Can the Effectiveness of Urban Water Pollution Control Contribute to the Overall Development of the City? Evidence from 268 Cities in China

The rapid growth of global urbanisation has resulted in significant environmental pollution, with urban water pollution emerging as a critical factor in comprehensive urban development. The present study employs panel data from 268 Chinese cities between 2013 and 2022, utilising entropy weighting and a two-effect fixed-effects model to empirically analyse how urban water pollution control promotes comprehensive urban development. The research findings reveal that water pollution control significantly promotes comprehensive urban development, but there are differences across urban regions and scales, with greater effectiveness observed in central and western regions and medium-sized and small cities. This paper also highlights that water pollution control can promote urban development by optimising industrial structure and proposes that governments should formulate regionally differentiated water pollution control policies, establish a ‘Regional Water Environment Governance and Industrial Transformation Coordination Centre,’ and implement the ‘River and Lake Chief System+’ policy.