Multiple Intervention Effects and ARIMAX Forecasting: An Application of a World Bank Project in China

摘要: In alignment with China’s national strategic plan, Zhejiang Province officially launched the World Bank-financed "Zhejiang Qiandao Lake and Xin’an River Basin Water Resources and Ecological Environment Protection Project" in November 2018. This paper uses an ARIMAX INTERVENTION model to quantitatively assess the project’s phased effectiveness in protecting Qiandao Lake’s water resources. Controlling for natural factors such as temperature and precipitation, as well as other ongoing environmental initiatives (e.g., the Five Waters Co-governance, the River and Lake Chief System, and the Water Fund project), the results indicate that the World Bank-supported Qiandao Lake project has progressively demonstrated significant governance effectiveness since its implementation. However, improvement in several water quality indicators appears to have reached a bottleneck. To maintain or further enhance water quality, continued investment in green finance and environmental technology remains necessary.