Water Use Inequality and Efficiency Assessments in the Yangtze River Economic Delta of China

Abstract

The Yangtze River Economic Delta (YRED) faces inequality in water use in large proportions due to rapid industrialization. This study adopted the Gini coefficient and Global Moran’s index to calculate inequality, its spatial spread and water use efficiency of cities in the YRED and categorized them into types based on the spatial spread of inequality. In general, inequality is reducing, but water use efficiency is poor. Inequality was rated 0–1; zero being the highest equality while 1 indicates the highest inequality. There is relatively high inequality (0.4–0.5) in Shanghai, Suzhou and Hefei. Most cities (20), however, showed equality (below 0.2). Nine (9) cities showed relative equality (0.2–0.3), while Wuxi, Bengbu and Zhenjiang were neutral (0.3–0.4). No city scored above 0.5. Water use efficiency in the majority of cities was poor. Only 11 out of 35 cities scored more than 50% efficiency. Poor irrigation, income and industrial water demand are the factors driving inefficiency and inequality. The categorization of cities into groups produced nine city types according to the spatial disposition of inequality. A combined effort to formulate policies targeting improved water use efficiency, reduced industrial consumption and improved irrigation, tailored towards the specific situation of each city type, would eliminate inequality.

The Spatial-Temporal Matching Characteristics of Water Resources and Socio-Economic Development Factors: A Case Study of Guangdong Province

“…They have been widely adopted due to their simple and convenient calculation, as well as their clear physical meaning. Meanwhile, the Lorenz curve-based Gini coefficient enables a comparison analysis between different countries or regions [15,16]. The disadvantage of the Gini coefficient lies in that it can only give one generally matching degree for the entire region, but is incapable of revealing the spatial distribution within the region [17].…”

“…Previous scholars have extensively discussed the water scarcity and matching problems in arid and semi-arid China, as well as the Yangtze River Basin, due to the vast regional differences and social economic contribution. The top three metropolitan regions (JingJinJi, located in northern China, and the Yangtze River Delta, located in the lower part of the Yangtze basin) have been extensively discussed referring to the local water resources and development potential, while the water resource matching condition with the social economic situation in the Greater Bay Area mainly located in Guangdong Province is far from clear [12,15,18,19]. With the continuous construction of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, the spatial-temporal mismatch between water resources, the economy, population, and land faced by the region will become increasingly acute.…”

Urban Spatial Structure and Water Ecological Footprint: Empirical Analysis of the Urban Agglomerations in China

“…Recently, many studies have placed attention on the water consumption of China's UAs. According to their findings, even the most outstanding UAs, such as the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region (JJJ), and Pearl River Delta (PRD), are less than satisfactory in their water utilization [10][11][12][13]. Therefore, academics have considered the influencing factors, including but not limited to, population [10,14,15], economy [15,16], industry [15,17], and technology [17].…”

Inequality of virtual water consumption and economic benefits embodied in trade: a case study of the Yellow River Basin, China

“…In terms of research perspectives, some studies focused on RI in actual water use (Babuna et al, 2020). Some studies focused on the inequality in resources and pollutants transfer embodied in trade.…”

“…From the perspective of research methods, on the one hand, when only the inequality in actual water and virtual water is involved, scholars analyse it by using the Gini coefficient and the Lorenz curve. Babuna et al (2020) used the Gini coefficient and the global Moran index to calculate the urban inequality and spatial distribution of inequality in the Yangtze River Delta. It was found that the urban water inequality in the Yangtze River Delta is decreasing and that no city shows high inequality.…”