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The utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources has an overall and long-term impact on agricultural development. However, owing to serious wastage of agricultural water resources for a long time, low utilization efficiency of such water resources has become a common problem in developing countries. Past studies have paid scant attention to the impact of soft factors, namely farmers' educational level and market-oriented reforms, especially in a quantified form, on the improvement of agricultural water utilization efficiency. This study adopted the system Generalized Method of Moments estimation method of a dynamic panel model and used provincial panel data from China for 2007–2020 period. The results show that the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources can indeed be improved by either promoting farmers' education levels or deepening market-oriented reforms. However, with the advancement of market-oriented reforms, the influence of farmers' education level on the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources gradually weakens, which is due to the "agricultural to non-agricultural" effect. Finally, this paper proposes policy suggestions to improve the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources from three perspectives: improving the education level of farmers, optimizing the agricultural water pricing system, and improving the agricultural water rights trading system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To increase its domestic gas production and achieve cleaner end-use utilization of its coal resources, China is actively promoting its coal-to-gas (CTG) industry. However, one of the major concerns for CTG development is the consequent significant water usage. To better understand this aspect, this paper presents a quantitative assessment of the water footprint (WF) for China's CTG industry. The results show that the WF of CTG in China is typically in the region of 0.055 m3 water per cubic meter of produced gas. In addition, the analysis of the components of this WF indicates that most of the water resources are used both in the process of CTG production itself, and also in the dilute discharge of pollutants. In terms of the planned production capacity of China's CTG projects, this paper finds that the water use in some regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi and Liaoning may account 30–40% of regional water resources, which means the large-scale development of CTG projects may present significant risks to regional water resources. Therefore, this paper suggests that the status of regional water availability should be one of the key factors considered by policy makers in order to achieve sustainable development of the country's CTG industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures the performance and efficiency dynamics of provincial water use by differentiating the long-run persistent efficiency from the short-run transient efficiency. We combine the econometric frontier approach with panel Markov-switching and Tobit estimations to investigate the macro level data over the period 2002–2016. The results reveal evidence of significant provincial and regional disparities, with a mean efficiency of 0.42 in terms of water use. We find that a large share of inefficiency is attributed to the long-term structural component, with persistency inefficiency estimated as 55%. We also find that the probability of maintaining efficient is less sustainable (about 48.5% by the sixth year) compared with 54.3% for staying inefficient. Thus, it is relatively difficult to transition out of the less efficient state. We thus suggest policy directions for sustainable and efficient management of water resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The future changes in water resources are essential for water resources management and agricultural production in the context of climate change. In this paper, by adopting five global models, the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) was utilized to character the dry conditions during 2020–2099. The Mann-Kendall test with trend-free prewhitening (TFPW-MK) was used to detect the change trends of SPEI and drought characteristics were predicted at both national and regional scale. Results showed that there is a large difference in the frequency of dry and wet occurrences at different time scales. The 12-month SPEI has a stable alternate between dry and wet occurrences, and a long duration of drought, which better describe the annual changes of drought influencing the streamflow and reservoirs. It is obvious that the available water resources decrease over time under the RCP 8.5 scenario. The TFPW-MK test indicated that southwest China have an upward trend in SPEI, while northwest, northeast and southeast China shows a drying trend. From a national perspective, water resources are relatively abundant in the future under the RCP 4.5 scenario, which is beneficial in terms of utilization of future water resources. In the long term, the northwest and northeast China have longer duration and stronger intensity of drought than those in other areas. In a high level of radiative forcing, the available water resources decrease obviously, and thus the occurrences of dry event increases. In addition, the abnormal dry events mainly appear after 2070, principally in GXR and LPR. These results can provide reference for drought warning in agricultural production, and meanwhile is beneficial for allocation and rational utilization of water resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a fundamental natural resource and a strategic economic resource, water resources play a key supporting role in the process of social and economic development. In this paper, risk factors influencing the water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) were investigated based on risk theory and resources carrying capacity theory, and a method for the risk assessment of the WRCC was proposed. The vulnerability of WRCC system was evaluated by using the Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation method, the hazard of WRCC system was calculated by using the comprehensive hazard index, and then the risk of WRCC was obtained by combining the vulnerability with the hazard. The risk of WRCC in China due to climate change, urbanization, and industrialization was thoroughly investigated. The results demonstrated that the risk of WRCC was higher in Northern China than in Southern China and was higher in developed areas than in developing areas. The risk was observed to be highest in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region. Meanwhile, the results also suggested that the risk of WRCC can be reduced in two ways: (1) Reducing the pressure on the water resources carrying system caused by economic and social activities; and (2) increasing the water resources supply in certain areas. The risk assessment of the WRCC presented here provides a valuable reference for the management and sustainable utilization of water resources in China. Research Impact Statement: The risk assessment of WRCC provides a valuable reference for the management and sustainable utilization of water resources in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using input-output table of China in 2007, this paper built an input-output model and tested the effect of variation of water-use efficiency on the structure of virtual water trade. As the final water consumption coefficient increases (i.e., water-use efficiency decreases) in some department, the proportion of this department's virtual water outflow/inflow increases while those of all the other departments decrease. As the direct water consumption coefficient increases (i.e., water-use efficiency decreases), the proportion of this department's virtual water outflow/inflow increases while the sum but not each of the other departments' proportions decreases. The final water consumption coefficient of any department is bigger than the direct one, implying indirect water consumption exists and final water consumption coefficient is a better indicator for water-use efficiency. The paper shows that China is a net exporter of virtual water, but the departments of agriculture, mining, petrochemical are the net importers of virtual water. According to the results, China should use the strategy of virtual water trade to alleviate water shortage. Also, China should adopt water-saving technology in production, and improve the level of self-sufficiency of products in order to reduce reliance on foreign trade correspondingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is planning to expand its coal power generation to meet its energy demand and support the economic development. The current level of water use for thermal power generation is 8% of total water use, China is a water-stressed country which is facing many new challenges including climate change and population growth. China's future coal power industry will add further pressures on already stressed water resources. This raised the key question on how the limited water resources can be managed to meet the demand of planned coal power expansion. A great level of understanding on the present status of water use and forecasting future demand in coal power plant is very important to answer this question. However, knowledge gap, data availability and accessibility are the major challenge in this regard. This paper attempts to improve the knowledge of the water demand in the coal power generation plant in China by using a simple water use model. Furthermore, a method is proposed to forecast future water demand in coal power plant. The proposed method is applied for forecasting water demand in Shaanxi coal power bases in Northern China under four scenarios. The results showed that the future water demand for Shaanxi coal power base will increase by 102–161% compared to current use under different scenarios in order to increase the production capacity by 206%. Adopting the optimum level of current status of water use, it is possible to limit the increase in water demand by 102% or 47.119 million-m3. It is expected that the finding of the study would help decision-making processes in water resources management in Chinese coal power generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A constrained total water-use policy has been implemented to maintain sustainable water supply in some water shortage areas. Managing a constrained water-use quota (T) in water allocation is a challenging goal. This paper proposes a new framework for water allocation under total water-use constraint by utilizing the concept of the Newsboy model, commonly used in operations management and applied economics, and applying it to the Dongjiang River Basin, South China. This framework considersTas a state variable of the objective function, rather than simply dealing with it as a constraint of multi-objective analysis. Using this framework, it is revealed how different schemes ofTplay out in water allocation, and water-use warning is provided for each sector and water governor in water resources management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

China has been facing increasingly severe water scarcity that seriously threatens the socio-economic development and its sustainability of this country. This paper is intended to analyze and assess the water security of China. It first attempts to characterize the current status of water security within a risk-based, integrated framework that encompasses five key aspects critical to water sustainability, including water availability, water use patterns, wastewater generation and pollution control, water institutions and management, and health of aquatic systems and societal vulnerability. Based on the above assessment, the paper then analyzes emerging challenges for water security brought by climate change, population growth and rapid urbanization, and the water-food-energy nexus. In the end, the paper discusses China's future prospects on water security, including current achievements, government actions and policy initiatives, and recommendations for management improvement aimed at increasing water security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how drought is impacted by both natural and human influences is crucial to the sustainable utilization and protection of water resources. We established a drought severity index (DSI) based on the terrestrial water storage anomaly (TWSA) derived from the GRACE satellite to detect drought characteristics and trends over ten major river basins in China from 2002 to 2017. The influence of natural factors (terrestrial water storage components, precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, NDVI, and teleconnection factors (ENSO, PDO, NAO, and AO)) and a human factor (LULC) on drought were investigated and quantified from the perspective of water storage components based on the Theil–Sen trend and Mann–Kendall test method, the perspective of climate change based on cross wavelet transforms, and the perspective of water balance based on Random Forest. The results indicated that (1) almost all humid and arid basins experienced major drought periods during 2002–2006 and 2014–2017, respectively. The southern IRB and central YZRB regions exhibited notable declines in DSI trends, while the majority of the HLRB, IRB, LRB, YRB, HRB, and SWRB experienced significant increases in DSI trends; (2) abnormal groundwater decreases were the main cause of drought triggered by insufficient terrestrial water storage in most basins; (3) ENSO was the strongest teleconnection factor in most humid basins, and NAO, PDO, and AO were the strongest teleconnection factors in the arid basins and PRB. Most significant resonance cycles lasted 12–64 months in 2005–2014; and (4) the influence of an anthropogenic driver (LULC) has become as important as, or more important than, natural factors (runoff and teleconnection factors) on hydrological drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates water use efficiency of 31 provinces in China during 2004–2013 using slack based measure-data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model which takes consideration of sewage. By using panel data model, factors that influence water use efficiency are explored. The results show that: (1) water use efficiency is higher in economically developed provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. (2) In general, inefficiencies of labor input and water input are larger than that of capital input. (3) After taking into account sewage as unexpected output, inefficiency of gross domestic product (GDP) for each province is quite low, but most provinces have inefficient sewage emission. (4) It is found in the analysis of influencing factors that the ratio of added value of agricultural sector, water usage per capita and sewage per unit of output have negative impact on water resources use efficiency, while the import dependence and export dependence have positive impact. The results are robust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does the implementation of agricultural water conservation policy necessarily bring about a reduction in agricultural water extraction? Taking China's National Agricultural Water Conservation Outline proposed in 2012 as an example, this paper uses the data of 31 provinces from 2000 to 2019, and employs an empirical strategy of Difference-in-Differences (DID) to estimate the impact of the agricultural water conservation policy on agricultural water extraction. The results show that the agricultural water conservation policy does not achieve the decline of agricultural water extraction, but increases agricultural water extraction. When addressing contemporaneous water-related policies or estimating in subsample, these results are robust. The possible reason for this phenomenon is that the agricultural water conservation policy promotes agricultural production, especially by increasing the sown area and irrigated area, and the expansion of irrigated area is the main reason for the increase in agricultural water extraction. Moreover, land potentiality for crop production may affect the water-saving effect of the agricultural water conservation policy, in which provinces with higher land potentiality will have less increase in agricultural water extraction caused by the agricultural water conservation policy. Therefore, with the empirical evidence from China, agricultural water conservation policy may not necessarily reduce agricultural water extraction, and this phenomenon is always regarded as rebound effects. In order to avoid the adverse impacts of the rebound effect, agricultural water-saving technologies can be strengthened in areas with high land potentiality for agricultural production, and market-oriented policies, such as water rights reform, can be employed to avoid excessive use of water resources in areas with severe over-extraction. • Water-saving effect of agricultural water conservation policy is estimated. • Agricultural water conservation policy increases water extraction. • Possible reason for increase in agricultural water extraction is clarified. • Increase in agricultural water extraction is interpreted as rebound effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water is an important factor of production contributing to all sectors and regions in the world. With the rapid development of the economy and the increase of population, the water crisis is becoming more and more serious, and will become an important obstacle to the sustainable development of society. It is particularly important to evaluate the sustainability of water resources utilization. Based on the analysis of the regional water resources utilization characteristics, this paper takes 31 provinces in mainland China as the research object and comprehensively evaluates the regional water resources' sustainability from the aspects of hydrology, environment, economy and technology. The results show: From the regional perspective, the regionalization of China's various indexes is obvious, the hydrological and environmental indexes in western regions are significantly higher than that in eastern regions; while the economic index in eastern regions is higher than that in western regions. From the time perspective, from 2010 to 2015, the sustainable development of water resources in seven provinces showed an increasing trend. Zhejiang changed from "Good" to "Excellent" and Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou and Xinjiang all had slight growth. There are six provinces which show varying degrees of decline, of which Liaoning changes from "Excellent" to "Medium", Beijing, Hebei, Jilin, Guangdong, Hainan also had a slight decline; the rest of the provinces did not change, Qinghai and Chongqing have been maintained as "Excellent". Taken together, the western regions of China have significant advantages in terms of quantity and quality of water resources, but its water use efficiency is low. However, the economic development in the eastern regions is rapid with high efficiency of water use, but there are some serious problems such as water resources insufficiency and river pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]