© 2018 by the authors. For a long time, governments and enterprises have been the two main subjects for environmental governance in China. With the growing complexities of environmental issues and the improvement of public environmental awareness, public participation is gradually playing an important role in the process of China's environmental governance. This paper aims to explore the necessity, the rationale, and the specific effect of public participation on environmental governance in China. A theoretical model is first proposed to illustrate the significance of public participation. Then, an empirical model is built to investigate the impact of public participation on pollutant emissions of the four main pollutants SO2, NOx, COD, and NH4, based on the panel data of 30 provinces from 2011 to 2015 in China. The results and main findings are: (1) public environmental complaints exert a noticeable and positive impact on the reductions of pollutants; (2) this impact varies according to different pollutants, among which reducing SO2emissions shows the most efficiency; and (3) the impact of public participation on the reduction of pollutants shows the characteristics of hysteresis and regional difference. We find that when the rate of public participation of lagging one period increases by 1%, the reduction of SO2is 5.03 tons per capita, 1.54 tons per capita, and 0.94 tons per capita in the region of middle, east, and west China, respectively. Therefore, the status of public participation should be strengthened and effective public participation is urgently needed in environmental governance. A systematic cooperative governance among the public, governments, and enterprises needs to be established in the long run.
