Assessing the Regional Imbalance between Environment and Economic Development within China

摘要

This paper systematically analyzed the imbalance between economic development and ecological environmental protection in provinces of China. A coordination degree evaluation method based on comprehensive economic index and comprehensive environmental index has been established and used to assess the coordinated development at three levels. The results showed: 1) for all China's 31 provinces, the environmental conditions have been lagging behind the regional economic development. 2) The overall level of economic development and urbanization of most provinces were relatively high, average scores of indicators on GDP per capita, population urbanization, disposable income of urban residents were 0.6388, 0.8207, 0.9664, respectively. 3) Pressures on deepening reform and expanding opening, and the gap between urban and rural development were main factors that led to the uncoordinated development of regional economy. 4) Most provinces made good performance in urban environmental management and air pollution control, but low investment in industrial pollution control and undesirable aquatic ecological environment were still major obstacles to coordinated development of economy-environment system.