1. Introduction
With the development of the economy, environmental pollution has become more and more serious in China. Environmental protection has become a priority of government work. Additionally, more and more scholars have begun to study Chinaʼs pollution control problems from different angles [
1,
2,
3]. In recent years, the rural environmental pollution problem has increasingly intensified with the speeding up of the urban-rural integration, especially in developed regions.
Urban-rural integration is centered on cities, small towns serving as a link, based on the country, the rural areas driven by urban areas and township-promoted agriculture, which established a new urban-rural relationship of mutual benefit and reciprocity, as well as mutual promotion, coordinated development and promoted common prosperity. Urban-rural integration is not the basic driving force to ensure Chinaʼs future economic growth, but a fundamental way to seek coordinated development between urban and rural areas, as well as to solve the “three agricultural problems” (referring in particular to agriculture, rural areas and farmer issues). From years of practice, urban-rural integration has greatly promoted the development of rural non-agricultural industries, achieving rural lifestyle urbanization and stimulating the free flow of the factors of production, narrowing the urban-rural gap. However, it has also exacerbated the extent of environmental pollution in rural areas of China, especially in developed regions. Rural pollution has a serious impact on regional economic development, endangers peopleʼs health and, in turn, hinders urban-rural integration. As one of the largest and fastest-growing economic regions in China, Jiangsu Province was the first region to promote urban-rural integration starting in 1983. Tremendous achievements have been accomplished, but rural environmental problems remain.
As can be seen in
Table 1, the pollution problems of rural areas in Jiangsu Province gradually increased along with the development of the economy, which directly causes the deterioration of our natural environment. It was shown that the rural area’s surface water was slightly polluted in nine monitoring stations in the 2011 Report on the State of the Environment in Jiangsu Province in China. Additionally, it shows that the water quality was exceeded in 2011 by 30%. It is necessary to analyze the rural non-point source pollution and put forward a targeted approach, for the purpose of facilitating the smooth implementation of the urban and rural integration process and of achieving sustainable development goals. Thus, many scholars have begun to focus on the rural environmental pollution in the process of urban-rural integration.
Non-point source pollution has four main features: private ownership, complex and diverse causes, great harm and a large influence scope. Therefore, it is difficult to clean up non-point source pollution in rural areas. The research on rural non-point source pollution control abroad began in the 1980s, mainly focused on technical measures, control theory, economic policy,
etc. In 1991, two economists, Grossman and Krueger, proposed the famous EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve) curve for describing the relationship between environmental population and per capita income [
4]. Bell and Russell presented the view that the quantitative measurement of non-point source pollution is the foundation of the sewage charges and the issuance of sewage discharge permits [
5]. Ribaudo
et al., Isik, Russel and Clark, Egli and Steger and Speir studied the feasibility of economic means and policy instruments to solve rural non-point source pollution [
6,
7,
8,
9,
10]. They also discussed the implementation difficulties and corresponding countermeasures. Kaplowitz
et al. studied non-point source pollution control using the selected experimental investigation methods and by understanding the publicʼs preferences [
11]. The results show that the involvement of stakeholders can increase the public recognition of the pollution control plan, thereby improving the effectiveness of pollution control. Camacho-Cuena
et al. and Cason
et al. also studied non-point source pollution from different aspects through experimentation [
12,
13].
Table 1.
Economic and environmental data of Jiangsu Province in China (1990–2009).
Table 1.
Economic and environmental data of Jiangsu Province in China (1990–2009).
Index | Units | 1990 | 2009 | Annual Average Growth % |
---|
Urbanization rate of population | % | 21.56 | 55.60 | 3.71 |
Agriculture GDP 1 | Billion Yuan | 355.17 | 798.74 | 6.24 |
The proportion of non-agriculture | % | 72.0 | 94.6 | 1.57 |
The proportion of non-agriculture labor | % | 38.48 | 67.15 | 3.73 |
Rural households per capita net income | Yuan | 263.81 | 786.71 | 9.91 |
Rural Engel coefficient | % | 52.30 | 39.20 | −1.25 |
COD emissions 2,3 | Tons | 64.20 | 96.88 | 2.55 |
TP emissions 2,4 | Tons | 4.78 | 8.33 | 3.71 |
TN emissions 2,5 | Tons | 54.29 | 72.87 | 1.71 |
Non-point source pollution has also been studied from the technology and economic policy viewpoint in China. Li
et al. thought that it showed an inverted U-shaped curve between fertilizer non-point source pollution and macroeconomic growth [
14]. There are several key factors of the fertilizer non-point source pollution in rural areas, including the level of residents’ wealth, the proportion of nonfarm employment of farmers, the urban-rural dualistic environmental management system, and so on. Guo and Sun have also researched the EKC curve between rural non-point source pollution and economic growth empirically in different ways [
15]. Gao
et al. calculated the equivalent pollution load and equivalent pollution index of Shandong Province in 2007, using the “Equivalent pollution load method” [
16]. Yang
et al. investigated the measures that could solve the problem of rural non-point source pollution and proposed an optimized management model about small watershed water quality [
17]. Jin
et al. investigated the acceptability of Macao residents to a solid waste management policy through the selection model [
18]. Ge and Zhou proposed that Chinaʼs policy of fertilizer price control and fiscal subsidies to farmers led to the distortion of the fertilizer market, which increased the emission of agricultural fertilizer non-point source pollutants [
19].
Tremendous changes have occurred in the development scale, industrial structure, standards of living and lifestyle in rural areas due to urban-rural integration. These changes will have a great influence on rural non-point pollution. However, only a few studies have explored this area. Xiao thought that the environment should be protected through creating beautiful villages and ecological construction [
20]. Luo took the rural areas of Chongqing as an example and proposed a measure of rural pollution control based on the perspective of urban and rural overall development [
21]. Fei
et al. discussed the ecological environmental issues in the process of urban-rural integration and presented the countermeasures correspondingly [
22]. Fu took the rural areas of Changtu in Liaoning Province as an example, studied the status and issues of rural environmental governance and also put forward some measures on the issues [
23]. As can be seen from the literature above, there has been a great deal of achievement in urban-rural integration. However, few of these works involve rural environmental pollution. If any, they put emphasis on the theoretical analysis and countermeasures instead of empirical analysis. This paper applies the improved STIRPAT model to research the rural non-point source pollution in the process of urban-rural integration. We use the ridge regression method to estimate the model parameters in order to avoid collinearity between the variables of the study based on theoretical analysis. Additionally, we use the ridge regression method to estimate model parameters in order to avoid collinearity between the variables of the study. In this paper, Jiangsu Province is selected as the study area, due to the fact that it is one of the most developed areas in China, the urban-rural integration in Jiangsu is representative of China and it has great influence. This paper empirically investigates the factors influencing rural non-point environmental pollution in the process of urban-rural integration and confirms the main factors that can influence rural non-point pollution. Finally, this paper provides the theoretical basis for rural environmental governance measures.
2. Analysis of Environmental Effects on the Construction of Urban and Rural Integration
2.1. Analysis of Population Factors
The rural population continues to decline, resulting in the decrement of the employment of the rural population with the urban and rural integration. Because of the lack of a rural labor force, the traditional mode of agricultural production is very hard to continue. Thus, farmers will increase their input of pesticides and fertilizers, machinery and other production factors as much as possible to replace the labor input for agricultural production. According to the statistics, the rural population has been reduced from 53,079,600 to 34,296,800 from 1990 to 2009, while the proportion of the employment of the rural population decreased from 74.69% to 58.81%. Fertilizer use increased from 2,217,900 tons to 3,440,000 tons, and = pesticide use increased from 79,800 tons to 92,300 tons. Plastic film use rose from 35,400 tons to 94, 300 tons at the same time. It is inevitable that non-point source pollution will continuously increase due to the wide use of chemicals.
2.2. Analysis of Economic Factors
Rural areas had experienced rapid economic development with urban and rural integration. Currently, chemicals, mainly fertilizers, pesticide, and plastic film significantly contribute to the development of agriculture in China. The increase of the agricultural economic scale means a large consumption of chemicals. At the same time, the income of the farmer’s increases accordingly. Therefore, farmers will require better environmental quality. This will promote the improvement of environmental quality.
2.3. Analysis of Financial Factors
The government will pay more attention to the development of rural areas in the process of urban-rural integration. The government will provide funds and technology to rural areas. The technical level of agricultural production will be increased. The farmers will reduce the use of fertilizer, pesticide and other factors of production. By increasing the expenditure in rural areas, we can effectively support construction in rural areas, including environmental infrastructure. Once the environmental infrastructure increases, the processing capacity for environmental pollutants will be enhanced and non-point source pollutants will decrease. Consequently, the ecological environment can be improved at the same time. The increased expenditure is also able to increase funding for the publicity of environmental protection and to promote rural residents’ environmental awareness, thereby reducing pollutant emissions.