Can virtual water trade save water resources?

WATER RESEARCH

卷:163

Article

Liu, Xi^1,2  Du, Huibin¹  Zhang, Zengkai^1,3  Crittenden, John C.⁴  Lahr, Michael L.⁵  Moreno-Cruz, Juan⁶  Guan, Dabo^3,7  Mi, Zhifu⁸  Zuo, Jian^9,10 

[1] Tianjin Univ, Coll Management & Econ, Tianjin 300072, Peoples R China

[2] Univ Maryland, Ctr Environm Sci, Appalachian Lab, Frostburg, MD 21532 USA

[3] Univ East Anglia, Sch Int Dev, Water Secur Res Ctr, Norwich NR4 7TJ, Norfolk, England

[4] Georgia Inst Technol, Sch Civil & Environm Engn, Brook Byers Inst Sustainable Syst, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA

[5] Rutgers State Univ, Edward J Bloustein Sch Planning & Publ Policy, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 USA

[6] Univ Waterloo, Sch Environm Enterprise & Dev, Waterloo, ON, Canada

[7] Tsinghua Univ, Dept Earth Syst Sci, Beijing, Peoples R China

[8] UCL, Bartlett Sch Construct & Project Management, London WC1E 7HB, England

[9] Univ Adelaide, Sch Architecture & Built Environm, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia

[10] Univ Adelaide, ECIC, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia

关键词: Multiregional input-output analysis;    Value chain;    Virtual water trade;    National water savings;    Embodied water;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.watres.2019.07.015

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

At times, certain areas of China suffering from water shortages. While China's government is spurring innovation and infrastructure to help head off such problems, it may be that some water conservation could help as well. It is well-known that water is embodied in traded goods-so called virtual water trade (VWT). In China, it seems that many water-poor areas are perversely engaged in VWT. Further, China is engaging in the global trend of fragmentation in production, even as an interregional phenomenon. Perhaps something could be learned about conserving or reducing VWT, if we knew where and how it is practiced. Given some proximate causes, perhaps viable policies could be formulated. To this end, we employ China's multiregional input-output tables straddling two periods to trace the trade of a given region's three types of goods: local final goods, local intermediate goods, and goods that shipped to other regions and countries. We find that goods traded interregionally in China in 2012 embodied 30.4% of all water used nationwide. Nationwide, water use increased substantially over 2007-2012 due to greater shipment volumes of water-intensive products. In fact, as suspected, the rise in value chain-related trade became a major contributing factor. Coastal areas tended to be net receivers of VWT from interior provinces, although reasons differed, e.g. Shanghai received more to fulfill final demand (67.8% of net inflow) and Zhejiang for value-chain related trade (40.2% of net inflow). In sum, the variety of our findings reveals an urgent need to consider trade types and water scarcity when developing water resource allocation and conservation policies. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free