental agencies because it is the responsibility of state also to make the environment clean.

Environmental Compliance System in Energy Industry:Problems,Challenges and Prospects

The willingness to comply with the law or rule is a litmus test of the quality of legislation.Without compliance,there is no rule of law,no matter how well the laws or regulations are designed.Regulatory compliance continues to be one of the greatest challenges for energy industry due to factors such as central protectionism,inadequate legal system and weak law enforcement.To meet the challenges of achieving environmental compliance,it is proposed that the environmental compliance system should incorporate three subsystems:a primary environmental compliance system,a primary environmental compliance system,and an environmental noncompliance response system.

Carbon emission risk of construction industry in Hebei Province of China based on carbon sink thresholds

In order to assess the environmental risks caused by carbon emissions from the construction industry in Hebei Province of China,an environmental risk assessment model based on forest carbon sink threshold was constructed to evaluate the carbon emission risks of the construction industry in Hebei Province,China from 2005 to 2020.The results are shown as follows:(1)The overall carbon emissions of the construction industry in Hebei Province of China showed an inverted"V"-shaped evolution trend during the past 16 years.Tangshan and Shijiazhuang maintained high carbon emissions,while Langfang,Hengshui and Baoding saw rapid increases in carbon emissions.(2)The environmental safety threshold of carbon emission from the construction industry in Hebei Province,China,has been continuously improved,and the provincial environmental safety threshold is between 9475080-23144760 tons;The environmental safety threshold was the highest in Baoding and Langfang,and the lowest in Xingtai.(3)In the past 16 years,the carbon emission risk of the construction industry in Hebei Province of China has been in a state of extremely serious risk,and the risk index generally presents an inverted"V"type trend.(4)The carbon emission risk of Hebei city in China presents a spatial pattern of"high in the south and low in the north",which goes through two stages:risk increase period and risk reduction period.

Effects of Environmental Resources on Industrial Agglomeration

Firstly,agriculture,industry and tourism in the Yangtze River Delta,Pearl River Delta and Bohai Economic Rim were chosen to represent the primary,secondary and tertiary industries respectively,and industrial agglomeration in the three economic zones was analyzed using location quotient coefficient method.Afterwards,the critical factors influencing industrial agglomeration were discussed using gray correlation analysis.The results showed that industrial agglomeration of agriculture,industry and tourism formed gradually in the three economic zones,and the critical factors influencing industrial agglomeration were human capital,science and technology progress,and natural resources.Meanwhile,environmental pollution affected and restricted the development of industrial agglomeration.

Coupling Relationship Among Technological Innovation,Industrial Transformation and Environmental Efficiency:A Case Study of the Huaihai Economic Zone,China

The 14th Five-Year Plan period is a critical period for China to achieve high-quality development. Based on super-efficiency slacks-based measure(SBM) model, grey-related analysis(GRA) and other models, this paper studies the heterogeneity of the coupling relationship among technological innovation, industrial transformation and environmental efficiency in the Huaihai Economic Zone during the period of 2005-2019. In addition, it analyzes the coupling mechanism of single and binary systems to the ternary system, which is of great significance for the collaborative symbiosis among systems. The findings are as follows. 1) The technological innovation, industrial transformation and environmental efficiency(TIE) systems of the Huaihai Economic Zone had significant spatial-temporal heterogeneity. Although their evaluation value fluctuated, the development trends are all positive. Ultimately, technological innovation is characterized by being high in the northeast and low in the southwest around Xuzhou, while other systems are relatively staggered in space. 2) The coupling of TIE systems is in transition, lack of orderly integration and benign interaction. However, the developing trend of interaction is also upward, and a spatial pattern driven by Xuzhou and Linyi as the dual cores has gradually formed. Moreover, the coupling is mostly manifested as outdated technological innovation and industrial transformation. Except for the final coordination of regenerative cities, the other resource types are all in transition. Cities in all traffic locations are still in transition. The overall system interaction of cities on Longhai Line(Lanzhou-Lianyungang Railway) is relatively optimal, and cities on Xinshi Line(Xinxiang-Rizhao Railway) are accelerating toward synergy. 3) The coupling status of TIE systems depends on the development of the single system and the interaction of the binary(2E) system. The coupling is closely related to technological innovation and Technology-Industry system,and is hindered by the inefficient interaction of Technology-Environment system. Specifically, the synergy of regenerative cities is attributed to the advantage of a single system and the effective integration of 2E systems. Beneficial from the advantages of environmental efficiency, the cities on Xinshi Line promote the synergy of the 2E and TIE systems. Therefore, while the Huaihai Economic Zone stimulates the development potential of the single and 2E systems, it is necessary to amplify the superimposition effect of systems in accordance on the basis of resource and location.