Environmental efficiency evaluation for Xiangjiang River basin cities based on an improved SBM model and Global Malmquist index

Abstract During the past several decades, the economy of China has increased rapidly with a number of energy and environmental problems such as energy shortage, global warming and river pollution. Considering the typical economic development of Xiangjiang River basin at the cost of energy and environment, this paper measures the energy and environmental efficiency of the Xiangjaing River basin cities and takes the further analysis with the total factor productivity. In order to accurately measure the real impact of cities on rivers, we take the water quality of the upstream and downstream of cities as the environmental indicator. An improved slacks-based measure approach is utilized to evaluate the energy and environmental efficiency of 15 trunk streams and tributaries along the Xiangjiang River basin cities during 2008–2014. The empirical results show the efficiencies of trunk streams and tributaries areas were discrepant even in the same city, but their technical change in the same city had significant similarities during the same period.