Government employees’ perception of urban air pollution and willingness to pay for improved quality: a cross-sectional survey study in Nanchang, China

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• 作者：Xiaojun Liu ; Yanyan Wu ; Yongxin Hu…
• 关键词：Urban air pollution ; Perception ; Willingness to pay (WTP) ; Government employees
• 刊名：Environmental Science and Pollution Research
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：November 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：23
• 期：21
• 页码：22183-22189
• 全文大小：303 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Environment
  Environment
  Atmospheric Protection, Air Quality Control and Air Pollution
  Waste Water Technology, Water Pollution Control, Water Management and Aquatic Pollution
  Industrial Pollution Prevention
  
• 出版者：Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
• ISSN：1614-7499
• 卷排序：23

文摘

To improve the public’s awareness of urban air pollution and promote establishment of more efficient policy toward urban air pollution, we investigated the government employees’ perceptions of current urban air pollution and their willingness to pay (WTP) taxes for improved quality in Nanchang, China. Stratified cluster sampling strategy was used to distribute 629 questionnaires, and 608 were completed anonymously, yielding a 96.7 % response rate. Descriptive statistics frequencies and proportions were used to summarize the sample characteristics, and logistic regression models were performed to assess the associations of perception of urban air quality and WTP versus demographic variables. We found low awareness of urban air pollution (34.5 %) as well as low WTP (44.9 %), especially among the middle aged people (age 30–39 and age 40–49). Our study shows that female employees have better awareness of urban air pollution but much less willingness to pay for air quality improvement. Majority of the government employees showed their support to the government for more effective policies toward environmental protection, indicating more enhanced public education and environmental protection campaigns to improve the public’s awareness of air pollution and work with every citizen to improve air quality. This study also obtained baseline information useful to the local regional and even national government in developing nations in their attempt to control urban air pollution in future.