The Impact Of Industrial Wastewater Discharge On Residents

Under the reform and opening-up policy,China has experienced an unprecedented economic boom while the rapid industrialization also has led to the growing environmental crisis resultedfrom the pollution including the air and water pollution.The severe environmental degradation not only is hindering the sustainable economic development but also is making a serious threat to the public health.Therefore environmental pollution and its health effect are becoming a public concern as well as the topic of more and more researches.This thesis firstly reviews the relative literatures about relationship between health andenvironmental pollution especially the impact of water pollution on residents' health.Then we hold the belief that the industrial wastewater discharging during the industrialization is the main reason of water pollution.And we match the survey data from China Health and Nutrition Survey andprovince-level industrial waste data through the geographical position information for the empirical analysis on individual level health effects of water pollution.According to CHNS data,whether having been sick,BMI indicator and self-reported health status are selected as health measure indicators to capture the residents' health status.The empirical results show that industrial wastewater discharge do have a significant negative impact on residents'health.Specifically,the more 1%industrial waste water is discharged,the more 0.32%will the odd ratio increase by that the residents will report having been sick during the last four weeks,the odd ratio that BMI indicator deviates from the health interval and the self-reported health status is tend to be worse will increase 0.20%and 0.17%respectively.Besides,this thesis uses the historical wastewater data and the policy fctor constructed through the discharge standards as instruments respectively in the empirical regression to avoid the biasness caused by the endogeneity and the results show the same impact of industrial wastewater discharge.Therefore,the health of residents will be negatively impacted by the industrial wastewater discharge from subjective and objective perspectives.Meanwhile,the empirical results show that the availability of tap water has a statistically significant effect on the health of residents,which is likely to affect human health by influencing the potential exposure to water pollution After considering gender difference,difference between urban and rural areas,air pollution and other factors,the negative health effect of industrial wastewater shows its robustness.The subsample tests and robustness tests indicate that industrial wastewater discharge do have a negative effect on human health,which needs to be taken into consideration as a necessary factor when making relevant policy-decisions.