China Urban Pollution Information Disclosure Study (CUPIDS) : socioeconomic implications of dirty industry and a guide to national cleandustrialization

It is now common knowledge that China's data is bad, and China's environment is polluted. In this paper I develop a simple pollution intensity index to test China's existing national and local environmental data, to answer the questions: "Bad" how? "Polluted" why? And finally: what can be done? I find that China's existing data is rudimentary, piecemeal, and inaccurate. I find that government data is not detailed, not transparent, and that non-governmental attempts at improving data quality and transparency are hamstringed by lack of official support. These data quality and transparency issues contribute to the intractability of China's industrial pollution. I also find that a pollution intensity index, like the one I develop and test in this study, can help policymakers identify pollution hotspots years before the hotspots worsen into public health emergencies. By running 2010 data through a simple algorithm, I isolate a pollution hotspot that took the Chinese government until 2013 to discover without this framework. I show that better and more accurate data, along with a mandate for continuous monitoring and analysis, can shift the current strategy from pollution control to pollution prevention, ultimately saving time, money, and lives.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Author dc:creator

• Chu, Yang, M.C.P. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Karen R. Polenske.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81627

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/81627