Residents’ Behavioral Intention of Environmental Governance and Its Influencing Factors: Based on a Multidimensional Willingness Measure Perspective

Abstract

The rapid development of industrialization has brought about a huge demand for mineral resources, and the mining industry has posed a threat to sustainable land use while promoting economic development. In the context of collaborative governance, residents are an important aspect of land pollution abatement. Therefore, understanding residents’ willingness to participate in environmental governance and exploring its influencing factors have important implications for improving the motivation of residents to participate in environmental governance and improve the local habitat. Using the multidimensional willingness measurement data of rural households’ perception of mining environment governance around the Dabaoshan mining area in Shaoguan in 2020, based on the extended theory of planned behavior, this study established a multidimensional measurement of willingness, including willingness to participate, willingness to pay, and willingness to mobilize, and used structural equation modeling to explore the factors influencing residents’ behavioral intention of environmental governance. The results suggest that behavioral attitudes had a positive effect on willingness to participate and willingness to pay. In addition, subjective norms had no significant effect on willingness to participate but were negatively related to willingness to pay. Although perceived behavioral control had no significant effect on willingness to participate, it had a positive effect on willingness to pay. In addition, the results also show that the willingness to pay and willingness to participate of farmers were positively related to their willingness to mobilize. Based on the above findings, this study proposes some policy implications to improve residents’ behavioral intention of land pollution abatement, including strengthening value perception, improving subjective awareness, building communication platforms, and improving personal capacity.