TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial analysis of citizens’ environmental complaints in China
T2 - Implications in environmental monitoring and governance
AU - Ji, Xuepeng
AU - Tong, Daoqin
AU - Cheng, Lisha
AU - Chuai, Xiaowei
AU - Mao, Xiyan
AU - Liu, Binglin
AU - Huang, Xianjin
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (17ZDA061), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41801104), and Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71921003).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/9
Y1 - 2021/9
N2 - Citizen environmental complaints play a key role in China’s current environmental monitoring network and environmental governance system. Based on 5796 cases of environmental complaints lodged by citizens via hotline and the internet to the MEP of China, we examined the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of citizen complaints for the period of 2013–2017 using spatial analysis methods and spatial econometric models. The roles of citizen complaints in the two systems were then reevaluated. The results show that, among all cases, 75.88% of cases were identified as verified complaints, while nearly a 25% noisy rate directed large amounts of inspection resources to be utilized in response to nonverified cases. Air pollution received the most attention by citizens in China, accounting for 67.22% of total cases. The hotspots of citizen complaints were mostly distributed in the three major national urban agglomerations in China. We found that industrial wastewater and SO2 were positively associated with the likelihood of citizens filing complaints, while the effect of industrial soot/dust emission was insignificant. Citizen complaints might be triggered by certain, but not all, forms of pollutants, even though highly visible particulate pollutants did not necessarily induce corresponding complaints. Moreover, the negative relationship between citizen complaints and per capita GDP revealed the unbalanced geographical pattern between economical development and environmental quality. The proliferation of the internet greatly facilitated citizens lodging complaints through various ways. The synergy mechanism between citizen environmental complaints and other parts in China’s environmental monitoring and governance system should be established in the future.
AB - Citizen environmental complaints play a key role in China’s current environmental monitoring network and environmental governance system. Based on 5796 cases of environmental complaints lodged by citizens via hotline and the internet to the MEP of China, we examined the spatial characteristics and influencing factors of citizen complaints for the period of 2013–2017 using spatial analysis methods and spatial econometric models. The roles of citizen complaints in the two systems were then reevaluated. The results show that, among all cases, 75.88% of cases were identified as verified complaints, while nearly a 25% noisy rate directed large amounts of inspection resources to be utilized in response to nonverified cases. Air pollution received the most attention by citizens in China, accounting for 67.22% of total cases. The hotspots of citizen complaints were mostly distributed in the three major national urban agglomerations in China. We found that industrial wastewater and SO2 were positively associated with the likelihood of citizens filing complaints, while the effect of industrial soot/dust emission was insignificant. Citizen complaints might be triggered by certain, but not all, forms of pollutants, even though highly visible particulate pollutants did not necessarily induce corresponding complaints. Moreover, the negative relationship between citizen complaints and per capita GDP revealed the unbalanced geographical pattern between economical development and environmental quality. The proliferation of the internet greatly facilitated citizens lodging complaints through various ways. The synergy mechanism between citizen environmental complaints and other parts in China’s environmental monitoring and governance system should be established in the future.
KW - China
KW - Citizen environmental complaints
KW - Hotline and internet
KW - Influencing factors
KW - Spatial characteristics
KW - Spatial regression models
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U2 - 10.3390/ijerph18189674
DO - 10.3390/ijerph18189674
M3 - Article
C2 - 34574597
AN - SCOPUS:85114782463
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 18
JO - International journal of environmental research and public health
JF - International journal of environmental research and public health
IS - 18
M1 - 9674
ER -