Can Transportation Infrastructure Construction Improve the Urban Green Development Efficiency? Evidence from China
Okan Gurbuz
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript constructs a theoretical model including residents' utility and transportation infrastructure to analyze the influence path of transportation infrastructure on UGDE. Given the data collected in China from 2011 to 2017, the authors found that the increase of traffic infrastructure can enhance the UGDE remarkably. The presented study directly examines the impact of transport infrastructure on the UGDE. The method is sound. The manuscript can be accepted if the following questions can be solved. 1. Some of the data used in this paper is rather old. For example in Line 101,"More seriously, in China’s megacities, like Beijing and Guangzhou, “motor vehicles emit greater than 80% of carbon monoxide and about 40% of nitrogen oxide” (Fu et al., 2001)." Please update. 2. Please unify the body size of the formula all throughout the paper. 3. Some papers of the reference are rather old, please update.Author Response
Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our manuscript.
Comment 1: Some of the data used in this paper is rather old. For example in Line 101, "More seriously, in China’s megacities, like Beijing and Guangzhou, “motor vehicles emit greater than 80% of carbon monoxide and about 40% of nitrogen oxide” (Fu et al., 2001)." Please update.
Response: The data has not changed much over the years and we have updated this reference.
Luo, Z., Wan, G., Wang, C., & Zhang, X. (2018). Urban pollution and road infrastructure: A case study of China. China Economic Review, 49, 171-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2017.04.008
Comment 2: Please unify the body size of the formula all throughout the paper.
Response: We have unified the body size of the formula.
Comment 3: Some papers of the reference are rather old, please update.
Response: We have updated some references.
Wu, J., Lu, W., & Li, M. (2020). A DEA-based improvement of China's green development from the perspective of resource realloca-tion. Science of The Total Environment, 717: 137106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137106
Fang, G., Wang, Q., & Tian, L. (2020) Green development of Yangtze River Delta in China under popula-tion-resources-environment-development-satisfaction perspective. Science of The Total Environment, 2020, 727: 138710. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138710
Su, Y., & Fan, Q. M. (2022). Renewable energy technology innovation, industrial structure upgrading and green development from the perspective of China's provinces. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 180, 121727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121727
Zhu, B., Zhang, M., Zhou, Y., Wang, P., Sheng, J., He, K., & Xie, R. (2019). Exploring the effect of industrial structure adjustment on interprovincial green development efficiency in China: A novel integrated approach. Energy Policy, 134, 110946. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2019.110946
Wang, H., & Zhao, L. (2018). A joint prevention and control mechanism for air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in china based on long-term and massive data mining of pollutant concentration. Atmospheric Environment, 174, 25-42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.11.027
Jain, C. D., Singh, V., Raj, S. A., Madhavan, B. L., & Ratnam, M. V. (2021). Local emission and long-range transport impacts on the CO, CO2, and CH4 concentrations at a tropical rural site. Atmospheric Environment, 254, 118397. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2021.118397
Reviewer 2 Report
It is a very well-written paper with an interesting topic. I have some minor comments listed here:
1. Ln 33: Global Environmental Performance index should be referenced
2. Ln 36: World Bank report should be referenced
3. Ln 113- Ln 117: there are repetitions that talk about the transportation infrastructure and economic growth. This part needs a revision.
4. Ln 122: What are those few studies with UGDE. Can authors list or highlight them.
5. Theoretical analysis: this part is a bit complicated and Section 2.1.1. directly starts with the parameters. I think it would be better to give some background of the model before introducing the parameters.
6. Ln 643: the consent for publication should be updated to the journal.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your constructive comments on our paper.
Comment 1: Ln 33: Global Environmental Performance index should be referenced
Response: We have added a reference in the footnote: Source: https://epi.yale.edu.
Comment 2: Ln 36: World Bank report should be referenced
Response: We have added a reference in the footnote: Source https://www.worldbank.org.
Comment 3: Ln 113- Ln 117: there are repetitions that talk about the transportation infrastructure and economic growth. This part needs a revision.
Response: Thanks for your advice. But we want to explain that the transportation infrastructure has promoted the economic development mentioned above. And we have rewritten this part, like this: Transportation infrastructure development has played a pivotal role in economic growth (Lucas, 1988; Aschauer, 1989; Vlahinić Lenz, 2018). Earliest, Lucas (1988), and Aschauer (1989) agree that transportation infrastructure development is an essential condition for economic growth. Subsequently, some researchers found that transportation infrastructure can act as a magnet for regional economic growth by attracting resource from other regions (Esfahni & Ramirez, 2003; Storeygard, 2016; Pradhan, 2019). Transportation infrastructure can not only contribute to improving environmental quality., but also promote economic growth.
Comment 4: Ln 122: What are those few studies with UGDE. Can authors list or highlight them.
Response: We are very sorry that we may not be able to list or highlight literature. Because to our knowledge, we cannot find literature on the impact of transportation infrastructure on UGDE, so we use the word “few”. But we can list some studies about UGDE.
Yang, T., Zhou, K., & Zhang, C. (2022). Spatiotemporal patterns and influencing factors of green development efficiency in China's urban agglomerations. Sustainable Cities and Society, 85, 104069.
Wang, K. L., Sun, T. T., Xu, R. Y., Miao, Z., & Cheng, Y. H. (2022). How does internet development promote urban green innovation efficiency? Evidence from China. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 184, 122017.
Comment 5: Theoretical analysis: this part is a bit complicated and Section 2.1.1. directly starts with the parameters. I think it would be better to give some background of the model before introducing the parameters.
Response: Thanks for your advice. We constructed this model from the household consumption, firm department, and government department to theoretically analyze the impact of transportation infrastructure on economic growth. And in each part of this model, we have instructions.
Comment 6: Ln 643: the consent for publication should be updated to the journal.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have updated the journal.
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper proposes a method drawing on the previous approaches in the literature to measure the impact of new transport infrastructure on Urban Green Development Efficiency (UGDE).
The research is not well-organised and discussion are poorly presented. The concepts and ideas are not explained comprehensively and the advantage of the current paper to the ones in the literature is not illustrated properly.
The English should be revised as it undermines the message which the authors are trying to convey.
Please provide a clear definition for the term Urban Green Development Efficiency (UGDE).
The conclusion section contains too many conclusions which are vague, too general and are often not drawn from the analyses presented in the paper. For instance:
Page13/line 487: “The results show that UGDE shows an increasing trend but is generally at a low level” This sentence is vague.
Page 14/line 505: “Therefore, the transportation infrastructure construction should be improved, such as increasing the area of roads and building new bridges, so that they can match the number of motor vehicles and slow down the environmental pollution caused by traffic congestion.” How did you draw this conclusion from the analysis you conducted in the paper? Also, increasing the area of roads and building new bridges don’t necessarily improve congestion, and can even worsen the situation.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your comments.
Comment 1: The English should be revised as it undermines the message which the authors are trying to convey.
Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion, we have stated it in sections. We then used the links recommended by the editor for language changes, manuscript restructuring, etc.
Comment 2: Please provide a clear definition for the term Urban Green Development Efficiency (UGDE).
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have added the definition for Urban Green Development(UGDE). Green development is based on the concept of sustainable development, to achieve economic development, social progress, and environmental protection as the direction, to save resources, environmentally friendly as the performance form, to industrial low-carbon, green as the key path, to promote the "industrial civilization" to "ecological civilization. It is a development model with the goal of promoting the transformation from "industrial civilization" to "ecological civilization". The key to urban green development lies in the improvement of green development efficiency, that is, to promote the transformation of the urban to a green development model with low input, low emission, and high efficiency. Green development efficiency integrates the indicators used to evaluate the efficiency of regional development based on the consumption of resources and environment, and the higher its value, the better the regional development efficiency, and vice versa (Ren et al., 2017).
Ren, Y., Fang, C., Lin, X. (2017) Evaluation of eco-efficiency of four major urban agglomerations in eastern coastal area of China. Acta Geographica Sinica, 72(11): 2047-2063.
Comment 3: The conclusion section contains too many conclusions which are vague, too general, and are often not drawn from the analyses presented in the paper. For instance:
Page13/line 487: “The results show that UGDE shows an increasing trend but is generally at a low level” This sentence is vague.
Page 14/line 505: “Therefore, the transportation infrastructure construction should be improved, such as increasing the area of roads and building new bridges, so that they can match the number of motor vehicles and slow down the environmental pollution caused by traffic congestion.” How did you draw this conclusion from the analysis you conducted in the paper? Also, increasing the area of roads and building new bridges don’t necessarily improve congestion, and can even worsen the situation.
Response: (1) Page13/line 487. From the urban green development efficiency graph (Fig.1), we can see that the overall urban green development efficiency is on an upward trend, but its value basically remains between 0.422 and 0.557, so the level of green development efficiency of cities is not high. (2) Page14/line 505. This is our recommendation. We make this recommendation because, on the one hand, we conclude that the construction of transportation infrastructure settings can help improve the efficiency of urban green development. On the other hand, due to the relative lag in urban infrastructure construction, it brings a series of problems such as traffic congestion (Chen & Chen, 2018). Wrobel et al. (2000) found that the rate of road growth is obviously lower than the rate of vehicle growth, which may significantly raise the traffic flow on the roads, resulting in slow speeds or even congestion, leading to incomplete combustion of fuel in the vehicle and a two- to three-fold increase in emissions of harmful air pollutants. Some studies have concluded that increasing urban infrastructure construction is an effective way to improve urban air quality (Sun et al., 2019).
Chen, S., & Chen, D. (2018). Air pollution, government regulation and high-quality economic development. Economic research journal,53(02), 20-34. https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?FileName=JJYJ201802003&DbName=CJFQ2018
Wrobel, A., Rokita, E., & Maenhaut, W. (2000). Transport of traffic-related aerosols in urban areas. Science of the Total Environment, 257(2-3), 199-211. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-9697(00)00519-2
Shu, C., Lu, Y., & Yao, X. (2019). The effects of transportation infrastructure on air auqlity: evidence from empirical analysis in China. Economic research journal, 54(08), 136-151.
https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?FileName=JJYJ201908010&DbName=CJFQ2019
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors have sufficiently addressed the comments.
