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ABSTRACT
Environmental information transparency signifies a transition from the top-down environmental management towards participatory governance. The cognitive pathways through which environmental information disclosure (EID) can mobilize public support are underinvestigated. This study pioneers in investigating latent links between different EID approaches, citizen’s protest attitudes, and choice behaviours with regard to urban river restoration projects in two Chinese cities with varying levels of environmental information transparency, Guangzhou and Shaoguan (south China). A flexible Hybrid Mixed Logit Model is recruited to analyse responses of choice experiment surveys. Three latent variables are identified: distrust of government, individual environmental responsibility, and environmental information sufficiency. Our results reveal that (1) both EID approaches could not boost respondents’ trust in government, (2) active information access is associated weak individual environmental responsibility and unsupportive decisions, and (3) passive information access could neither equip citizens with information they need nor encourage their supportive decisions. The city-level environmental information transparency might determine the frequency of environmental information access, but cannot change citizens’ choice decisions. We propose to align the mismatch between the environmental information required by the citizens and those disseminated by the relevant governmental authorities, which is crucial to create social trust, enhance individual environmental responsibility, and improve EID efficiency.
Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful for the General Research Fund from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (17252416) and the Hui Oi Chow Trust Fund of the University of Hong Kong (201602172002). The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
The authors whose names are listed immediately below certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest, or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Notes on contributors
Wendy Y. Chen
Dr. Wendy Y. Chen is an associate professor in Department of Geography, the University of Hong Kong. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. Her research interest focuses on the interactions economic development, environmental studies and the social issues.
Frankie Hin Ting Cho
Mr. Frankie Hin Ting Cho received his MPhil degree from the University of Hong Kong, and currently is a PhD student of Land, Environment, Economics and Policy Institute, University of Exeter.