The Driving Forces and Synergistic Effect between Regional Economic Growth,Resources and the Environment in the Yangtze River Economic Zone

From the viewpoints of population,resources,environment and economic-social development,we establish the models of accounting for resource and environmental costs and coordinated（or relative coordinated） development degrees between economic growth and resources and the environment using the evaluation method of ecosystem service value.Synergistic effects between regional economic growth and resources and the environment in the Yangtze River Economic Zone was analyzed and driving forces were analyzed by regression of partial least squares.We found that from 1983 to 2012,resource and environmental costs in the Yangtze River Economic Zone（including seven provinces and two municipalities） increased from 4736.55 trillion CNY to 15 359.45 trillion CNY and corresponding weights dropped from 31.1% to 19.7% compared to the national level.The degree of coordinated development rose from 0.295 to 1.506,higher than the national average.In the years 1983,1993 and 2003,the main factor that drove the coordinated development of regional economic growth,resources and the environment was low level resource and environmental costs.With continuous increases in primary and tertiary industrial added values after 2012,the advantage of the Yangtze River Economic Zone has weakened.In the future,provinces should improve the rules and regulations on planning and implementing main functional areas,promote adjustment of industrial structure,restore ecology,improve resource utilization efficiency and reduce environmental loss costs to enhance quality of economic development and promote the coordinated development of regional economic growth and resources and the environment.

Regional eco-efficiency evaluation and spatial pattern analysis of the Yangtze River Economic Zone

The environmental ecology of the Yangtze River Economic Zone(YREZ)faces ecological function decline,deterioration and degradation under intense human activities,long-term development and utilization and its economy has developed rapidly over recent decades.Eco-efficiency is considered as a measure of coordinated development of economy,resources,environment and ecology,and is currently considered a very important issue.In this paper,based on the slack-based measure and data envelope analysis model,we take 129 prefecture-level cities of the YREZ as the study unit and measure the eco-efficiency of the YREZ in 2000,2005,2010 and 2015,which considers undesired output.The evaluation of the status quo of the regional eco-efficiency development was carried out at provincial,prefectural and city scales.The spatial autocorrelation test model and standard deviation ellipse were used to analyze the spatially distributed characteristics and the evolutionary regularity of eco-efficiency.Our study suggested that the eco-efficiency value varied significantly at different spatiotemporal scales and the overall distribution presented an"N-shaped"pattern,the value is the largest downstream and the smallest upstream.Regional eco-efficiency presented certain volatility in growth and a clear spatial positive agglomeration trend from 2000 to 2015.The spatial distribution of each agglomeration area was also significantly different,forming some high-high agglomeration areas at the center of the shaft with Shanghai and surrounding cities,and some low-low agglomeration areas at the center with middle reaches and upstream cities.The low-high over-aggregation and high-low polarization clusters were fewer.At the same time,with the change of the research period,the degree of positive agglomeration became increasingly pronounced and the eco-efficiency gap of the neighborhoodunit reduced.The regional eco-efficiency value of the YREZ presented a spatial distribution pattern in the northeast-southwest axis and the evolutionary pattern of the regional eco-efficiency similarly showed a northeast-southwest orientation.

Analysis on the Output Elasticity and Contribution Rate of Energy Consumption to Economic Growth in China's Yangtze River Economic Zone

Many studies have shown that energy consumption plays an important role in economic growth.The paper researches the influence of energy consumption on economic growth in China’s Yangtze River Economic Zone.The paper divides the energy of Yangtze River Economic Zone into the coal,the oil,the natural gas and the electricity and explores the influences of coal consumption,gas consumption,natural gas consumption and electricity consumption on economic growth quantitatively using an extended production function model.The paper mainly uses two methods.The first method is the output elasticity analysis.The paper calculates the four energy consumption’s output elasticity to economic growth to compares the influences of energy consumption in terms of out output elasticity.The second method is the contribution rate analysis.The paper calculates the contribution rates of four energy consumption to economic growth to compare the influences of four energy consumption on economic growth in terms of contribution rate.The paper makes an empirical analysis on the influence of energy consumption on economic growth in China’s Yangtze River Economic Zone.Analysis results show that oil consumption has the greatest influence on economic growth in China’s Yangtze River Economic Zone,in terms of both output elasticity and contribution rate,followed by natural gas consumption,electricity consumption and coal consumption.