Evolutionary Game Analysis of Ecological Governance Strategies in the Yangtze River Delta Region, China

Under integrated ecological and green development in the Yangtze River Delta, the regional ecology is adversely affected by ineffective synergistic governance. Regional environmental governance is a collaborative process involving multiple stakeholders and mutual engagement, with each participant pursuing their interests and common goals simultaneously. This study employed stakeholder theory. A tripartite evolutionary game model of the public, enterprises, and local governments was constructed to analyze the behavioral strategies and influencing factors for the parties involved, and the impacts of key factors on the stability of the evolutionary game system were evaluated. The results indicate that ecological environmental governance in the Yangtze River Delta region is a complex and evolving system involving multiple stakeholders, within which system stability is influenced by stakeholders’ behavioral strategies. The interests of each party are affected by the cost of public involvement in ecological environment governance and the benefits and subsidies that enterprises receive for active environmental governance. The costs and penalties paid by local governments for lax regulations impact their behavioral strategies. This study provides policy recommendations for ecological governance in the study region, including the government–enterprise co-construction of liquid regulatory funds, government–enterprise–public partnerships in low-cost regulatory models, and the sharing of high-quality regulatory outcomes.