TITLE:
Regional Virtual Water Trade: The Perspective of Interprovincial Trade in China
AUTHORS:
Jian Xue, Xi Chen, Jun Ma
KEYWORDS:
Virtual Water, Virtual Water Trade, Input-Output Model, Direct Water Use Coefficient, Complete Water Use Coefficient
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Industrial and Business Management,
Vol.12 No.5,
May
31,
2022
ABSTRACT: With the development of the economy and the
improvement of people’s living standards, the demand for water resources is
also increasing year by year. From the
perspective of per capita water resources, China is one of the 14 countries with the poorest water resources in the world. It is seriously short
of water and the distribution of water resources is uneven. Water resources
have become an important factor restricting China’s economic development. This paper attempts to provide a new perspective for
alleviating China’s water shortage and ensuring China’s water resources
security from the perspective of “virtual water trade”. Based on this, this
paper firstly introduces the current situation of China’s water resources and
the research status of virtual water trade, and then builds a water resource
value-based input-output model, and takes the six regions in China’s
Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region as examples
to carry out an empirical analysis. The direct water consumption coefficient,
complete water consumption coefficient, pulling coefficient and virtual water import and export trade volume of 7
economic sectors in 2018 were analyzed, and the virtual water trade
situation was analyzed to reveal the virtual water trade pattern. Finally,
based on the above research results, some suggestions are put forward to optimize the virtual water trade structure in the Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The research results show that: the complete
water use coefficient of agriculture and water supply industry in the six
regions in the Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region of China is relatively large,
and the direct water use coefficient of agriculture and water supply industry
is larger than the indirect water use coefficient; The overall industrial
structure of the Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will
aggravate its water resources pressure;
from the perspective of virtual water trade, the Pan-Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei
region is a net export area of virtual water.