Quantifying the Effect Socio-Economic-Geo Drivers on the Change of Municipal Waste Disposal in China by an Integrated Twfe-Prf-Sdm Methodology

Municipal solid waste disposal and its sustainable management in China have undergone significant evolution since 2000. However, China has a vast land area and significant socioeconomic and geographical disparities across the country, and the strategy of waste management on the national scale needs to be further evaluated. This study quantified the effect of social, economic, and geographic drivers on landfill/incineration activities in 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2020 by establishing an integrated TWFE-PRF-SDM methodology. The results showed, in the past two decades, socio-economic-geo indicators significantly co-decided the landfill and incineration activities. In particular, the explanatory ability of GDP per capita was above 45%, while land resources and city size also showed great significance. In addition, spatial autocorrelation analysis showed that the relationship between landfill and incineration rates and socio-economic-geo drivers notably changed from unobvious to significant with the per capita GDP growth. Furthermore, it was indicated, economic and land drivers affect more on the local than its neighboring regions, however, significant spatial spill-over effect was displayed by sci-tech and education. The results also suggested that full-scale promotion of incineration may not be necessary for achieving sustainable waste management goals, and landfill is still a reasonable option for provinces in specific socio-economic-geo conditions