Under the “Dual Carbon” strategy, collaborative governance of port atmospheric pollutants and carbon emissions is critical for low-carbon transformation. Focusing on Ningbo-Zhoushan Port (48% regional ship emissions), this study examines government, port enterprises, and public interactions. A tripartite evolutionary game model with numerical simulation reveals dynamic patterns and key factors. The results show the following: (1) A substitution effect exists between government incentive costs and penalty intensity—increased environmental governance budgets reduce the probability of government incentives, whereas higher public reporting rewards accelerate corporate emission reduction convergence. (2) Public supervision exhibits cyclical fluctuations due to conflicts between individual rationality and collective interests, with excessive reporting rewards potentially triggering free-rider behavior. (3) The system exhibits two stable equilibria: a low-efficiency equilibrium (0,0,0) and a high-efficiency equilibrium (1,1,1). The latter requires policy cost compensation, corporate emission reduction gains exceeding investments, and a supervision benefit–cost ratio greater than 1. Accordingly, the study proposes a three-dimensional “Incentive–Constraint–Collaboration” governance strategy, recommending floating penalty mechanisms, green financial instrument innovation, and community supervision network optimization to balance environmental benefits with fiscal sustainability. This research provides a dynamic decision-making framework for multi-agent collaborative emission reduction in ports, offering both methodological innovation and practical guidance value.

As a key node in the transportation network, ports connect the inland hinterland with the outside world, providing strong guarantees for the sustainable development of domestic trade and economy. However, the increasing port activities, while promoting regional economic growth, have also brought increasingly serious environmental problems to the local area. Promoting port emission reduction is a key way and important lever for China’s transportation industry to promote ecological civilization construction. By using CiteSpace to systematically review the literature on port emission reductions in recent years in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Web of Science databases, it was found that significant achievements have been made in port emission reduction technology, policy system construction, and emission reduction effect evaluation. However, there are still problems such as insufficient research on regional differences and insufficient in-depth analysis of emission reduction costs and benefits. Analyzing the hotspots and trends of port emission reduction research at home and abroad can provide reference for the theoretical research and practical path of coordinated emission reduction governance in Chinese ports. Future research on port emission reduction should focus on regional differences, cost–benefit analysis, and in-depth exploration of the synergistic effects of port emission reduction and regional economic development, in order to provide more comprehensive theoretical support and practical guidance for the green sustainable development of ports.

Economic growth can bring material prosperity and improvements in public services to a country yet can simultaneously lead to environmental pollution that threatens population health, which has important implications for shaping macro-level policies. Here, we investigate the relationship between economic growth and mortality attributable to air pollution in China from 2002 to 2021, using data analyzed with Stata 18 software. We identify a counterintuitive U-shaped relationship between the two, with the coefficient of the primary term for economic growth at −1.222 and the quadratic term at −0.053, both statistically significant at the 1% level. The inflection point, with accounting for control variables, is calculated to be 99,708 yuan (CNY) per person. These results withstand different empirical testing. We then perform heterogeneity analyses at the city level and find that disparities in social, economic, and physical geographical conditions lead to an unequal mortality burden that persists. Economic growth may have negative impacts on population health after crossing a certain threshold, although the effects vary across different regions. Our findings reveal that the benefits of economic growth may not “trickle down” to improve population health. Policymakers cannot take economic growth as an intrinsic good that would inevitably lead to better population health. Greater emphasis should be placed on egalitarian welfare systems, investments in environmental improvements, and other life-supporting priorities, as these measures could mitigate the negative health impacts of economic growth and promote a virtuous cycle between the economy and population health.

With the prevalence of international trade protectionism and transformation and the upgrading of the domestic market structure, the contradiction between the demand for and the competitive development of the port market in the Yangtze River Delta in China has become increasingly prominent. The 19 major ports of the Yangtze River Delta in China were selected for this study, and using the methods of index evaluation, gravitational model, and spatial interpolation, the spatial effects in the hinterland were calculated from three dimensions, central potential, spatial gravity and distribution convenience, and the regional coordination of port services. The results show that the potential of the Shanghai Port and Ningbo Zhoushan Port in China is stronger, and the difference in the distribution of the ports is quite clear. The spatial gravity of each port city can be superimposed over one another to form a clear dense semi-circular zone, and the ability of the marginal ports to participate in this zone is weak. The convenience of their distribution in the hinterland changes from being location-dependent to traffic-dependent. The service gap in the hinterland of the port system is more significant, but the expansion of spatial effects makes the sustainability of regional coordination gradually improve. Finally, several policy suggestions are proposed to ensure ecological responsibility among resource-oriented enterprises.

The development of port digital technology is an important way to promote the development of new-quality productivity in port logistics. This study takes Ningbo Port, Shanghai Port, and Tangshan Port as the research objects, and selects the data from 2013–2023 to explore the inner mechanism of the impact of digital technology on the new-quality productivity of port logistics. The results show that digital technology has a significant positive impact on the new quality productivity of port logistics, and the conclusions remain robust after the endogeneity test of the results using the instrumental variables method, eliminating the data of abnormal years, adding fixed effects, and adopting the instrumental variables method. The mechanism test shows that digital technology affects the level of the new quality productivity of port logistics by facilitating the development of new types of digital infrastructures. The digital economy also plays a mediating role between digital technology and the new-quality productivity of port logistics. The findings of the study not only provide key clues to accurately grasp the connotation and characteristics of new productivity in port logistics but also further expand and deepen the breadth and depth of theoretical and empirical studies on the development of digital technology and new-quality productivity in port logistics.

As a globally leading port in cargo throughput, the operational efficiency of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port’s container transport system significantly impacts regional economic development. To deeply analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of container truck transportation, this study utilized GPS trajectory data from over 5000 container trucks between 27 October and 26 November 2024. Employing the DBSCAN algorithm and Prophet time series model, it identified transportation hotspots and abnormal trajectories while decomposing the temporal characteristics of collection and distribution operations. Findings reveal: Spatially, container truck movements exhibit a pronounced “core-periphery” structure, with East China as the primary hinterland (285,000 trips), followed by South and Central China (approximately 2000 trips each), while other regions recorded fewer than 700 trips. At the provincial level, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Jiangxi constitute the high-frequency tier (97.48%), central provinces like Hubei and Hunan belong to the medium-frequency tier (1.99%), while other provinces fall into the low-frequency tier (0.53%). At the city level, core cities like Ningbo and Jinhua accounted for 92.20% of the total, with transport frequency showing a clear decline with increasing distance. Temporally, the daily peak period occurred between 6:00 and 17:00, while the off-peak period was 9:00–14:00. Weekly variations showed a continuous rise from Monday to Thursday, peaking on Thursday before gradually declining. This study employs big data analysis to validate the influence of economic geography on port hinterland patterns while revealing spatiotemporal dynamics inaccessible through traditional research methods. Findings provide empirical evidence for the “distance decay” theory. The research holds significant theoretical and practical value for optimizing port collection and distribution systems and promoting multimodal transport coordination, offering a scientific basis for smart port transformation.