Measuring integrated environmental footprint transfers in China: A new perspective on spillover-feedback effects

Freshwater scarcity, productive land scarcity and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have become major global concerns. The situation is particularly acute in China, the world's most populous country, where there is a heterogeneous spatial distribution of natural resources in relation to regions of population density, industrial concentration and energy resource utilization. In this study, the most recent inter-regional input-output table for China and satellite extensions for water footprint, carbon footprint and land footprint were used to assess multiplier, spillover and feedback footprints for seven major regions, three industry sectors (primary, secondary and tertiary) and three time periods (2007, 2010 and 2012). In addition, normalization and weighting processes were used to integrate the individual footprints and assess the combined environmental stress transfers between regions. While the greatest contribution to the total environmental footprint came from the multiplier effect, the results illustrate that for some regions, spillover-feedback effects make an important contribution to environmental stress, such as North Region, East Region and South Region. Additionally, the ratio of feedback and spillover effect to total environmental footprint was further analyzed. The results show that the North Region was the largest, remaining 24.1%–34.4%. The three major economic circles of Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei are important hotspots for regional environmental stress transfer. The results also draw attention to the situation in some regions where resource flows associated with spillover-feedback effects are high in relation to regional natural resource abundance meaning that environmental stress is high and patterns of economic development may not be sustainable into the future. More attention should be paid to regions with high relative environmental footprint. In summary, we find that spillover-feedback effects are important to consider in elaborating the resource dependencies of regions. Understanding these mechanisms will be essential to support integrated economic and environmental policy development to support sustainable development.