1B , the level of coupling exhibited an increasing trend from 1978 to 2002, was stable from 2002 to 2014, and then trended downward in 2015, indicating that since 2015, economic growth and environmental impact have shown a decoupling response.
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Forty years of reform and opening up: China's progress toward a sustainable path.
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S2), industrial wastewater discharge reflected an increasing load trend from 1978 to 1995 (ranging from 22,639.46 to 37,285.08 million tons) with DI > 0 (the rate of growth in pollutant emissions falls short of economic growth), and then a decreasing trend from 2005 to 2016 (24,311.21 to 18,640 million tons) with DI < 0 (pollutant emissions decrease while the economy keeps growing), which represents the transformation from coupling to decoupling of GDP increase and environmental impact.