Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

As a direct object of ecological environment perception, public satisfaction with ecological environment is an important indicator to judge the status of regional ecological environment. Based on this, this study collected data on public perceptions of environmental issues in seven Chinese cities. On the one hand, we analyzed public satisfaction with ecological environment in China, and on the other hand, we used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the influence paths of public perception of ecological environment and government ecological environment management on public satisfaction with ecological environment. The results of the study indicate that the Chinese public’s satisfaction with the ecological environment is currently low, and they still lack confidence in the future improvement of the ecological environment in China. The Chinese public believes that the biggest environmental problem in China is air pollution, and the degree of improvement of relevant government environmental policies still needs to be improved. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) show that public perceptions of ecological environment and governmental ecological environmental governance have a significant direct positive effect on ecological environment satisfaction; governmental ecological environmental governance and ecological environmental perceptions also have a mutual positive effect. Environmental governance is a long-term and complex dynamic process. In the future, research can be enriched by expanding the sample data and refining the study of factors influencing ecological environmental satisfaction.

Plain Language Summary

As the direct subject of ecological environment perception, the public’s satisfaction with the ecological environment is an important indicator for assessing the state of the regional ecological environment. Research results indicate that the Chinese public considers air pollution to be the biggest environmental issue in China, and the degree of improvement in government-related environmental policies still needs to be enhanced. The results of the Structural Equation Model (SEM) demonstrate that public ecological environment perception and government ecological environment governance have significant direct positive effects on ecological environment satisfaction. Government ecological environment governance and ecological environment perception also have mutual positive influences. Environmental governance is a long-term and complex dynamic process. In future research, the study can be enriched by expanding sample data and refining the factors influencing ecological environment satisfaction.

Keywords

public satisfaction ecological environment governance influencing factors structural equation modeling (SEM)China

Introduction

The increasing impact of climate change caused by human activities is raising concerns for the Earth. At the COP26 conference, global leaders and representatives from contracting parties focused on discussing how to ensure global net-zero emissions by the mid-century, strengthen adaptation measures, build resilient communities and ecosystems, mobilize sufficient climate finance, support global climate action, establish implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement, and actively seek global collaboration. To address climate change and promote global economic recovery, the Chinese government has issued the “Opinions on Fully, Accurately, and Comprehensively Implementing the New Development Concept and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality” and the “Action Plan for Carbon Peak Before 2030,” forming a policy system of carbon peak, carbon neutrality, and “1 + N.” The restoration and management of the ecological environment have become important tasks for China to achieve its goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

According to the 2020 Environmental Performance Index jointly released by Yale University and Columbia University, China scored 37.3 out of 100 in a ranking of 180 countries and regions evaluated. This placed China in the 120th position. Although there was an improvement of 8.4% compared to ten years ago, it still reveals the inefficiency of China’s environmental governance to some extent. Furthermore, according to the “China Ecological Well-being Index” published in October 2020 by the Chinese magazine “Xiaokang,” over 64% of respondents reported facing threats of garbage pollution and ecological destruction. The ecological environment serves as the carrier for public well-being and survival, and public satisfaction with the ecological environment is the public’s intuitive perception of a good ecological environment. It is the most important indicator reflecting the effectiveness of ecological environment restoration and governance. Therefore, this article subjectively evaluates the effectiveness of China’s ecological environment governance from the perspective of citizens and explores the impact of government governance capacity and public environmental awareness on the satisfaction with environmental governance.

Enhancing the government’s environmental governance capacity is one of the essential elements for the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. The evaluation of government’s environmental governance capacity and performance ultimately depends on public satisfaction, as well as the extent to which the public has the rights of expression, choice, and evaluation. The adequate expression of public environmental demands will impact the public’s evaluation of government governance satisfaction. The efficiency, legality, and effectiveness of government governance in the actual governance process will also influence the public’s satisfaction with government’s environmental governance. The main research question of this article is whether government governance capacity and public environmental demands significantly affect government’s environmental governance satisfaction. Does public environmental demand influence the role of government governance capacity? In other words, does public environmental demand play a role in the influence of government governance capacity on environmental governance satisfaction? To address this, the study will employ a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to attempt to construct and test a mechanism model for the impact of government governance capacity and public environmental demands on environmental governance satisfaction. By utilizing a Structural Equation Model (SEM), the study will thoroughly analyze the relationships between public environmental demands, government governance capacity, and environmental governance satisfaction.

Ecological environment governance is a public affair in which multiple “symbiotic” entities participate in governance in a collaborative manner. This article is based on the theories of customer satisfaction, collaboration, and symbiotic governance, and it explores the research on satisfaction with environmental governance from the perspective of new public management. This article makes three main contributions: First, at the micro level, through field research, it examines the satisfaction of Chinese citizens with the ecological input and governance effectiveness of the Chinese government, and evaluates the level of ecological environmental governance of the Chinese government from a subjective perspective, which helps enrich the case materials of ecological environment governance. Second, based on the structural equation modeling (SEM), it empirically analyzes the impact of government governance capacity and public environmental cognition on satisfaction with environmental governance, which helps enrich the theoretical research on environmental governance. Third, it constructs an ecological environment governance model based on improving public satisfaction, which aims to enhance the satisfaction of the public with government environmental governance on the basis of improving the level of ecological environment governance. This model provides reference and guidance for ecological environment governance in developing countries.

The structure of this study is as follows: Firstly, the introduction provides an overview of the research background, significance, and objectives. Secondly, the literature review section summarizes previous studies on the ecological environment and presents the research hypotheses for this study. The third section introduces the research model construction, research methods, and data sources. The fourth section is the current analysis, analyzing the results of the questionnaire survey to gain a comprehensive understanding of the research sample and the research question. The fifth section is the empirical analysis, using structural equation modeling to analyze the relationship and influence between ecological environment governance capacity, public ecological environment awareness, and ecological environment satisfaction. The sixth section summarizes the research findings and provides corresponding policy implications based on the results. The seventh section concludes the entire research process, highlighting the limitations of the study and providing future research prospects.

Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

Environmental pollution is one of the main concerns of the Chinese public regarding the social environment. Based on data from the China Livelihood Survey, Su and Xi (2014) found that air quality is an important factor affecting the public’s perception of the environment. Using data from the China Social Survey (CGSS), Yang and Zhang (2014) found that increased urban air pollution significantly reduces residents’ personal well-being and has a greater impact on groups such as low-income and men. Using data from the China Social Survey (CGSS), Chu et al. (2017) found that improvements in subjective air pollution caused by model cities for environmental protection significantly increased residents’ well-being. While X. Zhang et al. (2017) used data from the China Social Survey (CGSS) in 2010, 2012, and 2014 and found that residents’ happiness was not significantly related to recent air quality. Zheng et al. (2019) used machine learning methods to construct a life satisfaction index based on data from content posted by users on social media in 144 Chinese cities in 2014, and found that air pollution significantly reduced residents’ life satisfaction. A study by Cao (2011) using CGSS data found that nitrogen dioxide concentration in urban air had a significant negative impact on urban residents’ life satisfaction.

Environmental pollution problems have an impact on the public’s daily life and living environment, and also affect the public’s trust in the government. A study by X. Y. Wang and He (2017) found that air pollution not only directly reduces residents’ life satisfaction, but also their satisfaction and trust in the government. K. Wang and Tan (2014) found that mass incidents caused by environmental safety issues may reduce residents’ trust in government to a greater extent. A study by Zuo and Li (2016) found that suffering from environmental pollution infringement reduces individuals’ recognition of government authority and raises public demands for democracy and judicial independence, and both political effects have a tendency to intensify as the degree of economic development increases.

Therefore, environmental management has become the focus of governments’ attention in recent years.In terms of environmental governance subjects, existing studies believe that, in addition to government, market, farmers, and the public, they should also be regarded as important subjects of ecological environment governance. Ohno (2019) combed the evolution of environmental governance by citing the network analysis method, and believed that the role of the market in ecological governance is increasingly obvious. Amblard (2020) conducted a comparative study on the ecological environment governance in the Netherlands and France. He believed that collective action in the form of farmers’ cooperation was conducive to improving the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of environmental policy implementation, and emphasized the important role of farmers in rural ecological governance. Alarcón Ferrari (2021) believes that public participation is an innovative way to solve the problem of ecological environment governance. It enhances the legitimacy of measuring the quality of ecological environment through public power, thus promoting the transformation of ecological environment governance to legal and transformative governance, and reflects the practical value of public participation in rural environmental governance. It can be seen from the existing research that the ecological environment governance has changed from the “top-down” environmental governance of the government to the “bottom-up” and “horizontal integration” ecological environment governance.

In the study of public governance, Deichmann and Lall (2003) argue that subjective public satisfaction is a valid method of evaluating the quality of public service delivery. James (2007) found that the objective governance performance of government positively affects the public’s subjective evaluation of government, and that an improvement in the objective performance of government governance enhances public’s subjective performance evaluation of government. Ming et al. (2016) found that the quality of public services provided by the government positively contributes to citizens’ satisfaction. G. Chen and Li (2012) found that the positive effect of government quality on residents’ happiness is much higher than that of economic growth. Environmental quality is an important area of government governance and is an important determinant of individual life satisfaction. Studies by Smyth et al. (2011) and van Praag and Baarsma (2005) all found that environmental quality has a significant impact on residents’ life satisfaction. Welsch (2006) found that air pollution significantly reduces residents’ life satisfaction using a panel data analysis of 10 European countries. Studies by Levinson (2012) and Ferreira et al. (2013) using data from the United States and Europe all found that air pollution causes a decrease in residents’ life satisfaction. Rehdanz and Maddison (2008) found that residents who subjectively perceive air pollution to be severe also have lower happiness and higher willingness to pay for air quality improvements using data from the German Socioeconomic Survey. similar findings were obtained by Mackerron and Moumto (2009) based on data from the London area.

Based on this, the research hypothesis was formulated.

Hypothesis 1: Government ecological environment governance (PER)has a significant positive effect on public satisfaction with ecological environment (SATI).

The public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance is one of the criteria to test the effectiveness of multi subject ecological environment governance. Ernst (2019) proposed the hypothesis that the participation of environmental protection subjects can effectively improve the decision-making of ecological environment governance. The statistical analysis of 156 questionnaires verifies this hypothesis. It is believed that the participation of government, enterprises, residents and other different subjects in the process of ecological environment governance is conducive to improving the fairness, efficiency and effectiveness of ecological environment governance. Lindgren et al. (2021) studied the effectiveness of multi-agent cooperation in ecological environment governance. Newig and Fritsch (2010) analyzed the problem of participation and the polycentricity and effectiveness of the multi agent collaborative governance of the ecological environment. Baudoin and Gittins (2021) collected and analyzed the 25 year ecological environment management data of the French basin, and found that the existence of different interest groups, such as agriculture, industry, and non-governmental organizations, was related to the satisfaction of the ecological environment. However, in practice, the ecological stakeholders did not play a good role in cooperation in the ecological environment governance, believing that the problem of ecological environment governance is still serious and the governance effect is worrying. Obviously, the above research reflects that the public’s satisfaction with the ecological environment needs to be improved to some extent.

In order to improve the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance, scholars analyzed the factors that affect the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance. Pelletier et al. (1996) developed and constructed the ESS (Environmental Satisfaction Scale) to measure the impact of environmental conditions and policies on public environmental behavior, so as to measure public satisfaction with ecological environmental governance. Through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, this study concludes that public satisfaction with ecological environment governance is positively correlated with public environmental attitudes and behaviors, and negatively correlated with actors’ perception of environmental governance. Pacheco (2021) adopted the method of questionnaire survey and found that most of the public were willing to participate in ecological environment governance. The government usually provides legal ecological environment governance services to the public in the form of ecological restoration and ecological compensation. Compared with ecological restoration, the public is more inclined to obtain ecological compensation. Practice has proved that public participation in environmental protection and government ecological compensation play a positive role in improving the satisfaction of ecological environment governance. Jin (2013) believes that the government plays an absolutely leading role in the ecological environment governance in the United States. The position of the government in ecological environment governance is positively related to public participation, public environmental awareness and public trust in the government. The public’s initiative to protect the environment, strengthening ecological awareness and enhancing the government’s trust in environmental protection will help to improve the public’s satisfaction with the government’s ecological environment management. In short, under the background of diversified ecological environment governance models, the research on public satisfaction with ecological environment governance in various countries shows diversified characteristics. The rich theoretical methods and systems of ecological environment governance research in various countries also provide a strong reference value for ecological environment governance.

Among the many factors that affect ecological environment satisfaction, the public’s main cognition of ecological environment is an important factor that affects its satisfaction with ecological environment. The higher the public’s awareness of ecological environment, the stronger their own awareness of ecological environment, and the greater the help to local ecological environment protection; on the other hand, the higher the public’s demand for ecological environment, the more they can urge the government to improve ecological environment, and the greater the help to ecological environment improvement. Therefore, the higher the public’s awareness of the ecological environment, the higher the public’s satisfaction with the ecological environment. For example, the more the public recognizes that a good ecological environment will promote the level of regional economic development and thus improve their personal income level, the higher their demand for the government’s ecological environment management, and therefore, the higher the public’s demand for the ecological environment, the more it will promote the government to increase the ecological environment management, thus improving the level of regional ecological environment and ecological environment satisfaction. Through a survey of nature reserves in Beijing, Bai et al. (2018) found that farmers’ perceptions of tourism benefits had a significant positive effect on their tourism satisfaction and support. Through a survey, Z.-B. Wang and Zhou (2022) found that the policy satisfaction of people around mangrove forests was significantly and positively related to policy perceptions and agreement with prohibitive regulations.

Based on this, the research hypothesis was formulated.

Hypothesis 2: public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG) has a significant positive effect on public satisfaction with ecological environment (SATI).

As mentioned earlier, the higher the level of public awareness of ecological environment, the higher its demand for ecological environment, which requires the government to increase its investment in ecological environmental protection, and then improve the level of government ecological governance. On the one hand, the improvement of the public’s own environmental quality will help them understand and implement the corresponding environmental policies; on the other hand, the improvement of the government’s ecological governance level will also help the public to improve their ecological awareness to a certain extent, especially the increase of environmental information disclosure and environmental policy publicity will certainly raise the level of ecological awareness. According to W. Chen and Yang (2018), the ultimate purpose of public participation in environmental governance is to influence government decisions so as to realize their own interest demands, and they found using CGSS (2015) data that the higher the level of public ecological and environmental awareness, the higher the degree of public participation in environmental governance, which is conducive to improving the level of government ecological governance. Using CGSS (2015) survey data, Shi et al. (2020) found that the stronger the public perceives environmental accountability, the more they consider environmental complaints effective, and the higher their satisfaction with environmental governance.

Hypothesis 3: public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG) has a significant positive effect on government ecological environment governance (PER).

To sum up, the research on ecological environment governance has achieved fruitful results, but the research on ecological environment governance model from the perspective of public satisfaction is relatively insufficient, especially the case study on public satisfaction of ecological environment governance in developing countries. Therefore, taking China as an example, this paper evaluates the public’s satisfaction with China’s ecological environment management through questionnaire survey, and analyzes the influencing factors of the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment management through SEM model, providing useful reference for the ecological environment management of developing countries.

Method

The research approach of this article is as follows: Firstly, it investigates the satisfaction of Chinese citizens with the governance of China’s ecological environment and evaluates the level of ecological environment governance by the Chinese government through a questionnaire. Secondly, based on this, the SEM model is employed to analyze the influence of government governance capacity and public environmental cognition on satisfaction with environmental governance. Thirdly, based on the research findings, policy optimization recommendations are proposed to enhance satisfaction with environmental governance.

The purpose of this survey is to understand the satisfaction of Chinese citizens with the ecological environment in China and to identify which ecological issues concern them the most. Therefore, this survey involves several basic questions related to the following aspects, such as personal general information and the satisfaction of Chinese citizens regarding water environment, air environment, land environment, forest greening environment, biodiversity, and other aspects.

The survey was conducted using a questionnaire. Due to the fact that the majority of the population is working on weekdays, the survey was carried out on weekends and public holidays to obtain accurate results. The survey took place from July to September 2021. For this survey, street interviews were conducted at places where people often visit during their leisure time, such as community parks, squares, and large commercial areas. The majority of the respondents were primarily from urban areas, with some participants being rural residents.

A total of seven groups of interviewees, including the author, commenced simple random sampling in seven cities: Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guiyang. The interviewers randomly selected respondents in public settings, asked and explained questions, and then recorded the information and selected items. As a result, a total of 610 questionnaires were obtained in the end.

Model Construction

Environmental governance satisfaction refers to the public’s subjective perception of the ecological environment. The American Customer Satisfaction Index model believes that satisfaction depends on the comparison between consumers’ actual experiences and their expected quality. Assuming customer satisfaction is equivalent to public satisfaction with environmental governance, it represents consumers’ actual experiences. Meanwhile, the public’s perception of the ecological environment and their assessment of the government’s environmental governance capacity directly influence their expectations of environmental quality.

Based on this, a theoretical model that influences environmental governance satisfaction is constructed, and based on this, a structural equation model is set, whose path diagram is shown in Figure 1. The model includes three latent variables: satisfaction with ecological environmental governance (sati), cognitive perception of the ecological environment (cog), and government’s ecological environmental governance capacity (per).

Figure 1.

Structural equation path diagram of influencing factors of public satisfaction with ecological environment governance.

The satisfaction of the public regarding ecological environmental governance includes 10 observed variables: overall satisfaction with the ecological environment (sati1), satisfaction with drinking water quality (sati2), satisfaction with air quality (sati3), satisfaction with soil quality (sati4), satisfaction with solid waste disposal (sati5), satisfaction with environmental greening (sati6), satisfaction with environmental sanitation (sati7), satisfaction with public toilet hygiene conditions (sati8), satisfaction with centralized household waste disposal (sati9), and satisfaction with centralized sewage treatment (sati10).

The public’s cognitive perception of the ecological environment consists of five observational variables: the degree of concern for the ecological environment (cog1), the perception of the relationship between the ecological environment and income (cog2), the perception of the relationship between the ecological environment and economic development (cog3), confidence in environmental improvement (cog4), and understanding of environmental protection policies (cog5).

The government’s ecological and environmental governance capacity (PER) consists of five observational variables: environmental information disclosure (per1), environmental investment (per2), environmental policies (per3), policy promotion efforts (per4), and the degree of emphasis on work (per5).

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a confirmatory rather than exploratory statistical method that includes two aspects: measurement model and structural model. The measurement model defines the relationship between observed variables and latent variables, while the structural model analyzes the relationships among latent variables. The measurement model and structural model for the cognitive perception of ecological environment (cog), government’s ecological environmental governance capacity (per), and satisfaction with ecological environmental governance (sati) are as follows.

Regression equations for the measurement model:

\begin{matrix} X = Λ_{X} sati + ε_{1} \\ Y = Λ_{Y} cog + ε_{2} \\ Z = Λ_{Z} per + ε_{3} \end{matrix}

The regression equation for the structural model:

\begin{matrix} sati = λ_{1} cog + ζ_{1} \\ sati = λ_{2} per + ζ_{2} \\ cog = λ_{3} per + ζ_{3} \\ per = λ_{4} cog + ζ_{4} \end{matrix}

In the measurement model, X, Y, and Z represent the observed variables of latent variables sati, cog, and per, respectively. ∧X, ∧Y, and ∧Z are the estimated parameters, and ε₁, ε₂, and ε₃ are the estimation errors.

In the structural model, λ₁ represents the regression coefficient of the impact of public cognition (cog) on satisfaction with ecological environment governance (stai), λ₂ represents the regression coefficient of the impact of government ecological environment governance capacity (per) on satisfaction with ecological environment governance (stai), λ₃ represents the regression coefficient of the impact of government ecological environment governance capacity (per) on public cognition (cog) of ecological environment governance, and λ₄ represents the regression coefficient of the impact of public cognition (cog) on government ecological environment governance capacity (per). ζ₁, ζ₂, ζ₃, and ζ₄ represent the errors. This section mainly discusses the influence of public cognition (cog) and government ecological environment governance capacity (per) on satisfaction with ecological environment governance (stai).

Design of Observation Variables

The observed variables are specific problem descriptions of latent variables, and the design of observed variables is a prerequisite and foundation for structural equation modeling. This study employs a five-level Likert scale to assess the public’s perception (cog) of ecological environment governance and the satisfaction (stai) of the public with government’s ecological environment governance. The specific scale is shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Measurement Scale of Observed Variables.

Latent variable	Observational variable	Variable value
Public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI)	What is your overall satisfaction with the ecological environment in your area? (sati1)	Very dissatisfied = 1 Not satisfied = 2 General = 3 Satisfaction = 4 Very satisfied = 5
	What is your satisfaction with the drinking water quality in your area? (sati2)
	What is your satisfaction with the air quality in your area? (sati3)
	What is your satisfaction with the soil quality in your area? (sati4)
	What is your satisfaction with the solid waste disposal in your area? (sati5)
	What is your satisfaction with the environmental greening in your area? (sati6)
	What is your satisfaction with the environmental sanitation in your area? (sati7)
	What is your satisfaction with the cleanliness of public toilets in your area? (sati8)
	What is your satisfaction with the centralized treatment of household waste in your area? (sati9)
	What is your satisfaction with the centralized treatment of sewage in your area? (sati10)
Public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG)	How concerned are you about the ecological environment on a regular basis? (cog1)	Very unconcerned = 1 Unconcerned = 2 General = 3 Concerned = 4 Very concerned = 5
	Do you agree that improving the ecological environment can increase household income levels? (cog2)	Strongly disagree = 1 Don’t agree = 2 General = 3 Agree = 4 Strongly agree = 5
	Do you agree that ecological environmental protection should take priority over economic development? (cog3)
	Do you have confidence in the improvement of the local ecological environment? (cog4)	Very low confidence = 1 No confidence = 2 General = 3 Confidence = 4 Full confidence = 5
	How familiar are you with the environmental policies in your local area? (cog5)	Don’t know = 1 Don’t know much = 2 General = 3 Understand = 4 Well know = 5
Government ecological environment governance (PER)	Are you satisfied with the transparency of environmental information in your local area? (per1)	Very dissatisfied = 1 Not satisfied = 2 General = 3 Satisfaction = 4 Very satisfied = 5
	How satisfied are you with the level of environmental investment in your local area? (per2)
	Do you believe that the environmental policies in your local area are comprehensive? (per3)	Very imperfect = 1 Less perfect = 2 General = 3 Perfect = 4 Very perfect = 5
	How would you rate the promotional efforts of the local government regarding environmental policies? (per4)	Very bad = 1 Bad = 2 General = 3 Good = 4 Very good = 5
	To what extent do you think the local government prioritizes environmental work? (per5)	Very bad = 1 Bad = 2 General = 3 Good = 4 Very good = 5

Data

Basic Information of Individual Characteristics of the Survey Subjects

From the perspective of urban-rural distribution, urban residents accounted for 92.95% of the respondents, while rural residents accounted for 7.05% of the respondents. In terms of gender distribution, female respondents accounted for 54.75%, while male respondents accounted for 45.25%.

The age structure of the surveyed subjects shows that the respondents are mainly concentrated between the ages of 26 and 50. Respondents aged 26 to 50 account for 68.89% of the total, while respondents below 18 and above 60 years old constitute only 4.76%. Overall, the age structure of the respondents appears relatively reasonable.

The educational structure of the survey subjects shows that the majority of respondents have a university degree or higher. Among them, 35.74% of the respondents have a postgraduate degree or above, while 53.44% have a university degree. Respondents with a high school or vocational school diploma account for 7.87%, those with a junior high school diploma account for 2.3%, and those with an elementary school diploma account for 0.66%. Overall, the educational structure appears to be reasonable.

The income structure of the survey subjects shows that the monthly income level of the respondents is mainly concentrated within 17,000 yuan. Among them, 30.66% of the respondents have a monthly income between 0 and 5,000 yuan; 30.66% have a monthly income between 5,000 and 8,000 yuan; 26.89% have a monthly income between 8,000 and 17,000 yuan; 6.72% have a monthly income between 17,000 and 30,000 yuan; and 5.08% have a monthly income above 30,000 yuan.

The Public Satisfaction with Ecological Environment Governance

The survey in this study examined the public satisfaction with the ecological environment. It mainly investigated the public satisfaction in five aspects: drinking water quality, air quality, soil quality, environmental greening, environmental sanitation, and public toilet hygiene. The satisfaction level was evaluated using a five-point Likert scale method. In this scale, “very dissatisfied” is rated as 1, “dissatisfied” as 2, “neutral” as 3, “satisfied” as 4, and “very satisfied” as 5. The survey results of public satisfaction with the ecological environment in China are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Survey results of Chinese public’s satisfaction with ecological environment.

Survey results show that the overall satisfaction level of respondents with the governance of China’s ecological environment is 3.53. Among them, respondents from urban areas in China expressed higher satisfaction with the governance of the ecological environment compared to rural areas. When considering different types of ecological environments, satisfaction with environmental greening is the highest (3.69), while satisfaction with air quality is the lowest (3.32). In terms of urban-rural divide, respondents from urban areas in China have the highest satisfaction with environmental greening (3.70) and the lowest satisfaction with air quality (3.30). However, respondents from rural areas in China have the highest satisfaction with air quality (3.51) and the lowest satisfaction with the sanitary conditions of public toilets (3.07). The specific results of the ecological environment satisfaction survey are as follows:

Firstly, in terms of the quality of drinking water, the satisfaction level of the respondents with the local drinking water quality is 3.33. Among them, urban respondents have a satisfaction rating of 3.34 for drinking water quality, while rural respondents have a satisfaction rating of 3.19. Urban respondents have a higher satisfaction level with drinking water quality compared to rural respondents. The reason for this is that the rate of tap water coverage in rural areas of China is relatively lower than in urban areas, and there are still certain levels of water safety issues in some rural areas.

Secondly, in terms of air quality, the satisfaction level of respondents to the local air quality is 3.32, in which the satisfaction level of urban respondents is 3.30, and that of rural respondents is 3.51. According to the survey, respondents all agree that the air quality in rural areas is better than that in urban areas, and that vehicle exhaust is the main cause of air pollution in urban areas. Zhang et al. (2021) through air quality monitoring data found that PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations in cities were higher than those in rural areas, and the concentration of SO₂ in urban areas was 1.32 times that in rural areas.

Thirdly, in terms of soil quality, the satisfaction level of the respondents regarding the local soil quality is 3.40. Urban respondents have a satisfaction rating of 3.39 for soil quality, while rural respondents have a satisfaction rating of 3.44. The quantity and quality of soil resources are profoundly affected by urban and rural economic activities (Zhang et al., 2022). With the rapid development of urbanization, agricultural land is being used for industrial development or commercial purposes, resulting in not only the direct destruction of soil’s productive function but also significant disruption to the physicochemical properties of adjacent soil, thus impacting the agricultural production function of the soil and leading to a decline in soil quality.

Fourthly, in terms of environmental greening, the satisfaction level of respondents to local environmental greening is 3.69, urban respondents to environmental greening is 3.70, rural respondents to environmental greening is 3.44. The reason is that China’s urban environmental greening landscape is more than rural areas, and environmental greening brings more satisfaction to urban areas than rural areas.

Fifthly, in terms of environmental hygiene, the satisfaction level of respondents to local environmental hygiene is 3.52, urban respondents to 3.55, rural respondents to 3.14. The reason is that China’s urban areas the environmental hygiene of the government invest more, sanitation workers, sanitation facilities mainly to urban areas, and the environmental sanitation in rural areas of China relies mainly on the rural residents themselves, make the overall satisfaction level of sanitation in rural areas are relatively low, especially rural toilet sanitation conditions are relatively poor.

Sixthly, in terms of public toilet sanitary conditions, the satisfaction level of respondents to the local public toilet sanitary conditions is 3.35, the satisfaction level of urban respondents to public toilet sanitary conditions is 3.37, and the satisfaction level of rural respondents to public toilet sanitary conditions is 3.07.

Government Ecological and Environmental Governance

According to the method of liszt’s five-level scale, this paper investigates the governance of the Chinese government’s ecological environment. Where “very dissatisfied” = 1, “dissatisfied” = 2, “general” = 3, “satisfied” = 4, and “very satisfied” = 5. The results are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Survey results of Chinese public satisfaction with ecological and environmental governance.

The survey results show that in terms of Chinese government’s ecological and environmental governance, respondents have the highest degree of satisfaction with local government’s emphasis on environmental protection (3.39), and the lowest degree of satisfaction with solid waste disposal (3.13). In terms of urban and rural areas, respondents from urban areas in China have the highest degree of satisfaction with the local government’s emphasis on environmental protection (3.39), and the lowest degree of satisfaction with solid waste disposal (3.13). Respondents from rural areas in China have the highest degree of satisfaction with the local government’s attention to environmental protection (3.33), and the lowest degree of satisfaction with the government’s environmental information disclosure (3.02). The detailed findings of the Chinese government’s ecological and environmental governance are as follows:

In terms of government environmental information disclosure, the satisfaction level of respondents to the local government’s environmental information disclosure is 3.20, the satisfaction level of rural respondents to the government’s environmental information disclosure is lower than that of urban respondents, the satisfaction level of urban respondents to the government’s environmental information disclosure is 3.20, Rural respondents’ satisfaction with the government’s environmental information disclosure was 3.02.

In terms of government investment in environmental protection, respondents’ satisfaction level with local government investment in environmental protection is 3.24, urban respondents’ satisfaction level with Chinese government investment in environmental protection is 3.25, and rural respondents’ satisfaction level with Chinese government investment in environmental protection is 3.09.

In terms of government environmental protection policies, respondents’ satisfaction level with local government environmental protection policies is 3.14, urban respondents’ satisfaction level with Chinese government environmental protection policies is 3.14, and rural respondents’ satisfaction level with Chinese government environmental protection policies is 3.05.

In terms of the government’s environmental protection policy publicity, respondents’ satisfaction level with the local government’s environmental protection policy publicity is 3.16, urban respondents’ satisfaction level with the Chinese government’s environmental protection policy publicity is 3.16, and rural respondents’ satisfaction level with the Chinese government’s environmental protection policy publicity is 3.26.

In terms of the government’s emphasis on environmental protection, respondents’ satisfaction level with the local government’s emphasis on environmental protection is 3.39, urban respondents’ satisfaction level with the Chinese government’s emphasis on environmental protection is 3.39, and rural respondents’ satisfaction level with the Chinese government’s emphasis on environmental protection is 3.33.

In terms of the centralized treatment of domestic garbage, the satisfaction level of respondents for the centralized treatment of local domestic garbage was 3.31, urban respondents for the centralized treatment of domestic garbage was 3.32, and rural respondents for the centralized treatment of domestic garbage was 3.19.

In terms of the centralized sewage treatment, the satisfaction level of the respondents for the centralized sewage treatment in the locality is 3.34, the satisfaction level of the urban respondents for the centralized sewage treatment is 3.36, and the satisfaction level of the rural respondents for the centralized sewage treatment is 3.05.

In terms of solid waste treatment, the satisfaction level of respondents to local solid waste treatment is 3.13, urban respondents to solid waste treatment is 3.13, and rural respondents to solid waste treatment is 3.07.

Public’s Cognition of Ecological Environment Management

The public’s cognition of ecological environment has an important influence on the satisfaction of ecological environment governance, which is manifested in that the public’s cognition of ecological environment influences the public’s preference for ecological environment, and then influences the public’s satisfaction of ecological environment governance. The public’s perception of the ecological environment is to point to the public for subjective awareness and identification of important degree of the ecological environment, the ecological environment for the public to the utility level, through the public’s perception of the ecological environment shows that the public to the importance of the ecological environment of the preferences, the higher the public’s perception of the ecological environment, the ecological environment is the public preference, the more the higher the ecological environment satisfaction. The public’s cognition of ecological environment was investigated according to the liszt five scale. Where “very dissatisfied” = 1, “dissatisfied” = 2, “general” = 3, “satisfied” = 4, and “very satisfied” = 5. The results are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Survey results of Chinese public cognition of ecological environment.

In terms of the degree of concern for ecological environment, the degree of concern for the local ecological environment is 3.60. Among them, rural respondents pay more attention to the local ecological environment than urban respondents, with the latter paying 3.58 attention to the local ecological environment and the rural respondents paying 3.88 attention to the local ecological environment.

As for their understanding of local environmental protection policies, the respondents’ understanding of local environmental protection policies is relatively low, at 2.94. Among them, urban respondents have a higher understanding of their local environmental protection policies than rural respondents, with the understanding of urban respondents’ local environmental protection policies being 2.94, and that of rural respondents being 2.93. From the above analysis, it can be seen that the Chinese government’s weak publicity of environmental protection policies affects the interviewees’ understanding of environmental protection policies to a certain extent.

As for the relationship between ecological environment improvement and family income, the score of respondents who agree that ecological environment improvement can improve family income is 3.69. Among them, rural respondents agree that ecological environment improvement can increase family income more than urban respondents, and the score of urban respondents agree that ecological environment improvement can increase family income is 3.69, while the score of rural respondents agree that ecological environment improvement can increase family income is 3.77.

As for the relationship between ecological and environmental protection and economic development, respondents agree that ecological and environmental protection contributes to economic development with a high degree of 4.09. Among them, urban respondents agree that ecological and environmental protection contributes to economic development more than rural respondents. Urban respondents agree that ecological and environmental protection contributes to economic development at 4.10 and rural respondents agree that ecological and environmental protection contributes to economic development at 4.05. It has become a social consensus that economic development should give priority to ecological and environmental protection.

In terms of their confidence in the improvement of the local ecological environment, respondents’ confidence in the improvement of the ecological environment was 3.82. Among them, the confidence of urban respondents in ecological environment improvement is higher than that of rural respondents, the confidence of urban respondents in ecological environment improvement is 3.83, and that of rural respondents is 3.72.

China’s Ecological Environment

As can be seen from the above analysis, the satisfaction level of the respondents with China’s ecological environment governance is not high on the whole. Then what aspects of environmental problems affect their satisfaction level of ecological environment governance? According to the survey, on the whole, the respondents think that the biggest environmental problem in their region is air pollution (64.43%), especially the frequent occurrence of haze pollution in recent years. According to The 2017 China Climate Bulletin, there were five large-scale and persistent haze days in China in 2017. Among them, the Yangtze River Delta, the Middle Triangle and Chengdu-Chongqing city agglomerations along the Yangtze River Economic Belt are the most severe (Deng & Guo, 2019). Noise pollution was second (59.51%), solid waste pollution was third (50.66%), and water pollution was fourth (41.64%). Environmental problems such as light pollution and acid rain were relatively alleviated. According to the Data of China Climate Bulletin 2019, acid rain pollution in 2019 became the lightest year since 1992 when the observation records began. As shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5.

The main environmental problems that the Chinese public think exist at present.

In terms of urban and rural areas, due to the difference of urban and rural living environment, urban and rural residents have different cognition of the most important environmental problems in their location. The respondents in urban areas thought that the biggest environmental problems were air pollution (65.43%) and noise pollution (60.67%), while the respondents in rural areas thought that the biggest environmental problems were water pollution (61.36%) and solid waste pollution (59.09%). As shown in Figure 6. The reason is that the air pollution and noise pollution in urban areas are inevitably higher than those in rural areas due to the continuous concentration of population, industry, commerce and housing. However, rural residents live in scattered areas, and their environmental protection input and use efficiency is relatively low, especially in the water environment and solid waste treatment and other aspects continue to further increase investment.

Figure 6.

The main environmental problems of urban and rural residents.

As one of the important subjects of environmental protection, the respondents believed that the biggest problem existing in the current Chinese government in environmental protection is the lack of awareness of environmental responsibility (59.34%). This was followed by backward technology of environmental protection facilities (44.26%), insufficient government investment in environmental protection (42.62%), lack of environmental protection personnel (42.3%) and imperfect environmental protection policies (40.98%). Meanwhile, some respondents believed that the efforts of environmental protection publicity were not in place. As shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7.

The biggest problems of environmental protection in China according to the Chinese public.

Empirical Result

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics of variables are shown in Table 2.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics of Variables.

Latent variable	Observational variable	N	Min	Max	Mean	Standard deviation
Public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI)	sati1	610	1	5	3.53	0.860
	sati2	610	1	5	3.33	0.874
	sati3	610	1	5	3.32	0.988
	sati4	610	1	5	3.40	0.802
	sati5	610	1	5	3.13	0.926
	sati6	610	1	5	3.69	0.872
	sati7	610	1	5	3.52	0.842
	sati8	610	1	5	3.35	0.951
	sati9	610	1	5	3.31	0.879
	sati10	610	1	5	3.34	0.848
Public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG)	cog1	610	1	5	3.60	0.838
	cog 2	610	1	5	3.69	0.827
	cog 3	610	1	5	4.09	0.803
	cog 4	610	1	5	3.82	0.821
	cog 5	610	1	5	2.94	0.903
Government ecological environment governance (PER)	per1	610	1	5	3.20	0.920
	per 2	610	1	5	3.24	0.864
	per 3	610	1	5	3.14	0.809
	per 4	610	1	5	3.16	0.898
	per 5	610	1	5	3.39	0.856

Data Quality Analysis

In order to ensure the reliability and validity of model construction and questionnaire data, reliability and validity tests were carried out on the questionnaire data before structural equation model estimation.

Reliability Analysis

Reliability test is to test the reliability of questionnaire data. Cronbach’s α coefficient is usually used to measure the internal consistency of questionnaire scale for reliability test, and its value is between 0 and 1. The higher Cronbach’s α coefficient is, the higher the reliability is. Generally, Cronbach’s α ≥ .7 indicates high reliability, and .6 ≤ Cronbach’s α ≤ .7 indicates acceptable reliability. In this paper, the reliability of the questionnaire scale was tested. The Cronbach’s α coefficient was .941, indicating that the questionnaire data had high reliability. From the reliability test of latent variables, the Cronbach’s α coefficients of Public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI) and Public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG) are both above 0.9, which have high reliability. The Cronbach’s α coefficients of Government ecological environment governance (PER) are also above .6, which belong to acceptable range. On the whole, the questionnaire data and latent variables are reliable and reliable. The detailed reliability test results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3.

Reliability Test Results of the Questionnaire.

Latent variable	Cronbach’s α	Number of observed variables
Public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI)	.926	10
Public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG)	.654	5
Government ecological environment governance (PER)	.928	5
Overall	.941	20

Validity Analysis

Validity test is to test the validity of the questionnaire data, namely the observed variables to explain the latent variables, the higher the validity that observation variable to the latent variables explaining ability stronger, the lower the validity of observed variables of latent variables explaining ability is weak. Validity test usually includes: content logic validity, criterion validity, and construct validity.

Content logic validity is mainly based on theoretical model construction and subjective judgment. Criterion validity refers to whether the questionnaire data is meaningful compared with the values of other criterion variables, which is mainly based on qualitative analysis by experts. Construct validity refers to the correspondence between a certain structure reflected in the questionnaire data and the observed variables. In this paper, construct validity is used to test the validity of the questionnaire scale, and factor analysis is used to test the validity. According to validity test, the KMO value is 0.858, Bartlett test value is 3,938.502 (DF = 78, Sig. = .000), indicating that factor analysis can be performed on questionnaire data, as shown in Table 4.

Table 4.

KMO and Bartlett Testing Value.

Latent variable	Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO)	Bartlett testing value
Public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI)	0.919	4,035.344
Public’s cognition of ecological environment management (COG)	0.676	463.824
Government ecological environment governance (PER)	0.881	2,394.914
Overall	0.951	8,329.629

There are three principal components with eigenvalues greater than one, and the cumulative explanatory degree of total variance is greater than 60%, indicating that the three latent variables set by the theoretical model are reasonable. On this basis, using the factor loading values to test the validity of the data in the questionnaire, from the point of principal component rotation matrix, three principal components of the observed variables are in complete accord with above theoretical model assumes that, as shown in Table 5, show that observations of latent variables have good explanation, so the questionnaire data with high validity.

Table 5.

Principal Component Rotation Matrix.

Variable	Component
Variable	1	2	3
per1	0.701	0.404	0.135
per2	0.759	0.425	0.117
per3	0.799	0.334	0.094
per4	0.808	0.262	0.135
per5	0.754	0.322	0.173
sati1	0.334	0.773	0.098
sati2	0.327	0.735	0.000
sati3	0.257	0.792	0.041
sati4	0.332	0.770	0.003
sati5	0.527	0.561	−0.006
sati6	0.439	0.566	0.161
sati7	0.509	0.560	0.183
sati8	0.390	0.594	0.153
sati9	0.406	0.669	0.115
sati10	0.445	0.672	0.171
cog1	0.104	−0.113	0.462
cog2	0.134	0.095	0.742
cog3	0.176	0.108	0.764
cog4	0.002	0.146	0.835
cog5	0.421	0.416	0.497

Model Evaluation and Estimation

Model Evaluation

In this paper, the structural equation model is used to analyze and test the theoretical model and hypothesis. Through the test and estimation of the overall matchup of the structural equation model, the merits and demerits of the structural equation model are judged by objective evaluation method. The overall matchup of the structural equation model includes absolute matchup and reduced matchup. The fitting index and ideal standard value of each matchup are shown in Table 6. Table 6 shows that the fitting indexes of various matchup of the model are all within the range of ideal standards, indicating that the theoretical hypothesis model proposed in this paper is relatively consistent with the questionnaire design, the structural equation model is reasonable and available, and the questionnaire can give a good explanation to the structural equation model.

Table 6.

Overall Matchup of Structural Equation Model.

Category	Statistic test	Index value	Ddeal standard	Result
Absolute matchup	GFI	0.937	>0.90	Ideal
	AGFI	0.912	>0.90	Ideal
	RMSEA	0.051	<0.06	Ideal
	RMR	0.043	<0.08	Ideal
Reduced matchup	PNFI	0.519	>0.50	Ideal
	PGFI	0.591	>0.50	Ideal
	X ²/df	2.559	<3	Ideal

Model Estimation

On the basis of the test of the overall matchup of the structural equation model, the path coefficients of the three latent variables (SATI, COG, and PER) are estimated, and the estimation results are shown in Figure 8. At the significance level of 1%, except that COG 1, COG 3, and COG 4 explain COG to a relatively low degree, the load factors of other latent variables are between 0.5 to 0.9, and there is no negative error term. It shows that the theoretical model in this paper assumes that it meets the requirements of matchup.

Figure 8.

Standard solution of structural equation.

It can be seen from the above that the structural equation model includes the structural model and the measurement model. The estimation results of the structural equation are shown in Table 2. In the structural model, the path coefficients support the assumptions of the theoretical model, and the influence path coefficients among the three potential variables meet the significance level of 1%.

There is a significant positive correlation between COG and SATI. Its standardized influence path coefficient is 0.080. This shows that the higher the public’s awareness of the ecological environment, to a certain extent, it can improve the public’s satisfaction with the ecological environmental protection management. The reason is that the improvement of the public’s awareness of ecological environment management is conducive to creating a social atmosphere for ecological environment protection, the implementation of relevant environmental protection policies, and the improvement of the public’s environmental behavior, thus improving the ecological environment and quality, and ultimately increasing the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance. Accordingly, hypothesis 1 is verified.

There is a significant positive correlation between PER and SATI. Its standardized impact path coefficient is 0.845. It shows that the higher the government’s investment in ecological environmental governance, the higher the public’s satisfaction with ecological environmental governance. For example, by improving the openness of government environmental information, further improving environmental policies, strengthening the publicity of environmental protection policies, and increasing the government’s emphasis on environmental protection, we can promote the improvement of the ecological environment. With the improvement of ecological environment, it will help to improve the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment management. Accordingly, hypothesis 2 is verified.

There is a positive correlation between COG and PER, with a correlation coefficient of 0.807, which indicates that the higher the public’s awareness of ecological environment management, the greater the impact on the government’s ecological governance. The reason is that, with the improvement of the public’s own environmental protection quality, it will help the public to understand the environmental protection policies, and then help to promote the implementation of environmental protection policies. At the same time, the strengthening of the government’s ecological environment governance will also help the public to improve their awareness of ecological environment management to a certain extent. In particular, increasing the publicity of environmental information and environmental protection policies will help improve the public’s awareness of ecological environment management. Accordingly, hypothesis 3 is verified.

In the measurement model, the estimated value of the observed variable of the potential variable is significant at the 1% significance level, and the estimated result of the measurement model is between 0.140 and 0.886, which is satisfactory. Among different potential variables, the observation variable of PER has the strongest explanatory power. The standardized estimates of the observed variables of PER are all above 0.8, with an average estimate of 0.848. The standardized estimated values of observed variables of SATI were concentrated in the range of 0.67 to 0.8, with an average estimated value of 0.773. COG had the lowest standardized estimate for the evaluation of observational variables, with an average estimate of 0.512 (Table 7).

Table 7.

Regression Results of Structural Equation Model.

Variable	Nonstandardized path coefficient	Standard error	Standardized path coefficient	Significant test
sati ← cog	0.080***	0.048	0.080	Significance
sati ← per	0.833***	0.067	0.845	Significance
sati1 ← sati	1.000	—	0.836	—
sati2 ← sati	0.930***	0.044	0.770	Significance
sati3 ← sati	1.021***	0.049	0.760	Significance
sati4 ← sati	0.855***	0.045	0.760	Significance
sati5 ← sati	0.995***	0.067	0.768	Significance
sati6 ← sati	0.897***	0.057	0.729	Significance
sati7 ← sati	0.923***	0.063	0.788	Significance
sati8 ← sati	0.935***	0.078	0.713	Significance
sati9 ← sati	0.931***	0.076	0.773	Significance
sati10 ← sati	0.969***	0.073	0.834	Significance
cog1 ← cog	1.000	—	0.876	—
cog2 ← cog	0.379***	0.055	0.363	Significance
cog3 ← cog	0.456***	0.061	0.399	Significance
cog4 ← cog	0.967***	0.085	0.781	Significance
cog5 ← cog	0.159***	0.061	0.140	Significance
per1 ← per	1.000	—	0.835	—
per2 ← per	1.032***	0.037	0.834	Significance
per3 ← per	0.973***	0.037	0.866	Significance
per4 ← per	1.068***	0.044	0.886	Significance
per5 ← per	1.041***	0.054	0.819	Significance

***

Indicate significance at 1%.

Conclusion and Policy Implications

Conclusion

The public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance is an important evaluation method to test the effect of government’s ecological environment governance, and improving the public’s satisfaction with ecological environment governance is also an important goal of ecological environment protection.

Based on the demand perspective, the structural equation model of the influencing factors of public satisfaction with ecological environment governance (SATI) is constructed, and the impact path of government ecological environment governance (PER) and public ecological environment management cognition (COG) on public satisfaction with ecological environment governance is analyzed.

According to the survey, in terms of public satisfaction with ecological environmental governance (SATI), respondents were most satisfied with environmental greening (3.69), followed by environmental sanitation (3.52) and solid waste treatment (3.13). As far as the public’s perception of ecological environment management (COG) is concerned, the vast majority of respondents agree that economic development should give priority to ecological environment protection, but they still lack confidence in the future improvement of China’s ecological environment. In terms of government ecological environmental governance (PER), respondents believed that the Chinese government attached great importance to environmental protection, but the improvement of relevant environmental protection policies still needed to be improved.

According to the estimation results of structural equation model, government ecological environmental governance (PER) has a significant direct positive impact on public satisfaction with ecological environmental governance (SATI), and has a large impact effect. The public’s perception of ecological environment management (COG) has a significant positive impact on the satisfaction of public ecological environment governance (SATI), but the impact is relatively small. There is a positive correlation between government ecological environment governance (PER) and public awareness of ecological environment management (COG).

Policy Implications

Public satisfaction with ecological and environmental governance is a psychological activity. Improving public satisfaction with ecological and environmental governance requires not only increasing investment in environmental protection and improving the objective performance of environmental governance, but also promoting flexible techniques such as communication and interaction and information disclosure in the process of policy implementation according to the characteristics of public psychological activity in order to increase public satisfaction with the environment and improve the subjective performance of environmental governance.

Firstly, further improve the channels of public participation in environmental affairs. As a governance tool, public participation in environmental affairs and environmental monitoring, environmental inspection, environmental accountability and other policy tools complement each other, complementary, public participation in environmental affairs is an important way to make great progress in ecological and environmental governance.

Secondly, further increase environmental accountability. The task of environmental management in China is still heavy, and it is difficult to release the long-established pressure of environmental pollution in a short period of time. But further strengthening environmental accountability and creating proper and effective state oversight among the public and clean and diligent public officials will help win public support and recognition for the government’s environmental governance and other efforts. By putting pressure on itself, the government can also further stimulate mass participation and gather more power for environmental governance.

Thirdly, the experience of environmental governance should be further promoted. Successful practices and advanced experiences in environmental governance can also be extended to other areas of social governance, thereby increasing public satisfaction with public health, basic education, social security, and other government public services. Environmental protection, public health, basic education and other public services are essentially public goods. Due to their non-exclusive and non-competitive characteristics, the market cannot provide enough public services, so the government has to be the main provider of these public services. In the process of providing various public services, the government strengthens its interaction with the society, establishes a good image of the government and wins the trust of the public, thus more fully mobilizing the pro-social quality of the public and leading the whole society to participate in the process of co-construction and co-management of public goods and public services, ultimately forming a good situation of sharing public goods and public services.

Limitations and Future Research Prospects

First of all, the sample size of this study is limited. Due to objective constraints, there were multiple obstacles in distributing and collecting the survey questionnaires, resulting in a limited number of questionnaires collected for this study. Secondly, caution must be exercised in generalizing the research conclusions, and further optimization of the universality of the research conclusions is necessary.

Future research can collect more data through various channels, such as online and offline methods. Additionally, the application of empirical methods should be strengthened. Environmental governance is a long-term and complex dynamic process, requiring continuous input of reliable data and the promotion of innovative research perspectives and methods. Only by doing so can the synergistic effects of government and other social organizations in citizen governance be maximized, and environmental governance performance be improved.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by Key Project of Chongqing Education Science Planning, No. K23YB2080003; Key Project of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chongqing Education Commission, No. 23SKJD089; Youth Science and Technology Research Project of Chongqing Education Commission, No. KJQN202200804; Research Platform Open Project of Chongqing Technology and Business University, No. KFJJ2022002; Chongqing Technology and Business University Research Platform Open Project, No. KFJJ2017032; Chongqing Technology and Business University High-level Talent Research Project, No. 1955067.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Informed Consent

This paper does not contain any studies with human participants performed by the author.

ORCID iD

Xing Xiong

Data Availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

Alarcón Ferrari

Jönsson

Gebreyohannis Gebrehiwot

Chiwona-Karltun

Mark-Herbert

Manuschevich

Powell

Bishop

Hilding-Rydevik

. (2021). Citizen science as democratic innovation that renews environmental monitoring and assessment for the sustainable development goals in rural areas. Sustainability, 13, 2762.

Amblard

(2020). Collective action as a tool for agri-environmental policy implementation. The case of diffuse pollution control in European rural areas. Journal of Environmental Management, 280, 111845.

Bai

R. N.

Huang

Liu

J. L.

(2018). A study on farmers’ perceptions of tourism impacts, satisfaction and support - a case study of Beijing nature reserve. Arid Zone Resources and Environment, 1, 202–208. https://doi.org/10.13448/j.cnki.jalre.2018.031

Baudoin

Gittins

J. R.

(2021). The ecological outcomes of collaborative governance in large river basins: Who is in the room and does it matter? Journal of Environmental Management, 281, 111836.

Cao

D. Y.

(2011). An empirical analysis of environmental quality and residents’ life satisfaction. Statistics and Decision Making, 21, 84–87. https://doi.org/10.13546/j.cnki.tjyjc.2011.21.020

Chen

(2012). How can government make people happy? – An empirical study of government quality affecting residents’ happiness. Management World, 8, 55–67. https://doi.org/10.19744/j.cnki.11-1235/f.2012.08.006

Chen

Yang

(2018). Government regulation, public participation and environmental governance satisfaction - An empirical study based on CGSS2015 data. Soft Science, 11, 49–53. https://doi.org/10.13956/j.ss.1001-8409.2018.11.11

Chu

D. Y.

P. F.

Liang

R. B.

(2017). Subjective air pollution and residents’ well-being - A microdata validation based on a breakpoint regression design. Dynamics of Economics, 2, 88–101. https://doi.org/CNKI:SUN:JJXD.0.2017-02-009

Deichmann

Lall

S. V.

(2003). Are you satisfied? Citizen feedback and delivery of urban services (World Bank policy research working paper series). World Bank, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3070

10.

Deng

Guo

L. H.

(2019). Study on the impact of urbanization process on haze pollution in Yangtze river economic zone - an empirical analysis based on spatial panel model. Survey World, 7, 36–44. https://doi.org/10.13778/j.cnki.11-3705/c.2019.07.006

11.

Ernst

(2019). How participation influences the perception of fairness, efficiency and effectiveness in environmental governance: An empirical analysis. Journal of Environmental Management, 238, 368–381.

12.

Ferreira

Akay

Brereton

Cuñado

Martinsson

Moro

Ningal

T. F.

(2013). Life satisfaction and air quality in Europe. Ecological Economics, 88, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOLECON.2012.12.027

13.

James

(2007). Evaluating the expectations disconfirmation and expectations anchoring approaches to citizen satisfaction with local public services. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19, 107–123. https://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-3070

14.

Jin

M. H.

(2013). Citizen participation, trust, and literacy on government legitimacy: The case of environmental governance. Journal of Sustainable Social Change, 5(1), 2.

15.

Levinson

(2012). Valuing public goods using happiness data: The case of air quality. Journal of Public Economics, 96(9–10), 869–880. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JPUBECO.2012.06.007

16.

Lindgren

A. Y.

Reed

M. G.

Robson

J. P.

(2021). Process makes perfect: Perceptions of effectiveness in collaborative environmental governance. Environmental Management, 67(2), 228–241.

17.

MacKerron

Mourato

(2009). Life satisfaction and air quality in London. Ecological Economics, 68, 1441–1453. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOLECON.2008.10.004

18.

Ming

Chen

(2016). Service quality and citizen satisfaction in public service centers: The moderating role of citizen participation. Nanjing Social Science, 12, 71–77. https://doi.org/10.15937/j.cnki.issn1001-8263.2016.12.011

19.

Newig

Fritsch

(2010). Environmental governance: Participatory, multi-level - and effective? Environmental Policy and Governance, 19(3), 197–214.

20.

Ohno

(2019). Understanding diverse trajectories of environmental governance studies: A citation network analysis. The Environmentalist, 39(2), 214–228.

21.

Pacheco

Rajo

Hoff

Soares-Filho

(2021). Will farmers seek environmental regularization in the amazon and how? insights from the rural environmental registry (car) questionnaires. Journal of Environmental Management, 284(1), 112010.

22.

Pelletier

L. G.

Legault

L. R.

Tuson

K. M.

(1996). The environmental satisfaction scale. Environment & Behavior, 28(1), 5–26.

23.

Rehdanz

Maddison

D. J.

(2008). Local environmental quality and life-satisfaction in Germany. Ecological Economics, 64, 787–797. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOLECON.2007.04.016

24.

Shi

Wang

C. J.

Yao

X. F.

(2020). A study on the mechanism of environmental accountability and complaints on satisfaction with environmental governance. China Population-Resources and Environment, 9, 21–30.

25.

Smyth

Nielsen

Zhai

Liu

Tang

Wang

Zhang

(2011). A study of the impact of environmental surroundings on personal well-being in urban China using a multi-item well-being indicator. Population and Environment, 32, 353–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-010-0123-z

26.

(2014). Comparison of environmental quality and public perceptions: Observations from the livelihood index. Reform, 9, 95–104.

27.

van Praag

Baarsma

B. E

. (2005). Using happiness surveys to value intangibles: The case of airport noise. The Economic Journal, 115(500), 224–246. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2004.00967.x

28.

Wang

Tan

(2014). Environmental security, government trust and risk management: An analysis from the perspective of “neighborhood avoidance effect”. Administration and Law, 2, 10–15.

29.

Wang

X. Y.

X. B.

(2017). A study on the mechanism of air pollution’s influence on urban residents’ government trust. Chinese Population Science, 4, 97–108.

30.

Wang

Z.-B.

Zhou

J.-H.

(2022). A study on peripheral people’s satisfaction with mangrove resource protection policy – an empirical analysis based on survey data from Qinzhou City, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Forestry Economics, 4, 85–96. https://doi.org/10.13843/j.cnki.lyjj.20220530.001

31.

Welsch

(2006). Environment and happiness: Valuation of air pollution using life satisfaction data. Ecological Economics, 58, 801–813. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.09.006

32.

Yang

Zhang

(2014). Pricing air pollution: An analysis based on well-being data. World Economy, 12, 162–188. https://doi.org/10.19985/j.cnki.cassjwe.2014.12.009

33.

Zhang

Gao

Chiu

Y. H.

Pang

Guo

(2021). Environmental performance indicators of china’s coal mining industry: A bootstrapping malmquist index analysis. Resources Policy, 71(1), 101991.

34.

Zhang

Chen

(2017). Happiness in the air: How does a dirty sky affect mental health and subjective well-being? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 85, 81–94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeem.2017.04.001

35.

Zhang

Wang

Guo

(2022). Long-term and short-term effects of carbon emissions on regional healthy development in shanxi province, China. Sustainability, 14, 5173.

36.

Zheng

Wang

Sun

Zhang

Kahn

M. E.

(2019). Air pollution lowers Chinese urbanites’ expressed happiness on social media. Nature Human Behaviour, 3, 237–243. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0521-2

37.

Zuo

(2016). Environmental pollution and residents’ political attitudes. Economics (Quarterly), 4, 1409–1438. https://doi.org/10.13821/j.cnki.ceq.2016.03.06

Government Governance Capacity,Public Environmental Awareness,and Satisfaction with Environmental Governance

Abstract

Plain Language Summary

Keywords

Introduction

Literature Review and Research Hypothesis

Method

Model Construction

Design of Observation Variables

Data

Basic Information of Individual Characteristics of the Survey Subjects

The Public Satisfaction with Ecological Environment Governance

Government Ecological and Environmental Governance

Public’s Cognition of Ecological Environment Management

China’s Ecological Environment

Empirical Result

Descriptive Statistics

Data Quality Analysis

Reliability Analysis

Validity Analysis

Model Evaluation and Estimation

Model Evaluation

Model Estimation

Conclusion and Policy Implications

Conclusion

Policy Implications

Limitations and Future Research Prospects

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

Ethical Approval

Informed Consent

ORCID iD

Data Availability

References