TY - JOUR

T1 - Environmental incidents in China

T2 - Lessons from 2006 to 2015

AU - Cao, Guozhi

AU - Yang, Lei

AU - Liu, Lingxuan

AU - Ma, Zongwei

AU - Wang, Jinnan

AU - Bi, Jun

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Science of the Total Environment. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Science of the Total Environment, 633, 2018 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.271

PY - 2018/8/15

Y1 - 2018/8/15

N2 - Environmental incidents are among the most significant environmental challenges in China. Hundreds of environmental incidents occur every year, endangering human health and ecosystems. In this paper, we conducted an analytical study of environmental incidents from 2006 to 2015 in China. We first examined the spatiotemporal characteristics of the total 5213 incidents based on the statistical data collected from the China Statistical Yearbook on Environment. We then examined the characteristics of the sources of risk, causes of harm and resulting damage of environmental incidents based on first-hand data from 1369 cases collected by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of China, which obtains detailed incident information. The results show that (1) there was a significant downward trend in the overall number of environmental incidents between 2006 and 2015, and developed eastern regions were high incidence areas; (2) hazardous chemicals were the main risk stressors; (3) production safety accidents and traffic accidents were the two major causes, and (4) most of these incidents resulted in polluted water and air. This paper is the first to provide a longitudinal analysis of the full scope of environmental incidents across the different regions of China, which has useful implications for policy-making and environmental management.

AB - Environmental incidents are among the most significant environmental challenges in China. Hundreds of environmental incidents occur every year, endangering human health and ecosystems. In this paper, we conducted an analytical study of environmental incidents from 2006 to 2015 in China. We first examined the spatiotemporal characteristics of the total 5213 incidents based on the statistical data collected from the China Statistical Yearbook on Environment. We then examined the characteristics of the sources of risk, causes of harm and resulting damage of environmental incidents based on first-hand data from 1369 cases collected by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of China, which obtains detailed incident information. The results show that (1) there was a significant downward trend in the overall number of environmental incidents between 2006 and 2015, and developed eastern regions were high incidence areas; (2) hazardous chemicals were the main risk stressors; (3) production safety accidents and traffic accidents were the two major causes, and (4) most of these incidents resulted in polluted water and air. This paper is the first to provide a longitudinal analysis of the full scope of environmental incidents across the different regions of China, which has useful implications for policy-making and environmental management.

KW - Environmental incidents

KW - Spatiotemporal characteristics

KW - Types of risk sources

KW - Causes of incidents

KW - Damage of incidents

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.271

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.271

M3 - Journal article

VL - 633

SP - 1165

EP - 1172

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

SN - 0048-9697

ER -