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China (), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's second-most populous country with a population exceeding 1.4 billion. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, tied with Russia as having the most of any country in the world. With an area of nearly , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two semi-autonomous special administrative regions. The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and largest financial center is Shanghai. The region that is now China has been inhabited since the Paleolithic era, with the Yellow River basin being a cradle of civilization. The sixth to third centuries BCE saw both significant conflict and the emergence of Classical Chinese literature and philosophy. In 221 BCE, China was unified under an emperor, ushering in more than two millennia

China’s construction industry-linked economy-resources-environment flow in international trade

Qinli Lu

During construction, a large number of resources are consumed; concurrently, a large amount of greenhouse gas is emitted, which contributes to air pollution. There exist close interactions among construction regions. This study examined the main economy-resources-environment indexes associated with China’s construction industry, embodied in international trade based on the Eora database, by using the input-output model. It investigated the linkages of the economy-resources-environment nexus and suggests recommendations accordingly. We found that the total amount of input consumption and output emissions in China’s construction activities increased rapidly, both locally and abroad. China pulled much more emissions from construction-related activities abroad than the latter pulled from China. The overseas regions’ dependence on China’s construction industry gradually increased. Overall, China’s construction activities accelerated the rate of foreign countries’ resource utilization and air pollution more than it did economic profits for some of these countries. The effects on countries differed. China’s construction industry was closely related to the Asian, African, and Latin American undeveloped regions. In regard to the developed regions, cooperation with Australia, the UK, Sweden and Russia was more frequent. There existed a close relationship between all the economy-resources-environment indexes. Based on the findings, protective measures were suggested, including avoiding unnecessary construction activities, optimizing China’s economic and energy use structure, improving the efficient use of resources, strengthening environmental protection both abroad and locally, as well as reducing the export of products with high energy or resources consumption.

2020

Footprint of SO2 in China's international trade and the interregional hotspot analysis

Qinli Lu

SO2, which is one of key components that can deteriorate the environment, can be relocated by international trade. Based on the EORA, the EDGAR databases and input-output model, this study calculated China's SO2 emissions caused by import and export, and presented a method to exhibit China's export-related SO2 footprint at a high resolution. The results showed that export generated more SO2 emissions than import, and the two both increased rapidly since 1990, but decreased in 2008 and 2010, respectively. Both importand export-related SO2 emissions were concentrated more in undeveloped regions and several developed countries. High percentage of China's export-related SO2 emissions were mainly observed on the secondary industry activities. The percentages for most sectors increased before 2005 and decreased in 2015. Spatially, the export-related emissions decreased obviously from the southeast to the northwest within China. China's export-related SO2 emissions showed an increasing trend overall during 1990-2012. Areas with increasing emission trends were mainly concentrated in areas where the secondary industries were concentrated, such as the North China Plain. Both the increasing and decreasing areas showed highly significant changing trends. The east and south showed intensive distributions of the highly significant changing trends.

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2020

The embodied flow of built-up land in China?s interregional trade and its implications for regional carbon balance

Qinli Lu

Built-up land intensively concentrates human activities, and its area or the changes in its intensity dramatically affect the regional carbon balance. This study proposed a new framework to assess how in China, the interregional trade?s use of built-up land affects regional carbon balance with regard to the initial maintained land and the expanded built-up land. Then, a multiregional input-output model was used to simultaneously analyse China?s built-up land flow in interregional trade and the effect on carbon balance. Finally, hidden regional inequality was analysed. The results show that the domestic trade pulled indirect external built-up land use reached to 100286 km2 in 2012 and caused 28084 ? 104 t external province pulled carbon emissions for whole China, including 286 ? 104 t from vegetation carbon storage loss. Regionally, more developed regions were always net receivers of built-up land use, in contrast, less developed regions more frequently acted as net suppliers, but most regions experienced economic and environmental deficits. The majority of other provinces experienced a contradictory status of loss of economic profit or environmental profit. For sustainable development and regional equality, more developed regions should provide more economic and technological support for effective built-up land use and emissions reduction to less developed regions.

ELSEVIER2021