Driving Forces of Industrial Water Pollutant Emission from Spatial-Dynamic Perspective in China: Analysis Based on Kaya Equation and LMDI Decomposition

Abstract

The identification of the driving forces of industrial water pollutant emissions in China is conducive to its effective abatement. It also promotes the coordinated development of China's economic growth and the environment protection. Utilizing the Kaya equation and China's provincial panel data from 1999 to 2015, this paper investigates the spatial-dynamic driving forces governing industrial water pollutant emission. We decompose and quantify the heterogeneous effects of different drivers, that is, technology, energy consumption, and economic size distribution. Applying the LMDI decomposition method, this paper also calculates the contribution of the three drivers to the abatement of industrial water pollutant emissions. The analysis indicates that the most important contribution to pollutant abatement is the development of technology, followed by energy consumption, and the least affected is the distribution of economic scale. In the future, the Chinese government should pay more attention to the impact of energy consumption on pollution abatement. This paper suggests that the Chinese government should improve the clean use of fossil fuel, optimize the energy consumption structure, and develop the use of more clean energy.