In China’s Yangtze industrial heartland, signs of growth without eco-damage

International team says its study of lake offers insights ‘for regions worldwide grappling with similar sustainability challenges’

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Researchers studying Taihu say rapid environmental degradation in the region stopped, or even began reversing, from 2000 to 2020 the region’s gross domestic product increased eightfold. Photo: CCTV

Published: 6:00pm, 10 Jun 2024Updated: 8:31pm, 10 Jun 2024

Social and economic growth in China’s most economically vital lake basin no longer comes at the cost of the environment, a new international study has found.

The in-depth study by researchers in China, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Britain and South Africa shows that signs of a decoupling, or separation, between economic growth and environmental degradation could be seen in China as early as the turn of this century.

Using evidence from socioeconomic records, sedimentary DNA analysis and climate models, the team examined Lake Tai, also known as Taihu, in the Yangtze River Delta, a delta that according to state media reports makes up only 4 per cent of the country’s land area but a quarter of its gross domestic product (GDP).

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“We present compelling evidence of unprecedented decoupling signals between socio-economic growth and eco-environmental degradation, particularly in the last two decades” in the Taihu lake watershed, the researchers wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in April.

“We cannot say with 100 per cent certainty whether this decoupling has entered a stable state or has just appeared,” Zhang Ke, study author and a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in an interview. “We can’t predict the future. But for now, the signal is positive.”

Taihu, China’s third largest freshwater lake, is within the Yangtze River Delta, “one of the world’s most densely populated and intensively modified landscapes”, the researchers wrote.

“As a harbinger of China’s development, the Yangtze River Delta region has witnessed unprecedented social progress and economic prosperity accompanied by critical environmental degradation,” the paper said.