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Evaluating China's urban environmental sustainability with Data Envelopment Analysis

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  • Yu, Yan
  • Wen, Zongguo

Abstract

China's rapid urbanization has been characterized by excessive economic growth and a series of environmental issues. The urban environmental sustainability of 46 typical Chinese cities in 2007 was evaluated with Data Envelopment Analysis in this paper, and the Malmquist Productivity Index was used to identify the change within 2006-2007. This analysis employed indicators from economic, environmental, and resource sub-systems which are frequently involved in the concept of environmental sustainability. We introduced projecting and benchmarking as two possible approaches for less sustainable cities to refer to their peers. Based on the computed results and empirical analysis, the roles of GDP per capita, city scale, and industrial structure as influence factors of environmental sustainability were explored; and the regional disparity of urban environmental sustainability was also investigated. The results show: (1) 24% of the sample cities (e.g. Beijing, Hohhot, etc.) are relatively "environmentally sustainable." The efficiency scores of Urumqi rank the last. (2) GDP per capita, city scale, and industrial structure factors all exert significant influence on urban environmental sustainability. (3) The environmental sustainability of southeast cities leads the 6 major Chinese regions, and cities around the Bohai area are rapidly approaching environmental sustainability.

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  • Yu, Yan & Wen, Zongguo, 2010. "Evaluating China's urban environmental sustainability with Data Envelopment Analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 1748-1755, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:69:y:2010:i:9:p:1748-1755
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    3. Zhang, Lin & An, Yao, 2017. "The government capacity on industrial pollution management in Shanxi province: A response impulse analysis," MPRA Paper 94796, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Charles-Henri DiMaria, 2014. "Sustainability matters," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 1257-1269, May.
    5. Laura Calzada-Infante & Ana María López-Narbona & Alberto Núñez-Elvira & Javier Orozco-Messana, 2020. "Assessing the Efficiency of Sustainable Cities Using an Empirical Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-13, March.
    6. Cai, Bofeng & Guo, Huanxiu & Ma, Zipeng & Wang, Zhixuan & Dhakal, Shobhakar & Cao, Libin, 2019. "Benchmarking carbon emissions efficiency in Chinese cities: A comparative study based on high-resolution gridded data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 994-1009.
    7. Corrado Lo Storto, 2016. "Ecological Efficiency Based Ranking of Cities: A Combined DEA Cross-Efficiency and Shannon’s Entropy Method," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-29, January.
    8. Fang‐Li Ruan & Liang Yan, 2022. "Challenges facing indicators to become a universal language for sustainable urban development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 41-57, February.
    9. Ze Xu & Jianjun Zhang & Chu Li & Zhenyu Li & Yongheng Rao & Tianyu Lu, 2017. "A Road to Sustainable Development of Chinese Cities: A Perception of Improving Urban Management Efficiency Based on Two-Level Production Factors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-16, November.
    10. Yang, Wen-Chi & Lee, Yuh-Ming & Hu, Jin-Li, 2016. "Urban sustainability assessment of Taiwan based on data envelopment analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 341-353.
    11. Xiang Ji & Jie Wu & Qingyuan Zhu & Jiasen Sun, 2019. "Using a hybrid heterogeneous DEA method to benchmark China’s sustainable urbanization: an empirical study," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 278(1), pages 281-335, July.
    12. Firnkorn, Jörg & Müller, Martin, 2011. "What will be the environmental effects of new free-floating car-sharing systems? The case of car2go in Ulm," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1519-1528, June.
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    14. Wang, Zhaohua & Feng, Chao, 2015. "A performance evaluation of the energy, environmental, and economic efficiency and productivity in China: An application of global data envelopment analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 617-626.

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