The impact of China's high-speed rail investment on regional economy and air pollution emissions

The high-speed rail (HSR) network in China has experienced rapid development since the 2000s. In 2016, the State Council of the People's Republic of China issued a revised version of the Mid-and Long-term Railway Network Plan, detailing the expansion of the railway net-work and construction of an HSR system. In the future, the HSR construction efforts in China will further increase, which is considered to impact regional development and air pollutant emissions. Therefore, in this paper, we apply a transportation network-multiregional com-putable general equilibrium (CGE) model to estimate the dynamic effects of HSR projects on economic growth, regional disparities, and air pollutant emissions in China. The results in-dicate that HSR system improvement could generate a positive economic impact but could also increase emissions. The gross domestic product (GDP) growth per unit investment cost stimulated by HSR investment is found to be the largest in eastern China but the smallest in the northwest regions. Conversely, HSR investment in Northwest China contributes to a substantial reduction in regional disparities in terms of the GDP per capita. In regard to air pollution emissions, HSR construction in South-Central China results in the largest increase in CO2 and NOx emissions, while for CO, SO2, and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions, the largest increase occurs due to HSR construction in Northwest China. At the regional level, the provinces with large changes in accessibility also experience large changes in their air pollutant emissions.(c) 2022 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

The high-speed rail (HSR) network in China has rapidly developed since the 2000s. The future expansion of the railway network and construction of an HSR system will have significant impacts on regional development and air pollutant emissions. This study uses a transportation network-multiregional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to analyze the dynamic effects of HSR projects on economic growth, regional disparities, and air pollutant emissions in China. The results show that HSR system improvement can stimulate positive economic impact but also increase emissions, and different regions experience varying effects on GDP growth and air pollution emissions due to HSR investment.