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Implementation of environmental regulation strategies for nitrogen pollution in river basins: a stakeholder game perspective

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Abstract 

With the rapid development of modern agriculture, non-point source nitrogen pollution from higher polluting farms has become one of the main contributions to the eutrophication of the watershed. This paper first constructed a tripartite evolutionary game model concerning local governments, higher polluting farms, and consumers, all of which participate in the reduction of nitrogen pollution in the river basin. Secondly, the evolution process of evolutionary stability strategy (ESS) and the impact of critical parameters on the strategies of the three stakeholders were analyzed through numerical simulation. The results demonstrated that (1) six ESSs of the system are determined, only (1, 0, 1) is regarded as the most ideal ESS: regulation by local governments, higher polluting farms adopting not purchasing emission rights, and consumers purchasing green agricultural products. (2) The regulation strategy of local governments depends on comparing political losses with the sum of emission reduction subsidies and the supervision cost. (3) The marginal abatement costs, the price of nitrogen emission permits, nitrogen use efficiency, and the subsidy standard for unit emission reduction are the main factors that affect the ESS of higher polluting farms. (4) The ESS of consumers is significantly affected by low-nitrogen preference, government subsidies, and nitrogen use efficiency. This study suggests that the government should strengthen the supervision of the watershed environment from the aspects of improving the market mechanism of nitrogen trading, establishing a dynamic monitoring system, and innovating a subsidy mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for reviewing this paper.

Funding

This research is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72071040), the Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China (21&ZD118), the Major Project for Philosophy and Social Sciences Research in Jiangsu Province (No. 2018SJZDA005), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2242021k30005).

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  1. School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, PR China

    Xuan Xi & Yulin Zhang

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  1. Xuan Xi
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  2. Yulin Zhang
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Xuan Xi: investigation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, methodology, resources. Yulin Zhang: conceptualization, project administration, supervision, validation, writing – review and editing.

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Correspondence to Yulin Zhang.

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Xi, X., Zhang, Y. Implementation of environmental regulation strategies for nitrogen pollution in river basins: a stakeholder game perspective. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 41168–41186 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18609-0

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