Seemingly bounded knowledge, trust, and public acceptance: How does citizen's environmental knowledge affect facility siting?

Understanding the mechanism of public perception and behavior towards environmental goods provision is essential for effective sustainable governance. This paper studies how citizens' self-reported environmental knowledge affects their trust in public service providers and subsequently their decisions about accepting the provision of a pollution management facility in their neighborhood. Utilizing unique survey data on the siting of a facility for waste incineration in Guangzhou, China, we find that the public's perceived environmental knowledge damages their trust in the operator, which lowers their acceptance of the facility siting, while damage to their trust in the government is negligible. In addition, we find that citizens' preferences for the type of information disclosed and the channels used for disclosure can affect public trust and thus acceptance of the facility siting. Therefore, policy suggestions for urban planning for sustainability are that the urban planner and policy maker can mitigate the negative consequences of bounded environmental knowledge by ensuring there is appropriate information disclosure. This study broadens our understanding of public recognition and acceptance of environmental goods provision and provides practical suggestions for sustainable development.

Zhang H ，Zhou L ，Liu N ，Zhang L ... -  《-》

Impact of community engagement on public acceptance towards waste-to-energy incineration projects: Empirical evidence from China.

As one of the most popular methods for the treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW), waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration offers effective solutions to deal with the MSW surge and globe energy issues. Nevertheless, the construction of WTE facilities faces considerable and strong opposition from local communities due to the perceived potential risks. The present study aims to understand whether, and how, community engagement improves local residents' public acceptance towards waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration facilities using a questionnaire survey conducted with nearby residents of two selected WTE incineration plants located in Zhejiang province, China. The results of data analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) reveal that firstly, a lower level of public acceptance exists among local residents of over the age of 35, of lower education levels, living within 3 km from the WTE Plant and from WTE incineration Plants which are under construction. Secondly, the public trust of local government and other authorities was positively associated with the public acceptance of the WTE incineration project, both directly and indirectly based on perceived risk. Thirdly, community engagement can effectively enhance public trust in local government and other authorities related to the WTE incineration project. The findings contribute to the literature on MSW treatment policy-making and potentially hazardous facility siting, by exploring the determinants of public acceptance towards WTE incineration projects.

Liu Y ，Sun C ，Xia B ，Cui C ，Coffey V ... -  《-》

Exploring mechanisms affecting environmental risk coping behaviors: evidence from China.

Lan L ，Huang T ，Du Y ，Bao C ... -  《-》

Collaborative accountability for sustainable public health: A Korean perspective on the effective use of ICT-based health risk communication.

The sustainability of public health practices requires collaboration between the government and its citizens. On the government's side, social media can provide a conduit for communicating health risk information in an effective and timely fashion, while also engaging citizens in informed decision-making. On the citizen's side, information communication technology (ICT)-based practices cannot function unless citizens recognize and act on their responsibility to actively engage with government social media platforms. Despite an increasing interest in understanding the adoption of ICT practices and e-government services for health risk communication, there remains a crucial need for a comprehensive framework to explain which factors determine citizen use of digital government resources. The purpose of this study is to investigate how to increase government accountability for motivating citizens to engage in ICT-based health risk communication, thereby attaining sustainable public health practices through collaborative governance. By integrating trust and health risk information into the e-government adoption model (GAM), this research examines factors that influence citizens' likelihood of using government social media resources. Survey data from 700 Korean citizens were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that individuals with higher social media competency are more likely to (a) seek risk information through social media and (b) perceive the government's social media sites as easy to use. Consistent with the GAM, intentions to use the government's social media sites for information and interactions appear to increase as citizens perceive more value in using them regarding information quality, ease of use, functional benefit, and security. Furthermore, perceived trust in the government's social media resources appears to function as a mediator of this process. Initial trust in the government is an important determinant of perceptions of its digital resources. Citizens who trust the government tend to evaluate new initiatives positively and are more likely to accept and make use of them. The results of this study can inform policy design and implementation by elucidating the mechanisms that determine citizens' adoption and usage of digital government services. Theoretically, this work expands the GAM to include health risk communication and adds empirical evidence to the small yet growing body of knowledge of e-government initiatives. These findings also highlight the importance of public trust in the government, as this encourages citizens to seek health risk information and assistance from the government. Overall, the data and model generated in this investigation represent an important step toward the successful and sustainable modernization of public services.

Lee TD ，Park H ，Lee J 《-》

Effects of perceived stress on public acceptance of waste incineration projects: evidence from three cities in China.

Public acceptance is important for the provision of potentially hazardous facilities and may be affected by many factors such as perceived risk/benefit/stress/fairness and public trust. In this study, the underlying mechanism behind the influence of perceived stress on public acceptance of waste-to-energy (WTE) incinerators was explored by structural equation modeling of a face-to-face questionnaire survey of 1066 urban residents in three regional central cities in China. The results indicate that, firstly, the perceived stress of the laypeople has an impact on their acceptance by influencing risk/fairness they perceived and public trust. Secondly, the paths of influence of individual perceptions on acceptance differ between cities with different economic, cultural, and social characteristics. Perceived stress mainly affects public acceptance through perceived risk in the eastern residents while perceived stress mainly affects public acceptance through public trust in the western residents. The findings clarify the theoretical role of perceived stress in shaping laypeople's acceptance of potentially hazardous facilities which are of value for both governments and owners in siting potentially hazardous facilities.

Chen J ，He X ，Cui C ，Xia B ，Skitmore M ，Liu Y ... -  《-》