Performance Evaluation of Watershed Environment Governance—A Case Study of Taihu Basin

The rapid development of urbanization and industrialization brings a series of problems of environment governance, and several basins are facing huge pressure. This paper selects the Taihu basin in the Yangtze River Delta of China as the study area, establishes the DPSIR model to measure the water environment governance performance of the region (Cj), analyzes the causes of changes in the five subsystems (the governance performance of the subsystems is recorded as C1j,C2j,C3j,C4j,C5j), and uses the diagnostic model to identify the barrier factors that restrict the improvement of Cj in the last 5 years. The results show that during the study period, C1j of the driving force subsystem generally tends to increase and maintains a steady growth, which is closely linked to economic growth in the basin; C2j of the pressure subsystem increases with a small fluctuation, and the pollution generation still needs attention; in the state subsystem, C3j shows a large fluctuation, and varies significantly in a cyclical manner, corresponding to the short maintenance time and repeated treatment of pollution in the watershed; C4j of the impact subsystem shows an overall upward but a slightly slower trend, and it is related to the fact that the industrial structure of the basin still needs to be improved; and C5j of the response subsystem shows an overall upward trend and a slightly larger increase, and the multi-actor collaborative management has helped a lot. The main barrier factors include key cross-sections’ water quality compliance rate, the water quality compliance rate of key water function areas, water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value, and the lake trophic status index. Based on the results of the study, the article gives recommendations for watershed governance, such as controlling pollution generation, optimising industrial structure, using technological tools to help governance, sharing the cost of governance among multiple parties and strengthening supervision The findings help to make scientific environmental protection planning and policies of the study region. The research can also provide experience for other countries and regions in watershed governance