A Dynamic Analysis to Evaluate the Environmental Performance of Cities in China
Luqi Wang, Xiaolong Xue, Yue Shi, Zeyu Wang, Ankang Ji
2018
Sustainability
With the contradiction between energy supply and demand around the world, urbanization formed with high-investment, high-consumption, and high-emission has significantly impaired the ecological environment of China. The evaluation of environmental impact is a must for decision-makings related to sustainable urbanization. This paper assessed the dynamic environmental performance of 285 cities in China from 2005 to 2013 based on the Malmquist-Luenberger index, an expanded data envelopment
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... (DEA) model. To ensure comparability among cities, a two-step clustering method was used to classify all cities into three types. From the results, we found (1) 166 and 185 cities' environmental conditions remained the improvement during the research period under the meta-frontier and group frontier respectively. (2) Low and Medium energy intensity cities performed better than high energy intensity cities. (3) The environmental performance under the group frontier was overestimated compared with the meta-frontier. (4) The trends of environmental improvement and economic growth are significantly inconsistent. Overall, all ways to decrease undesirable outputs and increase desirable outputs, such as technological innovation, industrial structure optimization and regional cooperation, should be encouraged to achieve urban, regional and country sustainability. is to identify proper indicators that represent the environmental impact of a city. Some studies have concluded evaluation indicators of urban environmental performance [12, 13] , but they referred to the subjective scoring process which is difficult to be used for complex situations. The data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a method to measure the productivity with multiple input and output decision-making units (DMUs) [14] . DMUs emphasize the fact that the focus is not on performance generating entities, but rather on decision making entities. To assess input and output indicators simultaneously, the Malmquist-Luenberger (ML) index is an efficient method to evaluate the environmental performance of a subject [15] . Additionally, the ML model could be used to analyze the dynamic change of environmental performance and measure the efficiency and technological progress and regress [16, 17] . The main purpose of this paper is to rank 285 cities based on the environmental performance and identify dynamic change related to efficiency and technology. In general, gross domestic product (GDP) has been used as an important indicator to evaluate the economic situation of a city, region or country for a long time. The excessive pursuit of economic growth has brought severe environmental problems such as haze and water pollution because of ignoring environmental protection. Therefore, environmental indicators should be included in the evaluation system to fully reflect the real level of urban development. In this paper, we investigate environmental performances of cities in China and provide corresponding suggestions to the government and economic sectors for sustainable development. To ensure comparability among cities a two-step clustering method was used to classify all cities into three types. Also, the performances under the group frontier and meta-frontier were both assessed to compare cities' rankings. Importantly, this study expanded the evaluation method and enriched the theoretical system of environmental performance.
doi:10.3390/su10030862
fatcat:axi6jhfnkfdhhbja7wyxmjjsue