Decoupling Analysis of Water Footprint and Economic Growth: A Case Study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region from 2004 to 2017

Assessing the impact of incentive coordination effect on the equilibrium of agricultural water usage by China's South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Project

In recent years, the sustainable development of agricultural water resources has received much attention. The mismatch between agricultural water distribution patterns, land resources, and socioeconomics threatens food production, especially in vast water-scarce plains. Therefore, monitoring agricultural water spatial equilibrium (AWRSE) is necessary. Based on equilibrium theory and information entropy, in this study, the AWRSE evaluation model is constructed from three aspects: agricultural water resources, land resources, and socioeconomics. In addition, the relationship between social factors with cropping pattern as the primary explanatory variable and AWRSE was examined in conjunction with the extended STIRPAT model and applied to the water-receiving area of the Middle Route of South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MR-SNWDP). The results show that compared with the pre-diversion period, the AWRSE of 75% of the water-receiving cities has been significantly improved by the MR-SNWTP water supply. The MK test z value of the overall regional AWRSE has changed from - 0.328 to - 2.65, and the AWRSE development has shifted from not significantly better to significantly better. The cropping pattern shows a positive response to this development, and this effect can be mitigated in the late stage of water transfer; when the proportion of food crop cultivation increases by 1%, the sub-regional AWRSE value will increase by 0.347%. The evaluation model demonstrates a broad range of inclusiveness and application potential; it provides novel insights for examining agroecological, social, and economic stability.

Decoupling of water resources utilization and coordinated economic development in China's Hexi Corridor based on ecological water resource footprint

The rapid growth of population and economy leads to a further increase in demand for water resources. The contradiction between supply and demand of water resources has become the main bottleneck restricting sustainable development of a regional social economy. Accurate measurement of regional water usage and the harmonious balance between water consumption (WC) and economic growth (EG) are the premise of regional high-quality development. Based on this premise, this paper studied the arid oasis region, Hexi Corridor, as the research object; utilized the theory of ecological footprint to calculate the ecological footprint (EFW) and ecological carrying capacity (ECCW) of water resources from 2005 to 2019; and quantitatively analyzed the water utilization situation in Hexi Corridor in the past 15 years. Then, combining with the coordinated development decoupling evaluation model, the connection between WC and EG was evaluated. The main results of this study were as follows: (1) During the study period, EFW has shown a fluctuating downward trend, decreasing from 1.745 in 2015 to 1.588 hm²/person in 2019. The average annual EFW per capita of 10,000 yuan of GDP decreased by 10.18%, which showed that the water resources utilization efficiency was gradually increasing. However, there was still a large water deficit. The average water ecological pressure index was 16.55; water resources were under great pressure. (2) From 2005 to 2019, the relationship between WC and EG experienced stages of strong decoupling-weak decoupling-weak negative decoupling-strong decoupling in Hexi Corridor, and the coordination between the two was gradually strengthened. (3) The decoupling status of the Hexi Corridor cities was gradually optimized. Zhangye was the best and in a stable decoupling state, followed by Wuwei and Jiuquan. The number of decoupling years accounted for 85.7% and 78.6% of the evaluation period, respectively. The cities with poor decoupling status were Jiayuguan and Jinchang, and the number of decoupling years accounted for 71.4% and 57.1%, respectively. This study provides some highlights for the formulation of arid oasis regional water strategy.

Spatial-temporal variation and driving factors decomposition of agricultural grey water footprint in China

The management of agricultural water pollution is crucial to alleviate the water crisis and promote regional sustainable development. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of the agricultural grey water footprint (GWF) and accurately identify its main influencing factors, aiming at formulating differentiated regional management strategies. Based on this, the agricultural GWFs of 31 provincial regions in China from 2011 to 2019 were firstly calculated, and then the spatial-temporal variation characteristics of agricultural GWF were analyzed using the ArcGIS software and Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) method. Finally, the Generalized Divisia Index Method (GDIM) was creatively introduced to decompose the factors of agricultural GWF change and their respective contributions at the national and provincial levels. The main results are as follow: (1) Agricultural GWF in China decreased on the whole and showed significant provincial differences. Among them, the agricultural GWF of Henan Province was the largest while that of Shanghai City was the smallest. Compared with 2011, most provinces saw a decrease in agricultural GWF in 2019 while Yunnan, Tibet, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang Provinces achieved growth. (2) Areas with higher agricultural GDP generally had higher agricultural GWF. The spatial distribution of agricultural GWF and breeding GWF generally tended to be consistent, with the lower value in northwest and southeast of China and higher value in the northeast and southwest of China. Meanwhile, the mean center of SDE of agricultural GWF was located in Henan Province from 2011 to 2018, and shifted to Shaanxi Province in 2019, showing a slight northwest shift. (3) Agricultural GWF intensity and agricultural GDP had the largest restraining effect and driving effect on agricultural GWF growth, respectively. Additionally, China has achieved decoupling between agricultural GWF and agricultural GDP, reflecting that the patterns of agricultural production and consumption have become more sustainable. The findings of this study can provide important decision-making insights for agricultural water pollution management and industry adjustment.

Identifying the decoupling pathways of water resource liability and economic growth: a case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China

Identifying the high-quality economic growth pathways under the requirements of water conservation and water pollution reduction is pivotal to realize regional sustainable development. Combined with the theory of resource and environmental value, sustainable development, and environmental accounting, this paper innovatively introduces water resource liability (WRL) to measure water environmental pressure. This study takes the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as the research area and firstly conducts a spatial-temporal analysis of the WRL change in this region from 2013 to 2018. Then, the Tapio decoupling model is used to analyze the decoupling states and the decoupling stabilities between WRL and economic growth in the 11 provincial areas and 3 sub-regions of the YREB. Finally, the main internal factors affecting the decoupling states are identified from the perspective of decoupling decomposition. The main results show that: (1) The WRL of the YREB increases from 173.36 billion CNY in 2013 to 201.62 billion CNY in 2018, with an increase of 16.3%, showing an upward trend of fluctuation. The WRL of the lower reaches of the YREB is generally higher than those of the upper and middle reaches of the YREB from both the provincial and sub-regional levels. Chongqing has the lowest WRL with an average value of 7.03 billion CNY, while Shanghai has the highest with the average of 28.74 billion CNY. (2) The decoupling state between WRL and economic growth in the YREB is generally stable. The decoupling state of the downstream is better than that of the upper and middle reaches, and the decoupling stability index is 0.59, which is the most stable. (3) The internal influencing factors between WRL and economic development in the YREB include structural effect, technological effect, and silence effect, among which technological effect with the worst decoupling stability is the main driving factor. The findings of this study are crucial for policy makers to formulate targeted policies to decouple WRL from economic growth and to realize sustainable development in the YREB.

Exploring the Regional Coordination Relationship between Water Utilization and Urbanization Based on Decoupling Analysis: A Case Study of the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

Understanding the potential association between the urbanization process and regional water shortage/pollution is conducive to promoting the intensive utilization of local water resources. In this study, the water footprint model was used to estimate water utilization status in terms of both water quantity (virtual water footprint (VWF)) and water quality (grey water footprint (GWF)) in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region (China) during 2004–2017. Their potential coordination relationship with the local urbanization process represented by the gross domestic product (GDP), population (POP), and built-up area (BA) was examined using the Tapio decoupling model. The results showed that from 2004 to 2017, (1) VWF in Beijing and Tianjin showed non-significant decreasing trends, with reductions of 1.08 × 109 and 1.56 × 109 m3, respectively, while that in Hebei showed a significant increasing trend, with an increase of 5.74 × 109 m3. This indicated a gradually increasing water demand in Hebei and decreasing demand in Beijing and Tianjin. In all three regions, the agricultural sector accounted for a relatively high proportion of VWF compared to other sectors. (2) GWF in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei all showed declining trends, with reductions of 2.19 × 1010, 2.32 × 1010, and 1.66 × 1011 m3, respectively, indicating considerable local water quality improvement. The domestic sector contributed as the main component of GWF in Beijing, while agriculture was the main contributor in Hebei. The major contributor in Tianjin transitioned from the domestic (before 2015) to the agricultural sector. (3) We found good coordination between VWF and GDP in all three regions, as their local economic development was no longer overly dependent on water consumption. However, the expansion of urban built-up area or population would bring about accelerated depletion of water resources. (4) GWF in the three provinces showed good coordination with GDP, POP, and BA in most years, implying that the development of urbanization no longer strongly caused the pollution of water resources. In sum, policymakers should focus on improving agricultural irrigation efficiency and residents’ awareness of water conservation, so as to gradually achieve sustainable water resource management in the BTH region.

Elucidating competing strategic behaviors using prospect theory, system dynamics, and evolutionary game: a case of transjurisdictional water pollution problem in China

Water is a critical natural resource for socio-economic and environmental systems. In transjurisdictional river basins, when basin-wide water pollution management scheme is absent, stakeholders tend to adopt utility-maximizing behavior based on incomplete information. Such a scenario could lead to a free-riding problem. This paper attempts to elucidate the strategic behavior of riparian regions using prospect theory, evolutionary game, and system dynamics. The evolution of riparian regions' strategic behaviors is explained, and the impacts of different factors on their strategic selections are simulated. The results showed that the prospective value of factors and stakeholders' attitude to risk are a key for resolving transjurisdictional river water pollution problems. Improving the subjective judgment of the probability of water pollution, raising awareness, strengthening the penalties in "polluter pays" schemes, abandoning segmented river basin management, and building a basin-wide water management system are vital for maintaining the ecological integrity of any transjurisdictional river basin and accelerate the sustainable development of its riparian regions.

Decoupling pollution-agricultural growth and predicting climate change impacts on decoupling index using Bayesian network in different climatic regions

Applying the principles of healthy products through agriculture practices has become an important issue due to significant environmental impacts of agrochemicals application. The agrochemicals have been recognized as an essential component of modern agriculture, but they are also an important source of environmental pollution that threatens the human's health and are main sources of carbon emissions. Pesticides and fertilizers application are important in the process of Iran's food production. In Iran, intensifying the agricultural production has led to overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This work is the first effort to quantify and compare the decoupling index pollution from agricultural sector using Tapio decoupling indicator and predict climate change impacts on this index by using Bayesian network across the whole country of Iran. For this purpose, required annual data of predictor variables for the period of 2008 to 2018 was used to calculate the decoupling index. For projecting climate change impacts on this index by using Bayesian network, monthly mean values of climatic variables were used. While Iranian farmers are criticized for pesticide overuse, these study findings showed that during the period of 2008-2018, decoupling index for pesticides (agricultural pollution by using pesticide) and decoupling index for fertilizer (agricultural pollution by using fertilizer) in the selected provinces fluctuate between RD-SD, SD-SD, SD-SD, and RD-SD. Therefore, the decoupling states show that in most study years, there is a strong decoupling of agricultural growth in selected provinces. This means that in the selected provinces, pollutant emissions of chemical fertilizer and pesticides use for agricultural productions have decreased and it has been well controlled. Therefore, by expansion of agricultural sector, the situation of agricultural pollution in these provinces in most years has not been intensified. Control of agricultural pollution in these provinces has shown a positive and significant impact on public health. In selected provinces, the cleaner agricultural products and application of organic fertilizers have been increased. This study results also showed that the climate change will accelerate increment of pests population and thus pesticides application in different climatic regions.

Decomposition of Water Footprint of Food Consumption in Typical East Chinese Cities

Water scarcity has put pressure on city development in China. With a particular focus on urban and rural effects, logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition (LMDI) was used to analyze the water footprint per capita (WFP) of food consumption in five East China cities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Qingdao, and Xiamen) from 2008 to 2018. Results show that the WFP of food consumption exhibited an upward tendency among all cities during the research period. Food consumption structure contributed the most to the WFP growth, mainly due to urban and rural residents’ diet shift toward a livestock-rich style. Except in Beijing, the food consumption level mainly inhibited the WFP growth due to the decrease in food consumption level per capita in urban areas. Urbanization had less influence on WFP growth for two megacities (Beijing and Shanghai) due to the strictly controlled urban population inflow policy and more positive effects for other cities. The water footprint intensity effect among cities was mainly due to uneven water-saving efficiency. Meanwhile, Beijing and Tianjin have achieved advancement in water utilization efficiency.

Decoupling Urban Water Use and Growth in Response to Water Scarcity

Many cities in the western US face difficult challenges in trying to secure water supplies for rapidly growing urban populations in the context of intensifying water scarcity. We obtained annual data from urban water utilities across the western US to document trends in their water usage and service populations. We found that many cities have been able to accommodate population increases while simultaneously reducing their volume of water use, thereby decoupling growth from water use. This outcome is largely attributable to reductions in per-capita residential use. We identify additional untapped potential that can sustain and widen this decoupling for many cities.

Moving to economic growth without water demand growth -- a decomposition analysis of decoupling from economic growth and water use in 31 provinces of China

Increasing water consumption from various economic activities has posed increasing challenges for the sustainability of developing countries. In particular, China is facing a sharp conflict between rapid economic development and water shortage. Evaluating the decoupling state between economic growth and water consumption and exploring the driving factors behind this could serve to develop strategy to moving to economic growth without water use growth. To this end, this work uses the Tapio decoupling and LMDI decomposition methods to evaluate the decoupling performance between China's water consumption and economic growth at the national and provincial levels, and six driving factors are decomposed, namely water consumption intensity, industrial structure, economic development, water resource utilization rate, water resource endowment and population size. Results show that: (1) Only two decoupling states, strong decoupling and weak decoupling, occurred at national level, and the decoupling index shows a decreasing trend. (2) 31 provinces showed only two states of strong decoupling and weak decoupling. More than 60% of the provinces showed strong decoupling after 2011, and the decoupling effect was significantly better than that of 2004-2011. (3) The effects of water consumption intensity and industrial structure drive the occurrence of decoupling. Economic level and population size have a positive incremental effect on water consumption. Finally, we propose policy recommendations such as developing water-saving technologies and optimizing industrial structure to promote water sustainability. The comprehensive methodology in this paper provides a theoretical reference for research in other countries or other environmental issues. Governments in various regions can formulate effective measures to achieve sustainable use of water resources, responding to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.