Spatio-temporal evolution of provincial ecological footprint and its determinants in China: A spatial econometric approach

The increasing demand for ecosystem services in regional development has presented significant challenges to environmental sustainability. To alleviate environmental pressure, it is crucial to employ the provincial ecological footprint to gauge regional ecological pressure and research the determinants that contribute to reducing environmental pressure. This underscores the significance of examining and addressing the intricate relationships between ecological resources and regional development. While prior studies often focus on national data, provincial ecological footprints have been relatively ignored. Moreover, scant research exists on the in-fluence of variables such as resource rents and industrial structures. This study employs the ecological footprint model to assess the per capita ecological footprint of Chinese provinces from 1990 to 2020, intending to gauge escalating ecological pressures and pinpoint their drivers. We use spatial panel data analysis to investigate the association among economic growth, natural resource rents, industrial structures and ecological footprint. Leveraging spatial weight matrices, we detected provincial footprint spatial autocorrelation and further analyzed it using the spatial Durbin model. Results underscore that economic growth profoundly shapes the ecological footprint, but an explicit Environmental Kuznets Curve remains elusive. Both natural resource rents and industrial shifts considerably influence the ecological footprint. Distinguishing from earlier non-spatial studies, our research merges spatial panel data analysis, emphasizing the regulatory role of juxtaposing natural resource rents with industrial structure adjustment can decrease the impact of economic growth on the ecological footprint. Advocating robust policies that favor renewables over non-renewables is pivotal, emphasizing the imperative for rigorous environmental standards in sectors shifting to renewables.