Development of a multi-factorial enviro-economic analysis model for assessing the interactive effects of combined air pollution control policies

Abstract With the over exploitation and utilization of natural resources especially fossil energy, environmental degradation caused by such activities have been drawn much attention due to their adverse impacts on economic loss and related health burden. Air pollution has become one of the most intractable environmental issues despite a multitude of air pollution control policies were set to mitigate air pollutant emissions. In this study, a multi-factorial enviro-economic analysis model is developed to assess the interactive effects of combined air pollution control policies at provincial and sectoral levels of China. Specifically, twelve emission-mitigation scenarios are set based on various air pollution (i.e. SO2, NOX, and dust emissions) control policies that aims at reducing the pollution to 10 to 30% in critical provinces/sectors. This model is developed through exploration of the interactive relationships among these scenarios and their compound impacts on the socio-economic systems at provincial and sectoral levels. It is found that the increase of economic activities and population stimulate substantial emissions in spite of the decline of emission intensity. Evidence suggests that the interaction exits among various provincial and sectoral factors when consider their effects on systematic robustness and efficiency. On the contrary, individual effects from these factors dominate the system in terms of final demand and integral flow. Moreover, the factors with substantial emissions are not likely have huge contribution to the final demand and integral flow.