How urban sprawl influences eco-environmental quality: Empirical research in China by using the Spatial Durbin model

Rapid urban sprawl in China has caused serious eco-environmental changes, and thus attracted significant attention of the international academic circles. However, the mechanism of influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality has not been addressed adequately. The main objective of this study was to fill this gap by theoretically and empirically studying how urban sprawl influences eco-environmental quality, based on the Spatial Durbin model and on a panel data covering 30 provinces of mainland China during the period 2003–2018. The results show that China’s urban sprawl has significantly decreased the eco-environmental quality under both geographical and economic weight matrices. Moreover, the spillover effect played an essential role in investigating the influence of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality. From the perspective of regional differences, the direct accumulation effect and the spatial spillover effect involved in the impact of urban sprawl on eco-environmental quality varied across the central, western, and northeast regions. The results of decomposition of urban sprawl into its component parts indicate that population sprawl, socio-economic sprawl, transportation sprawl, and land use sprawl can explain the change of eco-environmental quality in China to varying degrees. During the study period, land use sprawl exhibited the greatest effect on eco-environmental quality, followed by socio-economic sprawl, population sprawl, and transportation sprawl. The government should actively coordinate the development of different types of urban sprawl, thus increasing eco-environmental quality across different regions.