Marshadi Ali Hussein A L, Aslam Muhammad, Janjua Azhar Ali
Department of Statistics, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Department for Higher Education, Deputy Director Colleges Hafizabad, Punjab, Pakistan.
PLoS One. 2025 Mar 13;20(3):e0317664. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317664. eCollection 2025.
The prevailing ecological deficit is devastating the ecosystem which is leading toward the unsustainability by endangering the livings on earth. The important drivers of this environment degradation are natural resources depletion, financial development and the economic growth which are investigated to test their impact on ecological footprints. The EKC hypothesis is evaluated to test the growth led environment pattern. This study incorporated twenty years (2002-2021) data of 146 countries and the group of countries are investigated into various quantiles, geographical regions and income wise groups formed by the World Bank. Keeping in view the heterogeneous data established through the Shapiro-Francia W test and graphical analysis, the panel quantile regression is used which is insensitive to heterogeneous data. Firstly, the impact of dependent variables is estimated on environment degradation using the 10th, 20th, 30th,40th, 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th and 99th quantiles. The results suggested that the natural resources depletion and financial development are deteriorating the ecological footprints, which varies from smaller in initial quantiles to large in later quantiles. NR in North America and FD in the Middle East & North Africa are severely deteriorating the environment quality. The economic growth is improving the ecology in East Asia and the Pacific. The negative impact of natural resources on environment degradation is found in all income groups albeit with varying intensities. The financial development in upper middle income and lower middle income groups is deteriorating the environment quality. The EKC hypothesis remained undetermined for the estimated quantiles and geographical regions whereas it is established in high income group only. The policy intervention is recommended to restrict the natural resources depletion and binding the credit facilities to invest in ecosystem friendly projects by curtailing the process of ecological deficit for global sustainability which may be initiated from the most environment degraded quantiles, geographical region and income group.
当前的生态赤字正在破坏生态系统，这正通过危及地球上的生物而导致不可持续性。这种环境退化的重要驱动因素是自然资源枯竭、金融发展和经济增长，对它们进行研究以检验其对生态足迹的影响。对环境库兹涅茨曲线假说进行评估，以检验增长主导的环境模式。本研究纳入了146个国家20年（2002 - 2021年）的数据，并将这些国家组按照世界银行划分的不同分位数、地理区域和收入组别进行研究。考虑到通过夏皮罗 - 弗兰西亚W检验和图形分析所确定的异质性数据，使用了对异质性数据不敏感的面板分位数回归。首先，使用第10、20、30、40、50、60、70、80、90和99分位数估计因变量对环境退化的影响。结果表明，自然资源枯竭和金融发展正在恶化生态足迹，其影响从初始分位数较小到后期分位数较大而有所不同。北美地区的自然资源枯竭和中东及北非地区的金融发展正在严重恶化环境质量。经济增长正在改善东亚和太平洋地区的生态。在所有收入组别中都发现了自然资源对环境退化的负面影响，尽管强度有所不同。中高收入组和中低收入组的金融发展正在恶化环境质量。对于估计的分位数和地理区域，环境库兹涅茨曲线假说尚未确定，而仅在高收入组中得到证实。建议进行政策干预，以限制自然资源枯竭，并通过减少生态赤字进程，约束信贷设施投资于生态友好型项目，以实现全球可持续性，这可以从环境退化最严重的分位数、地理区域和收入组开始。
