Do environmental regulations truly reduce risks? Evidence from the heterogeneity of resource-based cities

Environmental risks have gained significant attention in recent years, especially in resource-based cities, which are often more vulnerable due to their reliance on resource-intensive industries. Most existing studies focus on the direct emission reduction effect of environmental regulation, but fail to systematically reveal its dynamic regulatory mechanism on the multidimensional environmental risks of resource-based cities. Based on the Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework and the characteristics of resource cities, we construct a multidimensional assessment system. Taking typical resource cities in China from 2012 to 2021 as the research object, based on the results of environmental risk assessment, we systematically analyze the differentiated effectiveness of environmental regulation from the perspectives of development stage and resource endowment. It is found that: (1) environmental risks of different types of resource-based cities show significant heterogeneity in cumulative characteristics, and their intensity is synergistically regulated by clean technology, ecological restoration, and policy response; (2) the effectiveness of formal regulation to environmental risk shows an inverted U-shape evolution with the life cycle of the resource-based city, and the inhibitory effect of the declining resource-based cities reaches the peak; and (3) resource endowment regulates the effectiveness of environmental regulation, and the pollution-exposed type of fossil energy resource-based cities rely on formal regulation, while ecologically sensitive forest cities rely on the incentive of informal regulation. This study analyzes the interactive mechanisms of environmental risk generation and governance from a dynamic systems perspective and provides a basis for differentiated governance of urban environmental risks in resource-based cities in developing countries.