Digital Technology Empowering Rural Environmental Governance: Evidences From Villages in Shanghai, China

ABSTRACT In the process of rapid urbanization and rural marginalization, continuous population hollowing‐out and aging of rural communities pose increasing challenges to rural environmental governance, leading to rising overall costs and weakening effectiveness and sustainability. The rapid development of digital technologies offers new opportunities to address these problems and has been widely practiced. However, the impacts of digital technologies on rural environmental governance, and the heterogeneity of different types of digital technologies, remain poorly explored. Based on a total of 365 questionnaires obtained from 18 villages in 9 agricultural‐related districts of Shanghai, China, through random stratified sampling and face‐to‐face surveys, this study systematically evaluates the complex impacts of digital technology on rural environmental governance. We classify digital technologies into digital hardware and digital software and find that digital technologies overall significantly improve rural environmental governance while presenting heterogeneous effects. Digital hardware is more effective in terms of improving rural environmental quality and village landscape, while digital software is instrumental in facilitating cognitive and behavioral changes among villagers, thereby enhancing the sustainability of rural environmental governance. Digital technologies also present significant moderating effects by amplifying the functions of other key actors in rural environmental governance, with digital software significantly moderating the function of villagers' participation, village leadership, informal regulations, as well as governments and enterprises. Therefore, more attention should be paid to facilitating the development of appropriate digital software and promoting its adoption and use among villagers to stimulate synergies for rural environmental governance.