EN中文

Journal of Resources and Ecology >

2023 , Vol. 14 >Issue 3: 517 - 532

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2023.03.008

Resource Economy

Spatial and Temporal Differentiation Trends and Attributions of High-quality Development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt

  • CHENG Yongsheng , 1, 2, * ,
  • ZHANG Deyuan 1
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  • 1. School of Business, Fuyang Normal University, Fuyang, Anhui 236037, China
  • 2. Academy of Strategies for Innovation and Development, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
*CHENG Yongsheng, E-mail:

Received date: 2022-04-13

  Accepted date: 2022-08-12

  Online published: 2023-04-21

Supported by

The University Scientific Research Key Project(SK2021A0402)

The University Scientific Research Key Project(SK2021A0413)

The Talents Support Project(2022KYQD008)

The College Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program(202110371018)

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Abstract

The Huaihe River Basin is one of the typical large river basin economies, promoting its ecological protection and high-quality development is a strategic choice to improve the quality of China’s economic development and narrow the regional development gap, which has far-reaching strategic value for the region and the country in the new era. Based on the theoretical connotation of watershed ecological protection and high-quality economic development, starting from the special characteristics and practical features of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt, the panel data of 28 prefecture-level cities in the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt from 2003-2018 are used as the research samples, the improved entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient method and panel Tobit model investigate and analyze the time and space of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt Evolution characteristics and promotion drivers. The results show that the overall ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt is 1.4824, showing an overall upward trend, with obvious periodic fluctuations; the high-value areas are mainly located in the lower and middle reaches of the basin, with the spatial agglomeration characteristic of “double core leading”, while the upper reaches are always in the stage of “low level and stable growth trap”; the hypervariable density is the main cause of the regional disparity; per capita output, opening to the outside world, human capital and government intervention drive the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development. There are significant differences in the driving factors of ecological protection and high-quality development in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the city. The study of the development status of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt and its evolution law are of great theoretical significance, practical value for analyzing the synergistic enhancement path of urban ecological protection and high-quality development, promoting the ecological protection and high-quality economic development of the entire Huaihe River Basin.

Key words： ecological protection and high-quality development level; spatio-temporal evolution; driving factors; Huaihe Eco-economic Belt

Cite this article

CHENG Yongsheng , ZHANG Deyuan . Spatial and Temporal Differentiation Trends and Attributions of High-quality Development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt[J]. Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2023 , 14(3) : 517 -532 . DOI: 10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2023.03.008

1 Introduction

The Huaihe River Basin is located in the hinterland of the Central Plains of China, an important transportation corridor that connects the east with the west and the south with the north, and is one of the key support areas for China’s future development. At the same time, as an important ecological function area and an ecological barrier for the rise of central China, the level of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe River Basin directly affects the prosperity and long-term stability of the country. However, due to the constraints of location conditions, natural geography and other factors, the ecological protection and economic development of the Huaihe River Basin have some prominent problems for a long time: on the one hand, the perennial drought and drought are serious, the water shortage rate reaches 8.6%, and the ecological water satisfaction degree is only 68% (Wang, 2020); on the other hand, the frequency of flooding, the degree of harm are intensified (Zhou, 2015), and the pollution of water bodies at each cross section (Jin and Wu, 2014). Since the ninth five-year plan of New China (1996-2000), the Huaihe River Basin has been at the top of the national list of “three rivers and three lakes” for priority treatment. On October 18, 2018, the State Council released the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt Development Plan, marking the promotion of ecological protection and high-quality development as a national action, indicating the direction for the future development of the Huaihe River Basin. At the practical level, an accurate evaluation of the current development status of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt is urgently needed to provide a strong guarantee and path options to address the major concerns of the basin’s protection and governance, and to achieve the goals of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe River Basin.

2 Brief review of the literature and mechanism of action

The current research on the Huaihe River Basin mostly focuses on the development status of research elements, problems and qualitative analysis of single elements such as economic development and industrial development, such as macroscopic discussions on spatial development strategies, eco-economic belt construction mechanisms and industrial development in the Huaihe River Basin (Peng, 2012; Ye, 2014; Cheng, 2018), believe that we should adhere to “ecological priority and green development”, take effective system supply as a grip, optimize the comprehensive allocation of resources and improve the comprehensive efficiency of production factors. In terms of quantitative judgments, the comprehensive competitiveness, economic development level and ecological construction of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt have been assessed (Sun and Han, 2018; Cao et al., 2019; Zhou, 2019), but relatively few studies have examined the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt from a holistic perspective in an all-round manner.
As for the research on ecological protection and high- quality development, the existing literature seldom involves the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, but focuses more on the Yellow River Basin and Yangtze River Economic Belt (Cheng et al., 2021; Cheng et al., 2022), believes that ecological protection and high-quality development should abandon the past “economic growth theory” and pay more attention to the synergy of economic, livelihood, social and environmental dimensions (Zhao et al., 2019), as socio- economic development reaches a certain stage, the whole social state will show the characteristics of economic structure optimization, people’s happiness, social harmony and development (Ren and Li, 2018), its development aims to achieve a development mode, structure and dynamics that can better meet the growing real needs of the people, and meet the long-term stable and sustainable economic and social goals (Jin, 2018). Regarding the research on ecological protection and high-quality development measurement system and measurement methods, in terms of measurement system, it mainly includes single indicator method, growth accounting method, indicator system method, and in terms of measurement methods, there are comprehensive evaluation measures based on principal component analysis method, there is a combined evaluation assignment method using AHP and entropy analysis. There are also scholars who use entropy TOPSIS method and equal weighting method to measure the weights of indicators. However, in general, it seems that the majority of scholars in the established studies on the measurement of ecological protection and high-quality development tend to choose the objective-assigned indicator system method, which is because the multi-indicator system is more comprehensive than the measurement of a single indicator and can effectively eliminate subjectivity, the results are not easy to produce bias, which provides a feasible method to draw on for the advancement of the improved entropy method chosen in this paper.
It has been shown that the core connotation of ecological protection and high-quality development is the integrity of ecological protection and the rationality of resource allocation (Xiao and Xiao, 2022). Therefore, as a fundamental initiative to regulate the contradiction between people and nature in the basin, ecological protection in the Huaihe River Basin needs to be based on the economic belt as a whole, guided by ecological rationality, carried out different types and levels of ecological protection and construction activities in response to the differences in regional characteristics in the basin, in order to reach the expected goal of harmonious coexistence of people, ecology, society in the basin. Specifically, the ecological protection of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt should include at least the following five basic aspects: Firstly, the concept of ecological priority and green development, based on the premise of development mode change, through natural restoration and sustainable development, gradually change the current situation of ecological fragility in the Huaihe River Basin. Secondly, we uphold the concept of giving priority to water conservation and acting in accordance with the quantity of water, based on the rational coordination of water resources, to protect and maintain the stability of the Huaihe River ecosystem and continuously achieve continuous optimization of the water ecology. Thirdly, the protection and management of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt should be given equal importance, and joint efforts should be made to protect and manage the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt to promote the healthy and stable development of the basin ecosystem. Fourthly, based on the basin as a whole, do a good job of overall planning, through multi-dimensional synergy linkage, together to guard the Huaihe River ecological environment lifeline. Fifthly, the classification and zoning of governance, according to the Huaihe River Basin in different sections, the city’s ecological construction priorities, targeted specific protection and related governance measures to improve the effectiveness of ecological protection of the basin. As the connotation of “high quality” in the new stage of China’s economic development, the report of the 19th National Congress of the CPC clearly defines it as “higher quality, more efficient, more equitable and more sustainable”. Among them, innovation is the first driving force, coordination is the endogenous feature, green is the universal form, openness is the necessary road, and sharing is the fundamental purpose. Further, compared with the ecological protection and high-quality development of the country as a whole or other regions, the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt has its obvious resource, ecological and location specificities. Therefore, in order to promote the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt, it is necessary to implement the strategic concepts at the national level into the specific Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt, based on the comparative advantages and development stages of the Huaihe River Belt, and to clarify their connotations from the practical level of the basin, so that the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt will be more suitable for the provinces and even the municipalities through which the Huaihe River flows. The mission and ecological conditions of the Huai River flowing through the provinces and even the municipalities.
As shown in Fig. 1, the ecological protection and high- quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt are dialectically unified and complementary, there are mutually supportive, complementary and indispensable, together forming the complete content of the development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt. Among them, ecological protection provides external environmental protection and ecological product supply for high-quality development, while high-quality development provides development impetus and material foundation for ecological protection, which is a mutually reinforcing relationship between the new development concept and ecological civilization concept. Firstly, the ecological protection of the Huaihe River Basin is the basic prerequisite and core foundation for the high-quality development of the basin. A healthy and good ecological environment will not only provide backup support for high-quality development, but will also have a guarantee and supply role. As far as the guarantee role is concerned, a high-quality ecological environment is an important resource indispensable for people’s production and life. In terms of supply role, a high level of ecological environment can also help promote high-quality development. Secondly, the high-quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt can provide the essential economic foundation and scientific and technological support for ecological protection and governance in the basin, which is an indispensable source of power for establishing a sound long-term mechanism for ecological protection in the Huaihe River Basin. On the one hand, ecological protection and management need sufficient financial and technical support, and high-quality development can provide important economic support to promote the realization of green development. On the other hand, high-quality development means the progress of production technology and optimization of industrial structure, which requires the reduction of resource loss and ecological pollution from the source of production. Thirdly, meeting the needs of the people in the Huaihe River Basin for a better life is the fundamental value of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, promoting ecological protection and high-quality development. A correct understanding of the transformation process of the main contradictions of Chinese society in the new era is an important prerequisite for understanding the evolution of material and cultural needs to the needs for a better life, putting the people at the center is the basic value orientation that the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt must adhere to in order to achieve ecological protection and high-quality development. Because “improving people’s lives” is one of the basic goals of high-quality development, people’s pursuit of a better life does not only refer to the material level, but also involves the spiritual level of culture, education, social security, fairness and justice.
Fig. 1 The mechanism of the role of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt
Therefore, the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt are focused on the overall situation of the Huaihe River Basin rather than on the local area. It’s necessary to start from the real problems of people’s livelihood and continuously meet the growing needs of the people in the Huaihe River Basin for a better life by promoting economic development, strengthening the construction of spiritual civilization, improving social security and regulating income distribution.
Based on the systematic analysis of ecological protection and high-quality development, this study focuses on a sample of 28 prefecture-level cities in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt (Table 1), and on the basis of the equal importance of ecological protection and high-quality development, it innovatively measures the ecological protection and high- quality development levels in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt from the perspective of combining universal and basin characteristics, by constructing a multidimensional and comprehensive evaluative index system, applying the improved entropy method. Finally, a panel Tobit model was used to identify the paths to improve the ecological protection and high-quality development levels, and then relevant.
Table 1 Urban scope of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt
Region City
quantity		 Huaihe Eco-economic Belt Cities
Upstream 9 Xinyang City, Zhumadian City, Zhoukou City, Luohe City, Shangqiu City, Pingdingshan City, Nanyang City, Suizhou City, Xiaogan City
Midstream 8 Bengbu City, Huainan City, Fuyang City, Lu’an City, Bozhou City, Suzhou City, Huaibei City, Chuzhou City
Downstream 11 Huaian City, Yancheng City, Suqian City, Xuzhou City, Lianyungang City, Yangzhou City, Taizhou City, Zaozhuang City, Jining City, Linyi City, Heze City
policy suggestions were made to promote the synergistic and coexistence development of the Huaihe River Eco- economic Belt in the new era, accelerate the process of regional integration, create a strategic hinterland for the transformation and development of China’s eastern coastal region, dredging an important sea access channel in the central and western regions, providing realistic references and references.

3 Data and method

3.1 Index system construction and data sources

Following the principles of objectivity, comprehensiveness and systematization, from economic ecological protection and high-quality development, people’s livelihood ecological protection and high-quality development, social ecological protection and high-quality development, environmental ecological protection and high-quality development. The indicators were selected from four other dimensions, and a comprehensive evaluation index system was constructed (Table 2) to measure the actual level of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. At the same time, based on the availability of yearbook data, this paper finally took 2003-2018 as the research time period, and selected 5 provinces 28 prefecture-level cities in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe Eco- economic Belt as the research objects. The original data comes from the “China Urban Statistical Yearbook” and the “China Regional Economic Statistical Yearbook”. For some missing data in individual years, the interpolation method is used to fill in the missing data.
Table 2 Comprehensive evaluation index system of ecological protection and high-quality development level
Target layer Criterion layer Indicator layer Indicator properties
Ecological
protection and high-quality
development level		 Economic and ecological protection and high-quality development GDP per capita +
Fixed asset investment per unit of GDP +
The proportion of secondary industry +
The proportion of the tertiary industry +
Disposable income per capita +
Domestic electricity consumption per capita +
Ecological protection of people’s livelihood and high-quality development Proportion of urban population +
Density of population +
Every 100000 college students +
Urban registered unemployment rate -
The proportion of employees in the secondary industry +
The proportion of employees in the tertiary industry +
Consumption expenditure per capita +
Social and ecological protection and high-quality development Road area per capita +
Public transportation per 10000 people +
Library collection per hundred people +
LPG penetration rate +
Beds per thousand population +
Environmental protection and high-quality development Industrial wastewater discharge -
Industrial SO2 Emissions -
Industrial smoke (dust) emissions -
Comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste +
Wastewater discharge compliance rate +
Green area per capita +
Green coverage in built- up areas +

Note: “+” refers to positive indicators, “-” refers to negative indicators.

3.2 Research method

3.2.1 Improved entropy method

As a widely used objective weight evaluation method, the improved entropy value method can be largely eliminated by modifying the combined weighting of the constructed index system. The weight of the evaluation index depends on the degree of variation of the index value. The subjective bias caused by human factors, the greater the degree of variation, the greater the weight, which can well present the relative importance of the indicators.
$qualit{{y}_{i}}=\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{\mathop \sum }}\,{{\omega }_{j}}{{{a}'}_{ij}}$
Among them, $qualit{{y}_{i}}$ denotes the level of urban ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, ${{{a}'}_{ij}}$ denotes the dimensionless processing result of the j-th evaluation index of the i-th sample object, ${{\omega }_{j}}$ denotes the calculate the weight of the j-th indicator, n denotes the number of indicators.

3.2.2 Dagum Gini coefficient method

As a research method of spatial disequilibrium pattern, the Dagum Gini coefficient method, which is decomposed according to subgroups, has been widely used in many research fields, which can not only meet the research needs of measuring the main sources of regional gaps, but also effectively solve the problem between sample data. Therefore, this method can effectively avoid the limitations of the traditional Gini coefficient method and Theil index method (Sun and Zhu, 2020).
$G=\underset{j=1}{\overset{k}{\mathop \sum }}\,\underset{h=1}{\overset{k}{\mathop \sum }}\,\underset{i=1}{\overset{{{n}_{j}}}{\mathop \sum }}\,\underset{r=1}{\overset{{{n}_{h}}}{\mathop \sum }}\,\left| {{y}_{ji}}-{{y}_{hr}} \right|/2{{n}^{2}}\mu $
In formula (2), G denotes the overall Gini coefficient, yji, yhr is the ecological protection and high-quality development level of i, r cities in the j, h area, n is number of cities, and is the difference between the ecological protection and high-quality development levels of all cities. Average value, $\mu$ is the number of area divisions, nj, nh is the number of cities in the j, h area. At the same time, the overall Gini coefficient G in formula (2) can also be decomposed into three parts: Gw, Gnb and Gt, which respectively express the difference contribution of the intra-regional gap, the net difference contribution of the inter-regional net gap, and the hypervariability contribution of density, etc., must meet $G={{G}_{w}}+{{G}_{nb}}+{{G}_{t}}$.

3.2.3 Panel Tobit model

In order to accurately identify the driving factors of urban ecologal protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, this paper intends to further conduct empirical analysis by constructing an econometric model. In view of the above calculation results of the urban ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, if the ordinary least squares method is used for estimation, the results may be biased due to the continuous value of the dependent variable and the limited range. Therefore, using the panel Tobit model as the measurement method can avoid parameter estimation bias, and the specific model setting is shown in formula (3).
${{{Y}'}_{it}}=\left\{ \begin{matrix} {{\alpha }_{0}}+{{\beta }_{k}}{{Z}_{it}}+{{\varepsilon }_{it}}{{{{Y}'}}_{it}}>0 \\ 0 {{{{Y}'}}_{it}}\le 0 \\ \end{matrix} \right.$
In formula (3), ${{{Y}'}_{it}}$ denotes the urban ecological protection and high-quality development level of city i in year t, ${{\alpha }_{0}}$ is a constant term, ${{\beta }_{k}}$ is the regression coefficient of the drivers of the explanatory variables, k is the number of explanatory variables, ${{Z}_{it}}$ represents a series of driving factors that affect the level of urban ecological protection and high-quality development, and ${{\varepsilon }_{it}}$ represents the random disturbance term of the model.

4 Results

4.1 The calculation results of ecological protection and high-quality development level

Using the panel data of sample prefecture-level cities in the Huaihe Eco-enomic Belt from 2003 to 2018, the ecological protection and high-quality development levels of 28 cities in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt were calculated by the improved entropy method.
The results in Table 3 show that, except for Huaibei, an important national energy city in the middle reaches, the top five basically belong to the downstream regional central cities, the central cities of the Yangtze River Delta, or the Huaihai Economic Belt and the central cities of southern Shandong. In recent years, with the help of the policy orientation of national regional integration development, it helps these regional central cities to exert their policy advantages and siphon effect, accelerate the market flow of economic factors, and promote the continuous accumulation of various high-quality resources, so as to ensure the source of power and the guarantee of factors. At the same level, it provides source living water and abundant resources for its own ecological protection and high-quality development. At the same time, the sharing, matching and learning mechanisms of these elements have also initially formed the path dependence of ecological protection and high-quality development. However, it is worth noting that the various elements of rapid improvement are concentrated in limited urban space, which may cause market congestion, resulting in increasingly distinctive regional development. At this time, it is especially necessary to respect objective laws and increase the supply of public services and infrastructure; it is necessary to comply with the general market trend, and strive to eliminate the negative externalities of agglomeration by fully exploiting the positive externalities of agglomeration, so as to improve the city’s dynamic factor carrying capacity, the two-pronged approach drives urban ecological protection and high-quality development to improve quality and efficiency. The bottom five cities are basically located in the upper and middle reaches and belong to concentrated contiguous poverty-stricken areas. Most of them have many problems such as weak economic foundation, single industrial structure, and serious labor outflow. Especially under the premise that the “radiation drive” of the regional central cities and the “scale effect” of the cities themselves have not yet appeared, these cities don’t have the conditions of ecological protection and high-quality development. New Economic Geography pointed out that with the continuous increase of urban population density, the market scale will continue to expand, and two “agglomeration forces” will be formed. The common influence of the two “agglomeration forces” will begin to endogenously form the causal effect of element agglomeration, thus forming a cumulative cycle. Therefore, according to this theory, the cities ranking low not only don’t have the innate location advantages and acquired policy advantages that trigger the gradual accumulation of market size, but also will inevitably face the adverse situation of ecological protection and high quality development level, thus leading to the phenomenon of weak growth is very prominent, the urgent need to seek new growth points and growth momentum. It can be seen that there is still a long way to go to realize the linkage and synergy between ecological protection and high-quality development among cities in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt.
Table 3 The measurement results of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Economic Belt
City Ecological protection and high-quality development level City Ecological protection and high-quality development level
Yangzhou 1.641 Chuzhou 1.500
Taizhou 1.611 Pingdingshan 1.477
Huaibei 1.588 Xiaogan 1.460
Xuzhou 1.583 Suqian 1.451
Zaozhuang 1.571 Fuyang 1.420
Luohe 1.565 Zhumadian 1.394
Jining 1.557 Zhoukou 1.394
Bengbu 1.553 Heze 1.393
Lianyungang 1.551 Bozhou 1.388
Linyi 1.546 Shangqiu 1.385
Huainan 1.528 Suzhou 1.368
Suizhou 1.511 Nanyang 1.360
Huaian 1.510 Xinyang 1.359
Yancheng 1.502 Lu’an 1.341

4.2 The characteristics of ecological protection and high-quality development levels

Based on the urban ecological protection and high-quality development level data calculated above, the dynamic trend map of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt over time is drawn. Figure 2 shows that the ecological protection and high- quality development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt is on the rise, with an average level of 1.4824, but with obvious periodic fluctuations, indicating that it is vulnerable to the impact of the external development environment and internal adjustment capacity, showing stability. Insufficient, weak resilience and other development characteristics. From further specific analysis, the sample cycle of the entire study can be roughly divided into the following three different stages:
Fig. 2 Dynamic trend of the overall ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt
The first stage (2003-2007) was in a stable development period, with an average value of 1.4733, slightly lower than the overall average value of the sample period (1.4824), and in 2007 it fell to the global lowest point of 1.4625. The reason is that the cities in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are constrained by complex history, geography and climate, most of them are located in underdeveloped areas with low levels of urbanization. There are many national-level poverty-stricken areas in a row, the ecological deficit is difficult to return, the Central Plains Economic Belt has insufficient radiation coverage, and the policy effects of the Central Rise Strategy have not yet fully manifested.
The second stage (2008-2014) was in a period of large fluctuations, with an average value of 1.4795, which was higher than the previous stage, but still showed a downward trend on the whole, with an average annual decline of 2%. In 2008, it first rose to the local highest point 1.4895, and then rebounded slightly to 1.4842, and then rose to 1.4887 again. In the following years, it was basically in a period of decline. The possible reasons for the large fluctuations in this stage: the ecological economy of the Huaihe River most cities with abundant resources and energy elements, resource and energy-intensive industries have formed a fixed industrial structure through the expansion of scale in the early stage. The data shows that since the 16th National Congress of the CPC, the ecological efficiency of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt has not changed significantly, both ecological efficiency and economic efficiency have shown a trend of deterioration, decreasing by 0.03% and 2.4% respectively (Sun and Han, 2018), such as the distortion and failure of the market mechanism, the low efficiency of energy utilization, and the prominent energy rebound effect, have jointly led to an extensive development model, which has a significant negative impact on ecological protection and high-quality development. On the other hand, due to the traditional incentive model of “competing for GDP” among local governments, they may consciously or unconsciously generate endogenous power to exchange for local temporary economic growth by sacrificing environmental quality, resulting in ecological protection in the region. The “zero-sum game dilemma” between economic growth and economic growth, especially after the 2008 financial crisis, in order to stabilize and maintain the GDP growth rate from fluctuations, the central and local governments have potentially reached an “invisible tacit understanding”, that is, the ecological environment gives way to the economy. Growth and selective neglect of environmental issues, which further deteriorates the level of regional ecological protection and high-quality development.
The third stage (2015-2018) was in a stable upward period, with an average value of 1.4989, far exceeding the historical average by 1.66 percentage points, and even climbed to the global extreme value of 1.5044 in 2018. This should be attributed to the fact that since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the central government has attached great importance to the protection of the ecological environment, raised the construction of ecological civilization as one of the major strategies to lead the country’s economic and social development, stressing the need to actively transform the mode of economic development through a series of deepening reform measures, highlighting the connotations of green development, ecological protection and high-quality development in the new era, and requiring the initiative to explore a Chinese characteristic with ecological protection and high-quality development characteristics road, which directly reversed the downward trend of ecological protection and high-quality development level, promoted it to enter a steady upward channel, and formed an inflection point of ecological protection and high-quality development level.
In order to investigate the differences in the level of ecological protection and high-quality development in different regions over time, based on the spatial location, the dynamic trend diagrams of ecological protection and high-quality development levels in the three major regions were drawn respectively. Figure 3 shows the ecological protection and high-quality development levels in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, with average values of 1.4339, 1.4607 and 1.5054. Overall, the downstream area has the highest level, followed by the midstream area, while the upstream area of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt has the lowest level of ecological protection and high-quality development, the downstream and midstream areas are 1.05 times and 1.01 times higher than the upstream areas. The characteristic fact of the coexistence of strong in the middle reaches and weak in the upper reaches reveals the serious inconsistency and imbalance between the ecological protection and high-quality development levels among the three major regions of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. Specifically, during the sample inspection period, the ecological protection and high-quality development levels of the upstream areas were in a declining stage from 2003 to 2007, with an average annual decline of 0.31%, indicating that the upstream areas were in the four areas of economy, people’s livelihood, society and environment during this period. There’s a problem of unbalanced development in this dimension, and the “cask effect” is becoming more and more significant. The reason is that after 2003, with the significant acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, which led to the vigorous development of resource and energy intensive industries, the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt in Henan, Hubei and other provinces violated the comparative advantages of the region. The layout of heavy and chemical industries with high energy consumption, high emissions and low efficiency have not only increased the total economic volume, but also paid a huge ecological and environmental price, there are obvious shortcomings in ecological protection, which directly becomes the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development. After the trough in 2007, it quickly rebounded to 1.4334 in 2008, and then fluctuated slightly around the average value of 1.442 from 2008 to 2018. It’s particularly noteworthy that, with the introduction of the most stringent national environmental protection law, the high-quality development has shown a downward trend after 2016, indicating that the upstream areas began to pay attention to the coordinated development of multi- dimensional goals during this period, and the measures to supplement ecological protection shortcomings have achieved initial results.
Fig. 3 Dynamic trend of ecological protection and high-quality development levels in the three major regions
The level of ecological protection and high-quality development in the middle reaches showed a gradual decline from 2003 to 2007, when it fell to the bottom of the overall bottom of 1.4383 until 2007. Most of the cities in the middle reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt belong to northern Anhui or old revolutionary bases, which are far from the provincial capital, the economic foundation is weak, the level of urbanization is low, and there is a lack of active and effective policy support and a rational layout of pillar indus- tries. From 2008 to 2018, there was a slow growth trend, and the growth rate was not large. This is because after the financial crisis, Anhui has become a “bridgehead” to undertake industrial transfer in the eastern coastal areas. It actively targets the Yangtze River Delta, actively accelerates the pace of transformation and upgrading, and builds a cluster area for undertaking industrial transfer such as Fuyang and Bengbu. The 2017 National Central Plains Urban Agglomeration Development Plan further gave Suzhou, Fuyang, Huaibei, Bengbu and Bozhou and other five cities in northern Anhui a new strategic position of “one pole, one place and two districts”①(①“One pole, one place and two districts” means a new growth pole of economic development, an important base for advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, a pioneer area for innovation and entrepreneurship in the central and western regions, a new highland for two-way opening in inland areas, and a demonstration area for green ecological development.), which is undoubtedly the rise of the middle reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. It provides huge development opportunities and policy dividends.
The level of ecological protection and high-quality development in the downstream areas basically fluctuates slightly around the average value of 1.5054, with strong stability. Because the downstream area is closer to the eastern coastal area in terms of geographical location, and has a relatively higher degree of opening up and marketization. It can learn from the management experience and technical level of developed areas, and through the flow of high-tech talents across regions and industries. Bringing demonstration effect, learning effect and competition effect, to a certain extent, it can alleviate the phenomenon of human capital mismatch and reserve talent demand for industrial transformation and upgrading. In addition, in the process of promoting new urbanization, the central city undertakes the task of regional growth pole, which can radiate and drive the development of other surrounding cities in the metropolitan area, while the integration degree between the downstream cities is relatively high, which is in line with the radiation driving effect.

4.3 The spatial evolution characteristics of ecological protection and high-quality development levels

In order to reflect its spatial distribution pattern more intuitively, the article adopts GIS technology for spatial visualization expression with 2003, 2008, 2013 and 2018 as benchmarks, deeply focuses on the spatial evolution characteristics of the sample range of Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, and specifically analyzes its spatial distribution pattern, as shown in Fig. 4. According to the level of measurement data, it is divided into five categories: high level, medium high level, medium level, medium low level and low level. The darker the color, the higher the level.
Fig. 4 Spatial distribution of ecological protection and high-quality development levels
Specifically, in 2003, the cities in the high-value areas of ecological protection and high-quality development were Yangzhou, Huaibei, Taizhou, Luohe, Zaozhuang and Huainan. Among the high-level cities, there are 7 cities in downstream areas, accounting for 63.6%, and 3 cities in midstream areas, accounting for 27.3%. In the upstream areas, except for Luohe City, which is a regional transportation hub and a modern business and logistics center, other Cities are located within the range of low and medium value areas. In 2008, in the high value areas of ecological protection and high-quality development, the number of cities in the upper, middle and lower reaches did not change, which fully reflects that the high value areas of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are mainly distributed in the middle and lower reaches. It presents a “dual-engine” spatial agglomeration pattern. In 2013, the spatial distribution pattern of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt was relatively stable on the whole. For example, Suizhou, an important town in northern Hubei, entered a high value area, which is the combined effect of the rise of central Hubei. In 2018, the ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt showed a trend of optimization and improvement, which was manifested in the further consolidation and strengthening of the high value areas in the downstream area, the continuous focus on the comprehensive transportation hubs and regional central cities in the middle reaches such as Huaibei and Bengbu, while the upstream area is still a low value area, the level of ecological protection and high-quality development is not optimistic.
In summary, the spatial distribution pattern of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt can be roughly drawn: the regional distribution of high-value areas is mainly concentrated in the lower and middle reaches, while the low-value areas are mainly distributed in the upper reaches, showing a spatial pattern of bimodal agglomeration and valley agglomeration in general, and the phenomenon of local “clubs convergence” in the region is obvious; this agglomeration feature has the characteristics of layering and solidification in the time dimension, which has been endogenous. To form a relatively stable economic and geographical pattern, exogenous policy shocks are urgently needed to break this uncoordinated steady state, and then reshape a new pattern of regional coordinated development.

4.4 The regional gap between ecological protection and high-quality development

In order to compare and analyze the similarities and differences of regional gaps in depth, this section divides the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt into three major regions from the perspective of regional segmentation: the upper reaches (9 cities in Henan and Hubei), the middle reaches (8 cities in Anhui) and the lower reaches (11 cities in Jiangsu and Shandong). The regional disparity in the level of quality development is measured, and it is decomposed and presented according to the spatial scales of the upper, middle and lower regions, trying to reveal the main source of the regional disparity. The measurement results are shown in Table 4 and Fig. 5.
Table 4 The regional gap between ecological protection and high-quality development and its source breakdown
Year Overall regional disparity Intra-regional disparity Regional
disparity		 Hypervariable density Contribution rate (%)
Intra-regional disparity Regional disparity Hypervariable density
2003 0.0340 0.0093 0.0053 0.0194 27.35 15.59 57.06
2004 0.0379 0.0107 0.0063 0.0209 28.23 16.62 55.15
2005 0.0372 0.0100 0.0093 0.0179 26.88 25.00 48.12
2006 0.0360 0.0091 0.0089 0.0180 25.28 24.72 50.00
2007 0.0351 0.0092 0.0080 0.0179 26.21 22.79 51.00
2008 0.0358 0.0093 0.0097 0.0168 25.98 27.09 46.93
2009 0.0320 0.0089 0.0072 0.0159 27.81 22.50 49.69
2010 0.0314 0.0090 0.0058 0.0166 28.66 18.47 52.87
2011 0.0314 0.0092 0.0055 0.0167 29.30 17.52 53.18
2012 0.0311 0.0093 0.0038 0.0180 29.90 12.22 57.88
2013 0.0320 0.0094 0.0044 0.0182 29.38 13.75 56.88
2014 0.0306 0.0090 0.0043 0.0173 29.41 14.05 56.54
2015 0.0354 0.0098 0.0079 0.0177 27.68 22.32 50.00
2016 0.0375 0.0104 0.0075 0.0196 27.73 20.00 52.27
2017 0.0343 0.0097 0.0062 0.0184 28.28 18.08 53.64
2018 0.0482 0.0122 0.0153 0.0207 25.31 31.74 42.95
Fig. 5 Dynamic trends of regional gaps in ecological protection and high-quality development (a) The line chart of overall regional gap change trend; (b) The line chart of the change trend of the gap within the region; (c) The line chart of the change trend of the gap between regions; (d) The line chart of hypervariable density change trend
The results in Table 4 and Fig. 5 show that during the sample period, the average regional gap between ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt was 0.0350. In 2014 and 2018, the bottom was 0.0306 and the peak was 0.0482, with an increase of 36.51%. Specifically, during the twelve-year period from 2003 to 2014, except for a slight increase in the first year, all showed a significant downward trend, reaching the global minimum in 2014, and the average annual decline was not large, which shows that the overall regional gap is gradually narrowing which the shrinking speed is relatively moderate, but the decline effect is relatively stable; a rebound phenomenon occurred from 2015 to 2018, and reached the global peak in 2018, reflecting the overall regional gap reduction effect of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are still disadvantages of insufficient stability. From the perspective of source decomposition, the variation trend of the intra-regional disparity in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt is basically consistent with the change curve of the overall disparity, followed by a slow rise and a decline alternately, reaching a peak of 0.0122 and a bottom of 0.0089 in 2018 and 2009. The variation range of the gap between regions is limited to the interval [0.0038,0.0153], showing obvious periodic fluctuation characteristics, a repeated trend of rising and falling trends. Among them, 2003-2011 showed two stages of rising and falling, taking 2007 as the boundary point, the trend showing an M-shape; from 2012 to 2018, it showed an upward trend, but compared with the previous period, the overall fluctuation range was larger, and the extreme values appeared at both ends. The hypervariable density is in the range of [0.0159,0.0209], the high and low extreme values appeared in 2004 and 2009. Before 2009, except for a slight increase in the first year, all showed a downward trend with different amplitudes; after 2009, the rise and fall alternated, but the overall trend showed an upward trend.
Further observation found that during the sample period from 2003 to 2018, the inter-regional gap (0.0072) of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt was smaller than the intra-regional gap (0.0097) and less than the hypervariable density (0.0181), which indicated that the main reason for the regional disparity in the level population is caused by the hypervariable density. From the perspective of the contribution rate, the average contribution rates of the inter-regional gap, intra-regional gap and hypervariable density of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt to the overall regional disparity are 20.15%, 27.71% and 52.13%. The contribution rate of inter-regional gap and intra-regional gap is very small, accounting for less than 50%, while the contribution rate of hypervariable density is much higher than that of inter-regional gap and intra-regional gap, which once again proves the overall regional gap. Most of them can be explained by the differences in the overall gap between the overlapping and overlapping of different urban agglomerations. At the same time, it also shows that compared with the gaps between regions and within regions, the impact of the overall gap in the overall level of ecological protection and high-quality development is extremely weak, which deserves our vigilance and attention, and needs to focus on efforts.

5 Discussion

This section attempts to further explore the driving factors that affect the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt by building an econometric model.

5.1 Variable selection and data interpretation

Based on the actual situation of the Huaihe River Basin as a starting point, drawing on relevant existing research and the connotation of ecological protection and high-quality development, this paper attempts to select the driving factors that affect the level of ecological protection and high-quality development as follows: 1) Output per capita (Pgdp), measured by the real per capita GDP at constant prices in 2003, in order to verify the existence of the Kuznets curve, the quadratic term of per capita output is also included in the regression model; 2) The degree of opening to the outside world (Open), choose the actual use of foreign investment; 3) The level of human capital (Hum), which is indicated by the average years of education in the sample area; 4) The degree of government intervention (Gov), which is measured by the proportion of fiscal expenditures; 5) The level of technological innovation (Tech), which is indicated by the number of patent authorizations per 10000 people in the sample area; 6) The level of environmental regulation (Reg), taking the industrial wastewater, sulfur dioxide, soot emissions per unit as the original data, and referring to the method of Dong and Wang (2019), calculate the comprehensive index of pollutants per unit of the sample area, as a proxy variable for the level of environmental regulation. The original data of the above series of variables are mainly from the “China City Statistical Yearbook”, “China Population & Employment Statistical Yearbook”, and the China Research Data Service Platform (CNRDS). The relevant descriptive statistical results of specific variables are shown in Table 5.
Table 5 Descriptive statistics of related variables (N=448)
Variable (unit) Minimum Maximum Mean Standard deviation
Pgdp (10000 yuan) 0.2611 6.9004 1.858 1.1977
Pgdp2 (10000 yuan) 0.0682 47.6157 4.8834 6.3949
Open (%) 0.1889 18.6157 2.2862 2.1389
Hum (yr) 7.8852 10.4262 8.9768 0.4817
Gov (%) 0.0596 1.4852 0.1489 0.0875
Tech (Pcs/10000) 0.0508 49.6819 3.2082 5.2775
Reg (-) 0.0004 1.0150 0.0717 0.1236

5.2 Empirical analysis

This paper uses the panel Tobit model to first conduct regression analysis on the entire sample, then divide the entire sample into upstream, midstream, and downstream cities for heterogeneity analysis. At the same time, in order to examine the robustness of the estimation results, the least squares method is further used for model estimation. In addition, in order to alleviate its interference on the estimation results, all the driving factors that affect the ecological protection and high-quality development level are lagged by one period, the coefficient to be estimated of the model by using lagged variables. The estimated results are shown in Table 6.
Table 6 Model estimation results
Independent variable Dependent variable
Full sample The full sample with one
period lag		 Upstream Midstream Downstream
OLS Tobit OLS Tobit OLS Tobit OLS Tobit OLS Tobit
Pgdp 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.002*** 0.002*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.031** 0.016**
(0.0106) (0.0085) (0.0105) (0.0092) (0.0242) (0.0241) (0.0395) (0.0348) (0.0116) (0.0103)
Pgdp2 0.909 0.885 0.773 0.735 0.748 0.749 0.002** 0.001*** 0.322 0.322
(0.0024) (0.0019) (0.0025) (0.0021) (0.0074) (0.0075) (0.0078) (0.0075) (0.0020) (0.0020)
Open 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.009*** 0.000*** 0.016** 0.016** 0.216 0.31 0.002*** 0.002***
(0.0019) (0.0015) (0.0023) (0.0015) (0.0033) (0.0033) (0.0022) (0.0027) (0.0024) (0.0024)
Hum 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.796 0.771 0.000*** 0.000***
(0.0113) (0.0070) (0.0111) (0.0071) (0.0112) (0.0130) (0.0192) (0.0170) (0.0103) (0.0106)
Gov 0.069* 0.000*** 0.043** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.113 0.001***
(0.1551) (0.0337) (0.1451) (0.0340) (0.1249) (0.1236) (0.0959) (0.0971) (0.0711) (0.0344)
Tech 0.494 0.453 0.482 0.45 0.125 0.198 0.236 0.332 0.028** 0.082*
(0.0012) (0.0011) (0.0014) (0.0013) (0.0103) (0.0122) (0.0030) (0.0037) (0.0008) (0.0010)
Reg 0.227 0.137 0.211 0.119 0.496 0.602 0.193 0.151 0.106 0.026**
(0.0293) (0.0238) (0.0296) (0.0237) (0.0739) (0.0966) (0.0349) (0.0316) (0.1289) (0.0929)
Constant term 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.000***
(0.1106) (0.0608) (0.1072) (0.0620) (0.0973) (0.1144) (0.1623) (0.1475) (0.0976) (0.0963)
Observations 448 448 420 420 144 144 128 128 176 176

Note: *, ** and *** represent the significance levels of 10%, 5% and 1%, respectively, and the numbers in parentheses of the model represent standard errors.

Table 6 shows that, from the perspective of model selection, the estimation results of OLS and Tobit are basically the same in direction and significance, the values of individual variables are even more significant, indicating that the selection of Tobit model has good adaptability and feasibility. Further observation of the driving factors of the full sample and the driving factors of the first lag period shows that the model estimation results show high reliability, indicating that the above driving factors have good stability for ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe River Basin, and can be very good. The influencing factors of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt were explored, and the research results were of strong scientific nature. It’s particularly worth mentioning that our estimation results sidewardly corroborate the significance and value of the “Clear waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets” theory. Green development is a realistic path and an inexhaustible driving force for regional sustainability.
In-depth observation of the impact of driving factors:
(1) Although the estimated coefficients of the primary and secondary terms of per capita output are both positive, but in the significance level test, the primary term passes the 1% significance, while the quadratic term coefficient does not. Significantly, this shows that for the Huaihe River Basin, the “U” shaped relationship between ecological protection, high-quality development and per capita output does not exist, per capita output has a significant impact on ecological protection and high-quality development. Each region has a positive effect ; according to the estimated results of the sub-samples, the size of the impact shows a decreasing trend in the downstream, upstream and midstream, which indicates that the higher the level of economic development, the greater the effect on the level of ecological protection and development. The possible explanation is that in the early stage of economic development, the whole society paid more attention to the quantity of economic growth, while ignoring the sustainability of economic development, which damaged the quality of long-term economic development, forcing all sectors of society to start paying attention to the health and sustainability of the economy. At this time, ecological protection and high- quality development have become a social consensus, which has led to the gradual improvement of the level of ecological protection and high-quality development, which is in line with theoretical expectations.
(2) From the estimation results of the whole sample, the estimated coefficient of opening to the outside world is positive, it has passed the 1% significance level test, indicating that opening to the outside world has promoted the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development. Abundant physical capital and high-quality human capital provide a source of power for the transformation of development methods and the conversion of old and new kinetic energy. On the other hand, through the demonstration effect and competition effect to activate the local market vitality, smooth the market entry and exit mechanism, and inject a constant stream of fresh “blood” for economic development, the superposition effect of these two aspects together drive the ecological protection and high-quality development level, but also fully illustrates the positive impact of the country’s implementation in recent years to continue to expand the degree of openness. Further from the results of the sub-sample estimation, the downstream opening coefficient significantly passed the 1% test, followed by the upstream region with a significance level of positive in 5%, which has a promoting effect on ecological protection and high-quality development, which is consistent with the full sample. The estimated results are basically the same. Although the opening coefficient of the middle reaches of the region is positive, it has not passed the significance test. The possible reason is that the cities in the middle reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt mainly belong to inland areas, the degree of opening to the outside world is not high, and the development model mainly relies on traditional. The resource factors drive economic growth, and the driving effect of ecological protection and high-quality development has not been formed. Existing research also shows that there is an obvious regional imbalance of “high in the south and low in the north” in Anhui’s openness to the outside world, and the difference between the north and the south is extremely obvious. The opening degree of northern Anhui, where the middle reaches are located, has been below the average level for a long time. In 2012, the opening degrees of Suzhou City and Bozhou City were 0.85% and 1.2%, respectively, which were lower than the provincial average (2.23%) (Luan and Chen, 2014).
(3) The estimated coefficients of human capital are all positive, and except for the midstream regions, all have passed the 1% significance test. Because the midstream cities have long been dependent on energy-intensive industries，its industrial structure characteristics are not compatible with human capital, which it is easy to fall into the dilemma of human capital mismatch, and is impossible to exert the potential of human capital to improve the level of ecological protection and high-quality development. Therefore, the role in promoting ecological protection and high quality development level is not significant enough.
(4) The estimated coefficients of government intervention are all significantly positive, and all have passed the 1% significance level test. This reveals that government intervention has contributed to the level of ecological protection and high-quality development, indicating that the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt as a whole has a high degree of marketization, and that the local government acts as a “service provider”, coordinating and guiding the allocation of resources and optimizing their efficiency, rather than playing the role of an “interferer”, becoming a “stumbling block” to ecological protection and high-quality development, and hindering the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development.
(5) Judging from the full sample estimation results, although the estimated coefficients of technological innovation are all positive, none of them have passed the significance test. The possible explanations are: firstly, the technological innovation is biased, if technological progress is biased towards energy, it will intensify the market demand for energy factors and solidify the energy-intensive industrial structure; secondly, there is strategic technological innovation behavior, enterprises tend to focus on the quantity of innovation and ignore the quality of innovation in order to obtain innovation subsidies, which leads to a lower actual conversion rate of results. As far as the estimated results of the sub-samples are concerned, the coefficients of technological innovation in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are still all positive, but except for the lower reaches which are significant at 10%, none of the other areas have passed the significance test. The reason is that, the downstream cities are at the frontier of technological progress, and they make use of the triple advantages of policy, market and location to carry out independent research and development of technology, which makes the technological innovation in the downstream region achieve a weak ecological protection and high-quality development level enhancement effect, while the technological innovation coefficients of the other two regions are not significant.
(6) The estimated results of environmental regulation are similar to those of technological innovation. Except that the downstream area is significantly positive in 5%, the estimated coefficients of both the whole sample and the sub-samples in other areas are all positive, but they have not passed the significance test. The reason is that the environmental regulation of local governments often presents the characteristics of administrative orders. Most of them directly affect the production behavior of the economy by setting up market access barriers, environmental and technical standards, etc., which is easy to breed rent-setting and rent-seeking phenomena, distorting them. The optimal allocation of resources undermines ecological protection and high-quality development. The economic development level of the downstream areas is relatively high. By formulating higher environmental regulation policies, the role of environmental regulation in ecological protection and high- quality development has been brought into full play, and the ecological environment in the lower reaches of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt has been improved. It will promote the transfer of polluting enterprises to the middle and upper reaches with lower environmental standards, guide the coordinated development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt to a certain extent, and then produce an exemplary promotion effect, forming a virtuous circle of ecological protection and high-quality development.

6 Conclusions

The main conclusions are as follows: 1) The ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt can be roughly divided into three stages, which generally show an upward trend, with an average level of 1.4824. Further research found that it has the characteristics of insufficient stability and low resilience, and it’s easily affected by the impact of the external development environment and internal adjustment capacity, showing obvious characteristics of periodic fluctuations. 2) The high value areas of ecological protection and high quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are mainly concentrated in the lower and middle reaches, while the low value areas are mainly located in the upper reaches, showing a spatial pattern of “high-high” and “low-low” clustering. 3) The overall regional gap between ecological protection and high quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt is large, and the super-variable density is the main reason for the overall regional gap. 4) Per capita output, opening to the outside world, human capital and government intervention are the main driving factors affecting the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. At the same time, there is a distinct regional heterogeneities in the drivers of high-quality development levels.
The above research conclusions contain the following policy implications: Firstly, focus on the main direction of attack and achieve coordinated improvement in development quality. The study found that the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt has common causes, which means starting from the top-level design, optimizing the development environment, constructing a multi-level and diversifying regional coordinated development mechanism, actively constructing the ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. We comprehensively enhance the synergistic “big market”, unblock the circulation channels of factors, improve the efficiency of resource allocation, build a benchmark for ecological protection and high-quality development in an integrated manner, strive to achieve the convergent development and collaborative innovation of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. Secondly, adhere to the source management, highlight the dislocation development of regional characteristics. The study found that the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt has very obvious regional heterogeneity. The upstream area has become a “depression” for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, which has eliminated the overall development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt. It is necessary to follow the development law. Based on the principle of “market-led, government-led”, we will make up for shortcomings in a targeted manner, and proceed from the actual situation of the typical area of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt to guide cities with different resource endowments to adapt to local conditions and actively explore differentiated, A characteristic development path will be developed to promote resource complementarity and functional integration within the region. Thirdly, strengthen demonstration and drive, and accelerate the construction of regional development highlands. The study found that in terms of ecological protection and high-quality development, the high-value areas of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt have obvious agglomeration, and it is necessary to further leverage the location advantages, resource advantages and basic advantages of the downstream areas to understand economic development from a higher level and a newer perspective. Further, it is necessary to open up the domestic circulation, enrich the carrier of opening to the outside world, enhance the level of opening to the outside world, increase the openness of the domestic and international double circulation to promote each other, innovate the open economic system, enhance the attractiveness of the high-value area, expand the radiation area, lead the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt in ecological protection and high-quality development, realize the good situation of quality, efficiency and power “three changes” together, and promote the comprehensive strength of the region to higher quality synergistic development. Fourthly, optimize the power system and promote the steady growth of the regional economy. The study found that the driving factors affecting the ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt are different and have different degrees of effect. The upstream areas should optimize the level of government intervention, explore the space for technological innovation to improve development, focus on starting from macro-control, insist on “increasing blood transfusion” and “active hematopoiesis”, and strive to achieve a win-win pattern of economic and social development and ecological environment. The midstream region should pay more attention to the power of talents, focus on continuously increasing investment in education, continuously improve the level of human capital, build a platform for technological progress and innovation sharing, and focus on building a new highland for opening up inland as the strategic mission, and continuously expand the opportunities for opening up to the outside world. The breadth and depth of opening to the outside world will be continuously consolidated, and ecological governance and environmental restoration will continue to be strengthened to maximize the release of new development momentum. While continuing to give full play to the original location advantages, downstream regions should more actively and precisely focus on industrial positioning, promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial chain, focus on the development of knowledge-intensive and technology-intensive industries by amplifying the effect of talent gathering, in order to speed up the development of new and old industries. The goal is to transform development momentum, accelerate technological progress to drive the transformation of economic structure, promote the realization of regional strategic upgrades and upgrades, and strive to become a driving force for ecological protection and high-quality development of the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt.
However, due to the constraints of the objective and subjective conditions, the above study has the following shortcomings and deficiencies, which need to be explored in more depth and detail in the following aspects: 1) The selection of indicators needs to be improved. In view of the importance of the transformation of old and new dynamics in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt, but because the time of the transformation of old and new dynamics is still short, the data of indicators characterizing the transformation process are limited, so we can consider adding indicators such as investment in strategic emerging industries and investment in new energy industries in the future. In the guideline layer of livelihood ecological protection and high-quality development, the indicators of population density and population proportion can be optimized, and the indicator of life expectancy per capita can be added. 2) The research method is yet to be improved. The improved entropy value method has the advantages of objective assignment and robust results. In the future, we can consider combining objective assignment and subjective assignment, combining objective evaluation and effective experience of experts, so that the determination of indicator weights can be more scientific, reasonable and diversified. 3) The relevance of the study is yet to be improved. The study can further deepen to the city dimension, and adjust the weight of each corresponding indicator in combination with the key objectives of the respective regions, so that it can be more guiding for practice.

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