环境经济地理学的研究现状与挑战

环境经济地理学是经济地理学反思资源环境在学科内部边缘化的产物,旨在重建经济地理学理论与资源环境之间的联系。历经近20年的发展,环境经济地理学研究片段化、地位边缘化的问题无明显改观。为此,本文回溯了环境经济地理学的发展思路,归纳了以环境经济地理学名义开展的研究工作,探讨了环境经济地理学发展面临的挑战与应对。研究发现：① 环境经济地理学过去20年的发展思路是以经济地理学理论为基础,探讨适应资源环境变化的经济发展与空间布局模式,凝练了环境治理和绿色转型两个研究主题。② 面向环境治理,环境经济地理学应用全球价值链和全球生产网络理论,探讨企业和地方如何实现环境和经济效益的共同提升;同时,借助区位分析评估作为区位因子的环境规制如何影响经济布局,发现了诸多“经典假说”的反例。③ 面向绿色转型,环境经济地理学与演化经济地理学结合,应用区域多样化和路径创造理论,分析了区域绿色转型的条件和过程。④ 环境经济地理学的未来发展需要克服范式差异、加强问题导向、推动理论创新,挖掘中国丰富的环境经济地理问题所蕴含的机遇。

Environmental economic geography:Recent advances and future challenges

Environmental economic geography emerges as a reflection of the marginalization of the environment within the discipline of economic geography. It seeks to re-establish the linkage between economic geography and the environment. After almost two decades of development, environmental economic geography is still suffering from its poly-vocal, fragmented, and marginalized issues. This study scrutinizes the debates over the research agenda on environmental economic geography and reviews two primary strands of the literature. On this basis, this study discusses challenges for the future development of environmental economic geography. This study comes to four conclusions. Firstly, the development of environmental economic geography follows the theoretical advances in economic geography. It explore how environmental changes modify the spatial patterns of economic development. It also investigate how the spatial configuration of economic activities responds to the rising environmental risks and intensifying resource scarcity. Two research themes emerge, namely environmental governance and green transition. Secondly, environmental economic geography uses the theoretical framework of the Global Value Chain (GVC) and Global Production Network (GPN) to investigate how firms and regions can simultaneously upgrade in environmental and economic terms. It also seeks to establish the linkages between GVC/GPN governance and environmental governance. On the other hand, environmental economic geography identifies environmental regulation as a locational factor and examines its role in the location choice model. The empirical result offers various counter-examples for classical hypotheses, such as the Pollution Haven Hypothesis, the Porter Hypothesis, and the Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis. Thirdly, environmental economic geography combines its theoretical interests with the theoretical advances in evolutionary economic geography. Particularly, the regional diversification theory and the path creation theory are incorporated into the empirical studies of environmental economic geography, which seek to unravel the conditions and processes of green transitions. Based on these theories, recent studies also offer some predictors for the regional green transition. Lastly, this study proposes that environmental economic geography is still suffering from the divergence between natural science and social science on research paradigm. Besides, the theoretical development of environmental economic geography is subject to a late-comer disadvantage. In this regard, it requires environmental economic geography to become more problem-oriented in the future, embracing the opportunities embedded in the issues for China’s sustainable development.