Impact of the emergency response to COVID-19 on air quality and its policy implications: Evidence from 290 cities in China.

The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic had an extreme exogenous impact on society and the economy. This paper aims to explore the impacts of the national emergency response and the subsequent emergency response termination on air quality and its policy implications through regression discontinuity design (RDD) estimation by employing panel data on daily air quality from January 1, 2019, to July 31, 2020, for 290 cities in China. The empirical results showed that the emergency response resulted in a significant decrease in most of the major pollutant concentrations within a short time frame, and the average air quality index (AQI) decreased by approximately 11.0%. The concentrations of PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO decreased by approximately 18.8%, 13.1%, 13.5%, 11.1% and 6.7%, respectively, while the O3 concentration did not change significantly. Further causal analysis found that mandatory traffic restrictions and the shutdown of industries were two important factors that contributed greatly to air quality improvement. Moreover, since the process of returning to normal daily activities and promoting the economy were gradual, the results showed that air pollution did not rebound immediately after the government called for the "resumption of production and work" and announced the "termination of the emergency response". Our findings suggest that to achieve a substantial and sustainable improvement in air quality, it is necessary to continuously implement strict emission control routines and take co-control measures for various VOCs precursors of ozone.

The impact of climate aid on carbon emissions reduction and the role of renewable energy: evidence from the Belt and Road countries.

Full mobilization and effective use of climate aid is of great importance for the low carbon transition of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. This study utilizes the two-step system generalized method of moments model to evaluate the effects of climate aid on carbon emissions reduction and the impact mechanism through energy structure optimization. The panel data of 93 Belt and Road countries from 2000 to 2018 were used for empirical analysis. Results show that climate aid has a significant reduction effect on the carbon emissions intensity of BRI countries, and the dominant component of climate aid, i.e., mitigation aid, corresponds to better carbon emissions reduction benefits than adaptation aid. The impact mechanism demonstrates that the climate aid has dual carbon emissions reduction effects in BRI countries which have an intermediate energy structure. It indicates that climate aid not only directly reduces carbon emissions by increasing carbon reduction resources, but also indirectly reduces carbon emissions by promoting renewable energy and optimizing the energy structure. The results evidence the theory of environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis and channels of climate aid effects. Practical implications from the current study include that more climate finance support should be provided to BRI countries by developed countries, the effectiveness of climate aid should be improved by investing in projects with significant carbon reduction like renewable energy, data monitoring and performance evaluation of climate aid should be strengthened, and China should take its role and make more contributions to the low carbon transition especially energy transition of BRI countries.

Boundary delineation and grading functional zoning of Sanjiangyuan National Park based on biodiversity importance evaluations.

Recently, China advanced a policy of establishing a protected area system with national parks as the main body, and so the development of protected areas has entered a transitional period. However, to promote the coordinated development of economic construction and ecological protection of protected areas, their management needs to be more comprehensive and refined. Therefore, a more quantitative and refined spatial planning and management method for protected areas is urgently needed. This study took Sanjiangyuan National Park as the research object and considered the three biodiversity elements of species, ecosystems and landscape. The maximum entropy (MaxEnt) model, Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model, and Fragstats software were used to determine the areas with highly suitable species habitat, areas of high ecosystem service value and areas of high landscape diversity. Based on these areas, Marxan software was used to calculate the irreplaceability value, identify the boundary of Sanjiangyuan National Park and clarify the gaps of the existing Sanjiangyuan National Park in the space. We suggest that at least 18,569 km2 of the eastern part of the Sanjiangyuan Region with a high irreplaceability value should be included in the existing Sanjiangyuan National Park. Moreover, the first-level zones were also classified based on irreplaceability, and the second-level functional zones were classified by K-means clustering based on the evaluation of ecological vulnerability and economic construction suitability. The first-level zones include "core conservation zones" and "general control zones", which had areas of 71,758.20 km2 (57.99%) and 51,980.13 km2 (42.01%), respectively. The core conservation zones were further zoned into primary vulnerable zones and secondary vulnerable zones. The subzones of the general control zones are multifunctional and they are tourism-grazing-living zones, grazing-living zones, tourism-living zones, tourism zones and other areas.

Exploring the influencing paths of natives' conservation behavior and policy incentives in protected areas: Evidence from China.

To enhance ecosystem conservation in protected areas, natives' behavior, mainly the use of natural resources or direct human disturbance to ecosystems, must be well intervened and regulated. To explore the determinants and incentives of the conservation behavior of natives, this paper establishes a theoretical behavior model emphasizing livelihood assets and conservation policy impacts, and specifies it with structural equation modeling. The protected areas of Chishui county in southwest China and the Three-River-Source National Park in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were selected for empirical analyses based on household surveys. Results show that conservation intentions that shape the natives' conservation behavior are collectively decided by conservation attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Livelihood assets exert indirect positive effects on conservation behavior by influencing the aforementioned psychological variables. The impacts on conservation behavior of the governmental policy instruments, Grain to Green Program, Grassland Ecological Protection Subsidy and Incentive Policy, and Ecological Ranger Post Setting are evaluated. The command & control functions of the first two instruments are verified to be effective. The propaganda & education functions of all three policy instruments affect conservation intention and behavior by influencing conservation attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control of the natives. The ecological compensation functions of the policies prevent the loss of the natives' livelihood assets but fail to enhance it. The findings demonstrate that besides the direct impacts on conservation behavior of the protection policy instruments, the indirect policy impacts affecting the protection consciousness of natives should not be underestimated. In the long run, a suggestion is to strengthen eco-compensation to improve livelihood assets, to better promote the protection behavior of the local residents and obtain sustainable ecosystem conservation in the protected areas. This research demonstrates applicability and feasibility of the behavioral theory and causal model method in natural conservation study and shows strong policy implication.

Production efficiency and GHG emissions reduction potential evaluation in the crop production system based on emergy synthesis and nonseparable undesirable output DEA: A case study in Zhejiang Province, China.

Maintaining crop outputs to feed its large population with limited resources while simultaneously mitigating carbon emissions are great challenges for China. Improving the efficiency of resource use in crop production is important in reducing carbon emissions. This paper constructs a methodological framework combining emergy-based indicator accounting and a nonseparable undesirable output slack-based measurement (SBM) data envelopment analysis (DEA) model. This framework is used to explore the efficiency of inputs and outputs and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction potential for crop production systems, using Zhejiang province, China, as a case study. It is found that an emergy synthesis and a nonseparable undesirable output SBM-DEA framework is compatible with the case study. Crop production in Zhejiang province has relied heavily on an increase in agrochemical inputs to maintain agricultural output. Energy and chemical fertilizer use are determined as the province's major carbon emissions sources. Although carbon emissions per unit of monetary output has decreased sharply, the carbon emissions per unit emergy output has increased, demonstrating a high carbon intensity reality. The DEA highlighted the differences in crop production efficiency, resource factor redundancy and carbon mitigation potential in the different prefectures of the province. To conclude this research, policies to support low carbon agriculture development, including subsidizing low carbon agriculture technology development and expansion and the cancellation of subsidies to high carbon production factors, such as chemical fertilizer production and sales, are discussed to conclude the research.

Exploring the value of overseas biodiversity to Chinese netizens based on willingness to pay for the African elephants' protection.

For a long time, Chinese people have been considered to be concerned only with commercial interests but not ecological systems and biodiversity conservation, even though their trade and investment footprints are globalizing rapidly. This study intended to reveal the non-market valuation on the non-use value of African elephant to Chinese people. Taking the ban of ivory trade as the background, in this study, Chinese netizens' willingness to pay for African elephant conservation was investigated using the contingent valuation method. Four versions of questionnaires were designed and distinguished by offering different background information and payment vehicles (tax and donation). It was demonstrated that the differences in both given information and payment vehicles had no significant impacts on the estimated mean willingness to pay value. 53.36% of the respondents gave positive responses for the hypothetical projects of African elephant protection. The mean willingness to pay was 83.62 RMB (12.59 USD) and 158.58 RMB (23.88 USD) per year per household and the aggregated willingness to pay or benefits for the protection of African elephants from Chinese netizens were estimated to be 16.31 billion RMB (2.45 billion USD) and 30.92 billion RMB (4.65 billion USD) per year after grouping regression and benefit transfer adjustments, respectively. The current research shows that Chinese people, living thousands kilometers away from Africa, have a high public awareness for and valuation to the endangered elephants.

Spatial and seasonal distribution of organochlorine pesticides in the sediments of the Yangtze Estuary.

The spatial and seasonal distribution of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in the sediments of the Yangtze Estuary was investigated. The total concentration of 19 OCPs (∑OCPs), including α-HCH, ß-HCH, γ-HCH, δ-HCH, o, p'-DDE, p, p'-DDE, o, p'-DDD, p, p'-DDD, o, p'-DDT, p, p'-DDT, heptachlor, aldrin, heptachlor epoxide (Isomer B, Isomer A), endosulfan I, dieldrin, endrin, endosulfan II and methoxychlor, in the surface sediments ranged from 0.4 to 82.1 ng g(-1) d.w. The mean values of the ∑OCPs were 8.5 ± 8.3 ng g(-1) d.w., 26.7 ± 12.1 ng g(-1) d.w., 40.5 ± 18.2 ng g(-1) d.w., and 13.0 ± 11.2 ng g(-1) d.w. for August 2010, November 2010, February 2011 and May 2011, respectively. The highest concentration of OCPs was detected at the river-sea boundary because of the intense resuspension and redeposition of sediments in this area. The OCPs preferred to accumulate in the inner estuary, rather than in the offshore area in the dry season, whereas the opposite occurred in the flood season. This phenomenon was related to the seasonal changes of the Changjiang diluted water (CDW). OCPs in the offshore area were controlled by the ocean currents and the monsoon. There was a southward increase for the OCP deposition in the offshore area in the winter. This increase resulted from the influences of the southward Yellow Sea coastal current and the East China Sea coastal current, as well as the northwest wind in winter. The Three Gorges Dam had an impact on HCH composition by changing the sediment redistribution during the deposition process.