ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Marine Affairs and Policy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1645175
This article is part of the Research TopicChallenges and Solutions in Forecasting and Decision-Making in Marine Economy and Management, Volume IIView all 12 articles
The effect of shipping efficiency on marine petroleum pollution: an empirical analysis of China's 11 coastal regions
Provisionally accepted
- 1College of International Economics and Trade, Ningbo University of Finance and Economics, Zhejiang, China
- 2Beibu Gulf University, Qinzhou, China
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Marine petroleum pollution has adversely affected marine ecosystems and human living environments, while improvements in shipping efficiency offer a new avenue for mitigating such pollution. Based on panel data from 11 coastal regions in China spanning 2010 to 2022, this study examines the impact mechanisms of shipping efficiency on marine petroleum pollution and further analyzes the moderating effects of port specialization and environmental regulation. The results indicate that, overall, shipping efficiency in coastal regions has shown a steady upward trend, with an average efficiency index of 1.046 and an annual growth rate of 4.6%. However, some regions, such as Liaoning, Shandong, and Tianjin, have experienced declines in efficiency, highlighting regional disparities in development. Regression analysis reveals a significant negative relationship between shipping efficiency and marine petroleum pollution. The two-way fixed effects model shows that a 0.01 increase in shipping efficiency corresponds to an approximate 0.01% reduction in marine petroleum pollution, suggesting that enhanced shipping efficiency effectively contributes to improving marine environmental quality. Furthermore, the moderating effect analysis demonstrates that both port specialization and environmental regulation exert significant negative moderating effects on the relationship between shipping efficiency and marine petroleum pollution. Overall, this study enriches the theoretical understanding of the relationship between the operational efficiency of transport infrastructure and environmental pollution and provides robust empirical support for formulating green and efficient shipping policies and advancing sustainable marine environmental governance in coastal regions.
Keywords: shipping efficiency, marine petroleum pollution, Fixed effect, Moderating effect, Coastal regions
Received: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Ji, Ding, Hu and Qiu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xingong Ding, Beibu Gulf University, Qinzhou, China
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