title: The Effect of Economic Growth, Urbanization, and Industrialization on Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) Concentrations in China.
abstract: Rapid economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization in China have led to extremely severe air pollution that causes increasing negative effects on human health, visibility, and climate change. However, the influence mechanisms of these anthropogenic factors on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations are poorly understood. In this study, we combined panel data and econometric methods to investigate the main anthropogenic factors that contribute to increasing PM2.5concentrations in China at the prefecture level from 1999 to 2011. The results showed that PM2.5concentrations and three anthropogenic factors were cointegrated. The panel Fully Modified Least Squares and panel Granger causality test results indicated that economic growth, industrialization, and urbanization increased PM2.5concentrations in the long run. The results implied that if China persists in its current development pattern, economic growth, industrialization and urbanization will inevitably lead to increased PM2.5emissions in the long term. Industrialization was the principal factor that affected PM2.5concentrations for the total panel, the industry-oriented panel and the service-oriented panel. PM2.5concentrations can be reduced at the cost of short-term economic growth and industrialization. However, reducing the urbanization level is not an efficient way to decrease PM2.5pollutions in the short term. The findings also suggest that a rapid reduction of PM2.5concentrations relying solely on adjusting these anthropogenic factors is difficult in a short-term for the heavily PM2.5-polluted panel. Moreover, the Chinese government will have to seek much broader policies that favor a decoupling of these coupling relationships.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) , 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Guangdong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) , 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Chuanglin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University , Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Shaojian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Regional Sustainable Development Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) , 11A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Siao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants; D002681:China; D057231:Climate Change; D057217:Economic Development; D006801:Humans; D000067896:Industrial Development; D052638:Particulate Matter; D014507:Urbanization
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D052638:Particulate Matter