The scarcity of water resources has posed serious threats to the sustainable development of agriculture. China is a largely agricultural country with a large population, and agricultural water consumption accounts for more than 50% of the total water consumption. The application of water-saving irrigation is the main way to realize the sustainable development of water resources and economics. To comprehensively improve crop water-use efficiency and reduce agricultural water consumption, the Chinese central government had promulgated a series of agricultural water-saving policies since 2012, such as strengthening water management, increasing financial investment, and strengthening project construction and operation management and protection. Taking Jiangsu as an example, this paper reviews the main water-saving policies and measures of governments after 2012, as well as the conflicting interest between different water-saving participants. Results showed that, through water-saving policies and measures, its effective utilization coefficient of agricultural irrigation water (EUCAIW) has increased from 0.59 in 2,014 to 0.614 in 2019. By 2019, the area of irrigated arable land controlled by water-saving technologies is 2.848 million hectares, accounting for 67.8% of the irrigated arable land area in Jiangsu. Jiangsu's water-saving policies have been implemented well, and it has guidance on water-saving reform work in other places.
The irrigation water effective utilization coefficient (IWEUC) is a critical indication of agricultural water use efficiency. To improve water-saving potential, the inter-annual variation of IWEUC from 2014 to 2021 in Jiangsu Province was analyzed. Taking consideration of natural factors, planting structure, management levels, and water-saving engineering, the primary influencing factors of IWEUC were investigated through principal component analysis. The results revealed that IWEUC in Jiangsu Province was higher than annual national level and showed an insignificant increasing trend. IWEUC and its trend were negatively correlated with irrigation district size. Water-saving irrigation areas had an extremely significant impact on IWEUC (P < 0.01). The positive load of water-saving engineering investment was rated first. Furthermore, economic and water-saving benefits for different irrigation district scales based on the TOPSIS model were evaluated. Despite restricted government support, the economic gains for large irrigation districts were superior to those for small irrigation districts. In the past decade, agricultural water declined while agricultural water conservation rose. The completion of integrated agricultural water pricing reform, as well as the improvement of water-saving engineering and optimization of management level, had a significant beneficial influence on IWEUC. Jiangsu's IWEUC has been efficiently implemented, and provides guidelines in other regions.
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