Study On Pollution-intensive Industry Agglomeration And The Environmental Effects In The Yangtze River Economic Belt

Under the important background of high-quality development,ecological economic system construction and industrial green development transformation and upgrading,the survival and development of special categories(pollution-intensive industries)has become a hot topic.The negative externalities of pollution-intensive industries are significant.How to achieve the harmonious symbiosis between economic growth and environmental benefits in the survival and development of pollution-intensive industries has become the difficulty of high-quality economic growth in the new era.Along the Yangtze Economic belt,pollution-intensive industries are distributed,and heavy chemicals surround the river,environmental accidents also occur frequently,so the contradiction between economic development and ecological and environmental protection needs to be resolved urgently.Under the premise of rearranging the industrial spatial pattern and “placing ecological environment protection in an overwhelming position”,it is of great practical significance to discuss the current situation of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration and its environmental effect in the Yangtze River Economic Belt for promoting industrial transformation and upgrading and practicing the concept of “ecological priority and green development”.Firstly,this paper clarifies the concept of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration and explains the environmental effect mechanism of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration on the basis of externality theory,life cycle theory and sustainable development theory.Secondly,based on the location entropy,specialized agglomeration index and diversified agglomeration index,this paper describes the level of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration of different dimensions in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2003 to 2017,and calculates the environmental pollution index by entropy weight method to analyze the environmental pollution situation.Finally,the environmental effects of different agglomeration patterns and agglomeration levels of pollution-intensive industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt are studied,and the following basic conclusions are drawn:(1)The overall level of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration in the Yangtze River Economic Belt fluctuates greatly and the regional heterogeneity is obvious: on the whole,the level of pollution-intensive industry agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is higher than that in the upper reaches and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.The agglomeration level of the middle reaches is always greater than 1,which is relatively high;the agglomeration level of the upper reaches fluctuates greatly,and the industrial structure needs to be optimized;the agglomeration level of the lower reaches is always less than 1,which indicates that the overall industrial structure is relatively optimized.(2)The different agglomeration modes of pollution-intensive industry in the Yangtze River Economic Belt show different characteristics: the level of specialized agglomeration shows an inverted U-shaped trend,and the level in the lower reaches always keeps the lowest;the level of diversified agglomeration fluctuates greatly and characterized by significant regional differences,which shows the overall trend of divergence first and then convergent.(3)The state of environmental pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt shows an inverted U-shaped trend.In the early stage(2003~2011),the environmental pollution in all regions increased,and in the later stage(2012~2017),it improved.However,the final value(2017)was higher than the initial value,indicating that the overall situation of environmental pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is not optimistic.(4)The empirical studies show that the level of specialized agglomeration of pollution-intensive industry and environmental pollution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt present an inverted U-shaped relationship,the diversified agglomeration and environmental pollution present the N-shaped relationship,and the overall level of agglomeration and environmental pollution also present an inverted U-shaped relationship.At present,the agglomeration level of all provinces in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is on the left side of the inflection point,which means that environmental pollution intensifies with the increase of agglomeration level,and positive effects such as technology spillover have not yet played a role in the pollution intensive-industry.At the same time,the level of economic development,the state of opening-up,the intensity of energy consumption,environmental governance are positively related with environmental pollution,technology,industrial structure are negatively related with environmental pollution,and the improvement of urbanization level also aggravates environmental pollution to a certain extent.Based on theoretical analysis and the above research conclusions,the following countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to promote the reasonable adjustment of industrial structure and regional sustainable development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt:Firstly,standardize the construction of industrial zones and realize the transformation and upgrading of the “ecological agglomeration” mode of pollution-intensive industries.Secondly,strengthen the supervision of ecological environment and comprehensively carry out the environmental risk assessment in pollution-intensive industrial zones.Thirdly,encourage and strengthen technological innovation and give full play to the emission reduction effect of technology.Fourthly,implement precise pollution control and gradient economic development based on the differences of regional development and the heterogeneity of environmental effects of different agglomeration modes.Fifthly,adjust the structure of foreign investment and realize the leap-forward development from “quantity” to “quality”.