Against the background of increasing pressure on water environmental protection and regional industrial transformation, water environmental governance (WEG) is jointly shaped by environmental regulation and industrial agglomeration. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain insufficiently examined. Based on provincial-level data from China, this study uses fixed-effects models and spatial econometric models to examine the effects of environmental regulation on WEG. The results show a clear threshold pattern. When the environmental regulation index exceeds 0.3, its positive association with WEG begins to emerge. Basin-location analysis indicates that downstream regions may require stronger environmental regulation to improve WEG. Spatial analysis reveals positive spillover effects under both the contiguity weight matrix and the basin-adjacency weight matrix. Mechanism analysis further shows that environmental regulation is negatively associated with WEG through the specialized agglomeration of pollution-intensive industries. It is also positively associated with WEG through upstream and downstream linkage agglomeration in the clean industrial chain. Future research could further explore micro-level mechanisms and cross-regional linkages to provide deeper evidence for improving WEG.
Liu et al. (Wed,) studied this question.