IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/endesu/v15y2013i5p1281-1302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changes of public environmental awareness in response to the Taihu blue-green algae bloom incident in China

Author

Listed:
  • L. Xu
  • J. Shen
  • D. Marinova
  • X. Guo
  • F. Sun
  • F. Zhu

Abstract

Environmental problems are becoming increasingly severe in China with industrial discharges and household sewages being the main sources of water pollution in the country. For example, in the case of Taihu Lake, more than half of the total phosphorus in the lake comes from household sewage. While industrial pollution can be treated through technology innovation and controlled by environmental regulations and laws, decreasing household sewage relies entirely on residents. Raising public environmental awareness therefore is essential for ensuring effective environmental improvement and protection. A quantitative assessment of public awareness can inform policy and decision makers; however, not many such studies have been conducted. Changes in the awareness levels in response to a major environmental pollution incident are of particular interest because of the people’s first-hand experience of the triggered consequences. The present paper establishes a system of indicators for the assessment of public environmental awareness. Combined with a fuzzy matter-element analysis method, a model is set-up to quantitatively assess the public environmental awareness. The model is then applied to assess the environmental awareness of the residents of Wuxi City after its major lake Taihu suffered a severe algae bloom in 2007. This study examines whether this serious environmental incident affected people’s environmental awareness and to what degree. The findings show that the matter-element model is capable to resolve well the fuzziness of the ranking affiliation and classification of subjective perceptions, such as public environmental awareness. They show that this environmental incident has had significant positive impacts on the environmental awareness of Wuxi residents. The paper concludes with recommendations related to raising public environmental awareness. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • L. Xu & J. Shen & D. Marinova & X. Guo & F. Sun & F. Zhu, 2013. "Changes of public environmental awareness in response to the Taihu blue-green algae bloom incident in China," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 15(5), pages 1281-1302, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:5:p:1281-1302
    DOI: 10.1007/s10668-013-9440-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10668-013-9440-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10668-013-9440-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    2. Saaty, Thomas L., 1990. "How to make a decision: The analytic hierarchy process," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 9-26, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Giancarlo Giudici & Massimiliano Guerini & Cristina Rossi-Lamastra, 2019. "The creation of cleantech startups at the local level: the role of knowledge availability and environmental awareness," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(4), pages 815-830, April.
    2. Fathey Mohammed & Nabil Hasan Al-Kumaim & Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & Yousef Fazea, 2023. "The Impact of Social Media Shared Health Content on Protective Behavior against COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Shiwang Yu & Jianxia Bao & Wen Ding & Xue Chen & Xiaonan Tang & Jianli Hao & Wei Zhang & Prateek Singh, 2021. "Investigating the Relationship between Public Satisfaction and Public Environmental Participation during Government Treatment of Urban Malodorous Black River in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.
    4. Chuleewan Praneetham & Jaree Phrommana & Prasert Sitthijirapat, 2016. "Students? Participation in Waste Management at International School of Tourism," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 4006150, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
    5. Shahid Rasool & Aisha Rehman & Roberto Cerchione & Piera Centobelli, 2021. "Evaluating consumer environmental behavior for sustainable development: A confirmatory factor analysis," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 318-326, March.
    6. Henk J. Steinz & Frank J. Van Rijnsoever & Frans Nauta, 2016. "How to Green the red Dragon: A Start‐ups' Little Helper for Sustainable Development in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(8), pages 593-608, December.
    7. Shahid Rasool & Roberto Cerchione & Piera Centobelli & Eugenio Oropallo, 2022. "Smoking kills you, littering butts damages others too: analysing sustainable consumer behaviour in the era of circular economy," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 7115-7137, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Knoeri, Christof & Binder, Claudia R. & Althaus, Hans-Joerg, 2011. "Decisions on recycling: Construction stakeholders’ decisions regarding recycled mineral construction materials," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 55(11), pages 1039-1050.
    2. Tien-Chin Wang & Tsai-Yun Huang & Chien-Hui Lee, 2023. "Exploring the Preference of Corporations for Sponsorship Motives and the Impact of Sponsorship Motives on Sponsoring Intention in Post-Epidemic Era: Using Two Different Approaches—FPR and SEM," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-22, May.
    3. Carl Marnewick & Gilbert Silvius & Ron Schipper, 2019. "Exploring Patterns of Sustainability Stimuli of Project Managers," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-17, September.
    4. Muskan Sachdeva & Ritu Lehal & Sanjay Gupta & Aashish Garg, 2021. "What make investors herd while investing in the Indian stock market? A hybrid approach," Review of Behavioral Finance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 15(1), pages 19-37, September.
    5. Flavio Martins & Maria Fatima Almeida & Rodrigo Calili & Agatha Oliveira, 2020. "Design Thinking Applied to Smart Home Projects: A User-Centric and Sustainable Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-27, December.
    6. Maria Andersson & Ola Eriksson & Chris Von Borgstede, 2012. "The Effects of Environmental Management Systems on Source Separation in the Work and Home Settings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(6), pages 1-17, June.
    7. Tran Huy Phuong & Thanh Trung Hieu, 2015. "Predictors of Entrepreneurial Intentions of Undergraduate Students in Vietnam: An Empirical Study," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(8), pages 46-55, August.
    8. Clara Cardone-Riportella & María José Casasola-Martinez & Isabel Feito-Ruiz, 2014. "Do Entrepreneurs Come From Venus Or Mars? Impact Of Postgraduate Studies: Gender And Family Business Background," Working Papers 14.04, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Financial Economics and Accounting (former Department of Business Administration), revised Sep 2014.
    9. Peng Cheng & Zhe Ouyang & Yang Liu, 0. "The effect of information overload on the intention of consumers to adopt electric vehicles," Transportation, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    10. Ruijie Zhu & Guojing Zhao & Zehai Long & Yangjie Huang & Zhaoxin Huang, 2022. "Entrepreneurship or Employment? A Survey of College Students’ Sustainable Entrepreneurial Intentions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-15, May.
    11. Alsalem, Amani & Fry, Marie-Louise & Thaichon, Park, 2020. "To donate or to waste it: Understanding posthumous organ donation attitude," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 87-97.
    12. Pan, Jing Yu & Liu, Dahai, 2022. "Mask-wearing intentions on airplanes during COVID-19 – Application of theory of planned behavior model," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 32-44.
    13. Benoît Lécureux & Adrien Bonnet & Ouassim Manout & Jaâfar Berrada & Louafi Bouzouina, 2022. "Acceptance of Shared Autonomous Vehicles: A Literature Review of stated choice experiments," Working Papers hal-03814947, HAL.
    14. Jacqueline Ruth & Steffen Willwacher & Oliver Korn, 2022. "Acceptance of Digital Sports: A Study Showing the Rising Acceptance of Digital Health Activities Due to the SARS-CoV-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-16, January.
    15. Jariyasunant, Jerald & Carrel, Andre & Ekambaram, Venkatesan & Gaker, David & Sengupta, Raja & Walker, Joan L., 2012. "The Quantified Traveler: Changing transport behavior with personalized travel data feedback," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt3047k0dw, University of California Transportation Center.
    16. Brown, Philip & Roper, Simon, 2017. "Innovation and networks in New Zealand farming," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 61(3), July.
    17. Teodora Roman, 2009. "Study regarding entrepreneurial intentions among students," THE YEARBOOK OF THE "GH. ZANE" INSTITUTE OF ECONOMIC RESEARCHES, Gheorghe Zane Institute for Economic and Social Research ( from THE ROMANIAN ACADEMY, JASSY BRANCH), vol. 18, pages 87-94.
    18. Jochen Wulf, 2020. "Development of an AHP hierarchy for managing omnichannel capabilities: a design science research approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(1), pages 39-68, April.
    19. Messele Kumilachew Aga, 2023. "The mediating role of perceived behavioral control in the relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intentions of university students in Ethiopia," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, December.
    20. Kristin Thomas & Evalill Nilsson & Karin Festin & Pontus Henriksson & Mats Lowén & Marie Löf & Margareta Kristenson, 2020. "Associations of Psychosocial Factors with Multiple Health Behaviors: A Population-Based Study of Middle-Aged Men and Women," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:endesu:v:15:y:2013:i:5:p:1281-1302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.