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Can transportation infrastructure reduce haze pollution in China?

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Abstract

Traffic emission is one of the main sources of haze pollution, but few studies have evaluated the dynamic impact and mechanism of transportation infrastructure on haze pollution based on a spatial perspective. This study selects the annual data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2017 and uses a dynamic spatial Durbin model to study the dynamic impact of transportation infrastructure on haze pollution. The results show that transportation infrastructure has a significant spatial spillover effect on haze pollution, and the spatial spillover effect has regional heterogeneity. Specifically, whether long term or short term, highway traffic has a boosting effect on haze pollution, while railway traffic has an inhibitory effect on haze pollution. In addition, transportation infrastructure can affect haze pollution through three paths: expanding economic scale, promoting transformation of industrial structure, and promoting technological progress. At the regional level, the improvement of highway traffic density in eastern, central, and western regions will significantly increase haze pollution. The enhancement of railway traffic density has a significant inhibitory and boosting effect on haze pollution in central and western regions, respectively. For the eastern region, railway traffic construction can only restrain local haze pollution, but cannot exert the spatial spillover effect of railway traffic to reduce haze. The conclusions of this paper provide policy inspirations for giving full play to the haze reduction effect of transportation infrastructure and the development of green transportation.

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Availability of data and materials

The research data in this paper can be obtained from the China Statistical Yearbook, China Environmental Statistics Yearbook, China Labor Statistics Yearbook, China Science and Technology Statistical Yearbook, and provincial statistical yearbooks.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to editors and anonymous reviewers for valuable suggestions and corrections.

Funding

This paper is supported by the Postgraduate Innovation Program Project of Guizhou Province (No.: Qianjiaohe YJSCXJH [2020]191), University Level Project of the Guizhou University of Finance and Economics (No.: 2018XYB10), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2682020ZT113).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Big Data Application and Economics, Guizhou University of Finance and Economics, Guiyang, 550025, China

    Chenggang Li, Tao Lin & Wanping Bai

  2. Department of Statistics, School of Mathematics, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 611756, China

    Zhifei Zhang & Lei Huang

  3. Beanstalk International Bilingual School, Chengdu, 610101, China

    Dan Xu

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  1. Chenggang Li
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  2. Tao Lin
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  3. Zhifei Zhang
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  4. Dan Xu
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  5. Lei Huang
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Contributions

Conceptualization, Chenggang Li and Tao Lin; methodology, Tao Lin; software, Tao Lin; validation, Chenggang Li and Tao Lin; formal analysis, Tao Lin; investigation, Tao Lin; resources, Chenggang Li and Tao Lin; data curation, Tao Lin; writing (original draft preparation), Tao Lin; writing (review and editing), Chenggang Li, Zhifei Zhang, Dan Xu, Lei Huang and Wanping Bai; visualization, Tao Lin; supervision, Chenggang Li; project administration, Chenggang Li; and funding acquisition, Tao Lin and Chenggang Li.

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Correspondence to Tao Lin.

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Li, C., Lin, T., Zhang, Z. et al. Can transportation infrastructure reduce haze pollution in China?. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 15564–15581 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16902-y

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