Relationship between environmental pollution and economic development in late-developing regions shows an inverted V

In late-developing regions, new technologies and previous experiences are applied to reduce the impact of economic development on environmental pollution in the early stages. After economic development has reached a certain level, the application of new environmental remediation technologies and methods can accelerate environmental restoration. Therefore, we hypothesized that the relationship between economic development and environmental pollution would exhibit an inverted V in late-developing regions. We examined water quality changes in 353 monitoring sections of 76 urban rivers in Kunming, southwestern China, over the last 33 years to assess the impact of economic development on river water quality. The results indicate that the relationship between the comprehensive pollution index of urban rivers and the economy shows an inverted V, supporting our hypothesis. The inverted V could be divided into four areas: an environmental self-purification area (<2170 USD); an economic development environmental destruction area (2170-5240 USD); an economic development feedback environment area (5240-11,255 USD); and an economic development promotion environment area (>11,255 USD). On the time axis of economic development, the relationship between economic development and environmental pollution is closer to an inverted U in relatively early developing regions, but the experience with and application of new technologies causes the relationship to change from an inverted U to an inverted V in relatively late-developing regions.