China’s service trade competitiveness is weak, and the service industry occupies a low position in the GVC (Global Value Chain); therefore, promoting the upgrade of the GVC of China’s service industry is worth studying. Under the new situation of the continuous integration of the digital economy and the real economy, the digital economy has injected new momentum into the mid-to-high end of the GVC of China’s service industry. Based on the panel data of the service industry sub-sectors, the mediating effect model is constructed, and the system GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) is used to empirically determine whether the digital economy can significantly improve the participation and position of China’s service industry in the GVC, and promote the upgrading of the GVC of China’s service industry. This conclusion still holds after replacing the independent variable measurement indicator, adding control variables, considering changes in industry trends, and using quantile regression and other robustness tests. The promotion effect of the digital economy on the upgrading of the GVC of China’s service industry shows heterogeneity in different service objects and service industries with different factor intensities, indicating that the digital economy will affect the internal structure of the upgrading of the GVC of China’s service industry. The results of the mediation test found that the service trade cost, multilateral resistance to service trade, service industry structure, financial development level, human capital and service export complexity are the mechanisms for the digital economy to enable the upgrading of the GVC of China’s service industry. This study improves the analysis of the impact factors of the GVC in the service industry, enriches the theory of the GVC, and improves the research content of digital economy theory. This study also provides a reference for other developing countries similar to China on how to promote the upgrading of the GVC of the service industry in the process of digital economy development.

With the rapid development of urbanization, problems such as the degradation of water ecological environment have emerged. How to improve the water ecological environment in the process of urbanization has become one of the urgent problems facing policy makers. This paper studies the coupling coordination relationship between new-type urbanization and water ecological environment, with the purpose of using insights gained from the study to help improve the quality of water ecological environment and promote sustainable development of water ecological environment. We take 11 cities in China’s Jiangxi Province as the research object, and construct the coupling coordination evaluation indicator system of new-type urbanization and water ecological environment, then using the coupling coordination degree model to examine the state of coupling coordination between new-type urbanization and water ecological environment from 2009 to 2019. We further explore its driving factors employing random effect panel Tobit model. The results show that: (1) The level of new-type urbanization in Jiangxi Province shows a steady upward trend, and the water ecological environment level tends to rise steadily and slowly, although the comprehensive score of water ecological environment in most cities is lower than 0.1, indicating that the situation of water ecological environment is not optimal yet and there is room for improvement. (2) In 2009, 2014 and 2019, the coupling coordination development level between new-type urbanization and water ecological environment in Jiangxi Province showed an upward trend, from moderate maladjustment recession to mild maladjustment recession, and from low coupling coordination to moderate coupling coordination, although the overall coupling coordination degree was low. (3) The investment in scientific and technological innovation, degree of opening-up and government capacity are positively correlated with the coupling coordination degree, while economic development level, resource agglomeration ability, education level and industrialization level are negatively correlated with the coupling coordination degree. These results can provide insights to support new-type urbanization and water ecological environment in the future, and hold great significance for urban sustainable development.

To address the deterioration of the water ecological environment, China’s Ministry of Water Resources launched 105 pilot projects for the construction of water ecological civilized cities in two batches in 2013 and 2014. Based on panel data of 283 cities in China from 2008 to 2020, in this study, we investigate the impact of the pilot policy of water ecological civilization city construction on water pollution intensity using the difference-in-differences method. We found that water pollution intensity in the sample period exhibited a downward trend, decreasing most rapidly during the pilot construction period. Controlling for urbanization level, technological innovation, import and export trade, and foreign investment, our study results show that the pilot policy significantly reduced water pollution intensity. Mechanism analysis shows that the reduction effect was achieved through the channels of optimizing industrial structure, increasing sewage treatment, promoting water recycling, promoting technological progress, and speeding up water price reform. The results of this study also show that the policy effect in terms of reducing water pollution intensity is heterogenous across time, in addition to exhibiting regional heterogeneity owing to differences in levels of economic development, water resource endowment, and environmental regulation intensity. The research results also provide a reference for other countries similar to China to reduce water pollution intensity, address the deterioration of the water ecological environment, and improve the water ecological environment in the process of economic development.

The water environment quality is not high, the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources is uneven, and the water quality-induced water is in shortage in the world. Strengthening the construction of water ecological civilization is one of the important measures to solve these problems. We took China’s Jiangxi Province and its prefecture-level cities as the research object, the water ecological civilization level was measured from the two dimensions of time and space by principal component analysis, and based on the panel data of prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2020, the panel data model was used to empirically analyze the impact factors of water ecological civilization. The results show that: (1) The level of water ecological civilization in Jiangxi Province shows a fluctuating upward trend, in which the level of water ecological civilization first increased, then decreased, and then increased from 2013 to 2020. (2) Water ecology is the key to affecting water ecological civilization, and cities with abundant natural endowments of water resources have higher scores for water ecological civilization. (3) There are significant differences in the level of water ecological civilization in different cities in Jiangxi Province; the level of water ecological civilization in southern Jiangxi and central Jiangxi is generally higher than that in northern Jiangxi; among the 11 prefecture level cities, Ji’an, Fuzhou, Jiujiang, Yichun, Ganzhou, and Shangrao have a high level of water ecological civilization. (4) Industrial structure, educational investment, and government governance level have significantly improved the level of water ecological civilization. Environmental pollution is not conducive to improving the level of water ecological civilization. There is an inverted U curve between the level of urbanization and the level of water ecological civilization. Accordingly, all prefecture-level cities in Jiangxi Province need to implement new development concepts and innovation-driven strategy, make up for shortcomings, and strengthen weak points according to their own natural endowments of water resources, such as optimizing the industrial structure, increasing investment in education, improving the level of government governance, and strengthening the connotation construction of urbanization, so as to promote the construction of water ecological civilization in Jiangxi Province. The research results also provide a reference for other countries similar to Jiangxi Province to solve the problem of water pollution, alleviate the pollution-induced water shortage, and improve the water ecological environment in the process of economic development.

How to advance new urbanization initiatives and reduce the water footprint of industries is one urgent issue about urbanization that needs to be resolved. Based on spatial dynamic panel data, we used the system GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) to study the impact of urbanization on the industrial water footprint. The results show that, overall, urbanization increases the industrial water footprint, industrial virtual water footprint, and industrial gray water footprint in China. There are sectoral and regional differences in the impact of urbanization. Specifically, urbanization reduces the agricultural water footprint and agricultural virtual water footprint but raises the agricultural gray water footprint. Urbanization increases the manufacturing water footprint, manufacturing virtual water footprint, and gray water footprint. Urbanization reduces the virtual water footprint of the service industry but increases the water footprint and gray water footprint in the service industry. At the regional level, urbanization increases the industrial water footprint and gray water footprint across the three major regions. In the eastern region, urbanization has little effect on increasing the industrial water footprint, and reduces the industrial virtual water footprint, whereas in the central and western regions urbanization increases the industrial virtual water footprint. In all three regions, urbanization reduces the agricultural water footprint, increases the manufacturing and service water footprints, reduces the virtual water footprints of agriculture and services, and increases the gray water footprint of agriculture, manufacturing, and services. In the eastern region, the reducing effect of urbanization is the greatest and the increasing effect of urbanization is the smallest. Additionally, in the eastern region, urbanization has reduced the virtual water footprint of manufacturing, whereas in the central and western regions urbanization has increased the virtual water footprint of manufacturing.

It is very important for a country’s sustainable economic and social development to reduce the income gap between urban residents. Through investigating the impact of urban education level and its different levels on the income gap of urban residents in Central China, this paper provides the basis for formulating scientific and rational urban education development policies in Central China. Based on Central China’s urban dynamic panel data, this paper examines the impact by using the system GMM (Generalized Method of Moments). The results show that overall, the improvement of urban education level helps to narrow the income gap of urban residents in Central China cities. Specifically, improvement of primary education level and secondary education level helps to narrow the income gap of urban residents, and improvement of higher education level enlarges the income gap of urban residents. Nonetheless, with further development of higher education in the cities, the income structure of lower-middle-income and low-income groups will be optimized, and subsequently higher education in cities will probably narrow the income gap between urban residents. In terms of the type of cities, improvement of education level in provincial capitals widens the income gap of urban residents, and improvement of education level in prefecture-level cities and county-level cities helps to narrow the income gap of urban residents. For all three types of cities, improvement of primary education level helps to narrow the income gap of urban residents, and the improvement of higher education level widens the income gap of urban residents. The improvement of secondary education level widens the income gap of urban residents in provincial capital cities but reduces the income gap of residents in prefecture-level cities and county-level cities. The policy implication from this study is that, to effectively and expeditiously narrow the income gap of urban residents in Central China, prefecture-level and county-level cities need to vigorously develop urban education, especially urban primary education and secondary education. At the same time, cities in Central China also need to actively develop higher education. Although the income gap of urban residents might be widened temporarily in the short term, the development of urban higher education will increase property income and net operating income of the local middle-low-income and low-income groups in the long term. Ultimately this policy would optimize the income structure of local urban residents and narrow the income gap of urban residents.