Recently, the Chinese government has issued various policies to regulate water resource management. The ‘three red lines’ policy is one of the most important. To quantify the influence of the ‘three red lines’ policy on water resource carrying status (WRCS), analyze the shortcomings of the current water resource management and provide support for adjusting the direction of water resource management, we constructed a system dynamics model that considered ‘red line’ constraint feedback and simulated changes in WRCS characterization indicators from the period 2019 to 2040 in coastal cities of Jiangsu Province. The WRCS in Nantong city from 2019 to 2035 was medium and that from 2035 to 2040 was poor; that in Yancheng city from 2019 to 2037 was medium and that from 2038 to 2040 was poor; that in Lianyungang city from 2019 to 2036 was medium and that from 2037 to 2040 was poor. We then constructed three schemes with strategies to improve the WRCS. Compared with the initial scheme, Scheme I, involving further enhanced water resource utilization efficiency and reduced discharge of pollutants, improved the WRCS. Based on Scheme III, the economic scale can be expanded by increasing economic development at an appropriate speed, while the WRCS remains almost consistent with the initial scheme.
Unreasonable development and utilization of resources has caused serious environmental problems, especially water shortage and water pollution. Determining the largest population size and economic scale that water resources can support without destroying the ecological environment in a region, that is, ultimate water resources carrying capacity (UWRCC) helps to realize the sustainable utilization of water resources. UWRCC is a variable value which is easily affected by natural conditions, technical level and economic status. This study proposes a UWRCC research method that combines multi-objective optimization and scenario analysis. This method draws the diagram of UWRCC result sets based on multi-scenario UWRCC calculation, through which UWRCC values under different specific technical and economic levels are easily and quickly obtained. This method has been applied to Yancheng in this study and the quantitative relationship between technical level, economic level and UWRCC of Yancheng is analyzed. Taking Yancheng as the research area, this study analyzes the quantitative relationship between the technical level, economic level and UWRCC of Yancheng. The results show that according to the existing government planning, Yancheng's water resources will be sufficient to support the development of socioeconomic. But the districts of Yandu, Tinghu, and Binghai will experience population and gross domestic product overloading in future years. In addition, the diagram of the UWRCC sets of Yancheng is obtained and it provides a reference for the local water resources management.
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