Quantitative Evaluation of Eco-Environmental Protection Policy in the Yangtze River Economic Belt: A PMC-Index Model Approach

The eco-environmental protection policy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is paramount in upholding biodiversity and fostering sustainable development within the Yangtze River Basin. To assess the effectiveness of this policy, an evaluation system was established utilising text mining and the PMC-Index model. Subsequently, thirteen representative policies were evaluated, and their performance was visualised through PMC-Surface plots. The study showed that nine of the thirteen representative policies were assessed as “Excellent”, the remaining four were assessed as “Acceptable”, and no policy was assessed as either “Perfect” or “Poor”. It shows that the general design of the eco-environmental protection policy of the YREB is reasonable and scientific but still has much to improve. The performance is as follows: short- and medium-term policies are the most prevalent, while long-term planning is lacking; the issuing agency is relatively single, and the awareness and capacity of collaborative governance need to be strengthened; the regulatory scope of local policies does not focus on the YREB as a whole. Based on this, subsequent policies should be improved by focusing on policy timeliness, the policy issuing agency, and the regulation scope.