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Regional differences of air pollution in China: comparison of clustering analysis and systematic clustering methods of panel data based on gray relational analysis

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Abstract

Ecological environment deterioration caused by air pollution (AP) seriously threatens human life and health, with academic circles focusing on how to improve AP control efficiency, promote regional collaborative regulatory control of AP, and ensure the safety of human life. This research thus uses time-based systematic clustering of cross-sectional data and gray correlation clustering of panel data to analyze AP situations and regional differences (RD) via AP index data of 31 provinces and cities in China from 2014 to 2018. The results show that the air quality of these provinces and cities has improved and that the concentration of pollutants has declined to varying degrees, but AP in Beijing, Tianjin, and other places is still more serious. While the effect of AP improvement in some areas is not distinct, the trend of regional AP continues to be quite serious. This paper reveals current RD of AP in China and offers some suggestions and recommendations on pollution control, such as further optimizing the industrial structure and energy consumption structure and improving people’s concept of ecological civilization.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the yearbooks or the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

AP:

Air pollution

AQ:

Air quality

RD:

Regional differences

WHO:

World Health Organization

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers of this paper.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Found Projects of China (grant no. 71673196) and the New Century Excellent Talents Support Plan for Universities in Fujian Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economy, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350117, China

    Huangxin Chen, Lin Zhang, Wenjie Zou & Qi Gao

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin Jianzhu University, Jilin, 130118, China

    Hongyang Zhao

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  1. Huangxin Chen
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  2. Lin Zhang
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  3. Wenjie Zou
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  4. Qi Gao
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Contributions

Conceptualization, Wenjie Zou; methodology, Huangxin Chen; software, Qi Gao; validation, Wenjie Zou; formal analysis and language edit, Hongyang Zhao; investigation, Lin Zhang and Huangxin Chen; resources, Lin Zhang; writing—original draft preparation, Huangxin Chen; writing—review and editing, Huangxin Chen and Lin Zhang; supervision, Wenjie Zou; project administration, Wenjie Zou; funding acquisition, Wenjie Zou. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Chen, H., Zhang, L., Zou, W. et al. Regional differences of air pollution in China: comparison of clustering analysis and systematic clustering methods of panel data based on gray relational analysis. Air Qual Atmos Health 13, 1257–1269 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-020-00880-0

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