ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Evaluation of Environmental Protection Levels
Using Grey Relational Analysis
Lang Wang1,2, Jinghua Sha1,2, Qier An1,2
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1China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China
2Software Engineering Center Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2014;23(5):1753-1762
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
In this paper the environmental protection levels of 30 Chinese provinces are evaluated using grey relation
degree analysis. The research period is from 2004 to 2011. An indicator system was built and it includes
10 indicators from 3 points of view: waste discharge, environmental remediation, and resource utilization.
Evaluation has been done on both integrated and separate analysis according to 3 kinds of indicators. Result
shows that there is a big difference in environmental protection levels among different provinces. The provincial
Grey relation degree varies between 0.5 and 0.9. Environmental protection levels have a close relationship
with economic growth. Provinces with higher GDP per capita usually have higher environmental protect
level and vice versa. The environmental protection level of each province changes litter among different years.
Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin do better in waste discharge while Qinghai, Ningxia, Shanxi, and Inner
Mongolia have more waste discharge. Provinces that do better in environmental rehabilitation change a lot
during the research period. Beijing and Tianjin do best in resource utilization, which indicates that the energy
and water consumption in these two regions are much smaller than other provinces.