Analysis of Agricultural Water Use Efficiency Based on Analytic Hierarchy Process and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation in Xinjiang, China

Abstract

Improving agricultural water use efficiency (WUE) and reducing the proportion of agricultural water consumption are of great significance for coping with the water crisis in the world, particularly in northwest China. However, considering the lack of WUE indicators for the selection and an evaluation of system construction in Xinjiang, the implementation of the strictest water resources management system in this province has been seriously restricted. In order to evaluate the agricultural water utilization situation of 14 administrative regions in Xinjiang, a synthetical evaluation model is proposed combining the analytic hierarchy process method and the fuzzy evaluation method. Firstly, an evaluation system composed of the target layer (i.e., water use efficiency), the criterion layer (i.e., water use situation, engineering measure, planting structure) and the index layer (e.g., utilization coefficient of irrigation water, weighting irrigation quota, grain production per cubic meter of irrigation water, etc.) is constructed. Secondly, a classification standard of evaluation indicators is put forward and a fuzzy evaluation model is introduced into calculate agricultural WUE. Finally, key evaluation indicators that lead to these administrative regions with very low WUE are identified, and discussions on improving agricultural WUE in Kashgar are made. The evaluation results of this study are beneficial for providing support for reforming agricultural water use and promoting sustainable agricultural development in Xinjiang.

Decomposition and Driving Factors of Total Factor Productivity of Food Crops in the Yellow River Basin, China

“…Scholars have also comprehensively analyzed agricultural TFP in different countries, such as the United States [10], Pakistan [12], and Africa [13], among others. Additionally, a substantial body of research has delved into the factors influencing agricultural production (inputs), including the efficiency of water resources [14,15] and the efficiency or value of agricultural land utilization [16,17]. Scholarly research on crop TFP has primarily concentrated on the impacts of policy changes, revealing significant potential for productivity growth through market liberalization and technological progress [18].…”

Regional differences and dynamic evolution of agricultural water resources utilization efficiency in China

“…When studying the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources, many studies focus on the irrigation water use efficiency and regional distribution of the planting industry [ 1 – 5 ], and put forward reasonable suggestions, such as optimizing irrigation technology and developing water-saving agriculture [ 5 , 6 ]. There are fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method [ 7 , 8 ], analytic hierarchy process [ 8 , 9 ], stochastic frontier method and data envelopment analysis (DEA) [ 6 , 10 – 14 ] in the evaluation method of agricultural water resource utilization efficiency. With the deepening of DEA research, the use of DEA method to measure the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources has gradually changed from the original standard efficiency DEA model to the super efficiency DEA model [ 15 – 17 ], from only expected output model to include undesirable output [ 18 , 19 ], and SBM model can consider the relaxation variable problem [ 20 , 21 ], which has more advantages in efficiency measurement, so it has been more widely used [ 11 , 14 – 17 , 20 , 22 , 23 ].…”

Optimizing population managements for machine-harvested and drip-irrigated cotton

“…The 89% of cotton in China is growing in Xinjiang and produces 90% of national total productions, alsocovers 20% of the world total (http://wap.stats.gov.cn). However, the development of cotton production in Xinjiang is limited by factors such as insu cient irrigation water, low water use e ciency (Song et al, 2020)and shortage of labors (Meng et al, 2021). To address these limitations, drip irrigation covered with plastic lm (Li et al, 2019) and full mechanization of cotton production are widely used in Xinjiang.…”