College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China; Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg, MD 21532, United States.
College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
Water Res. 2019 Oct 15;163:114848. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2019.07.015. Epub 2019 Jul 8.
At times, certain areas of China suffering from water shortages. While China's government is spurring innovation and infrastructure to help head off such problems, it may be that some water conservation could help as well. It is well-known that water is embodied in traded goods-so called "virtual water trade" (VWT). In China, it seems that many water-poor areas are perversely engaged in VWT. Further, China is engaging in the global trend of fragmentation in production, even as an interregional phenomenon. Perhaps something could be learned about conserving or reducing VWT, if we knew where and how it is practiced. Given some proximate causes, perhaps viable policies could be formulated. To this end, we employ China's multiregional input-output tables straddling two periods to trace the trade of a given region's three types of goods: local final goods, local intermediate goods, and goods that shipped to other regions and countries. We find that goods traded interregionally in China in 2012 embodied 30.4% of all water used nationwide. Nationwide, water use increased substantially over 2007-2012 due to greater shipment volumes of water-intensive products. In fact, as suspected, the rise in value chain-related trade became a major contributing factor. Coastal areas tended to be net receivers of VWT from interior provinces, although reasons differed, e.g. Shanghai received more to fulfill final demand (67.8% of net inflow) and Zhejiang for value-chain related trade (40.2% of net inflow). In sum, the variety of our findings reveals an urgent need to consider trade types and water scarcity when developing water resource allocation and conservation policies.
有时，中国的某些地区会面临水资源短缺的问题。虽然中国政府正在推动创新和基础设施建设，以帮助解决这些问题，但节约用水也可能有所帮助。众所周知，贸易品中包含着水，即所谓的“虚拟水贸易”（VWT）。在中国，许多水资源匮乏的地区似乎正在从事这种反常的 VWT。此外，中国正在参与生产碎片化的全球趋势，即使这是一种区域间现象。如果我们知道虚拟水贸易在哪里以及如何进行，也许可以从中学习到一些关于节约用水或减少虚拟水贸易的经验。鉴于一些直接原因，也许可以制定可行的政策。为此，我们利用中国跨越两个时期的多区域投入产出表，追踪一个特定地区三种类型商品的贸易情况：本地最终产品、本地中间产品以及运往其他地区和国家的商品。我们发现，2012 年中国的区域间贸易商品包含了全国用水量的 30.4%。由于高耗水产品的运输量增加，全国范围内的用水量在 2007 年至 2012 年间大幅增加。事实上，正如人们所怀疑的那样，价值链相关贸易的增长成为了一个主要的促成因素。沿海地区往往是内陆省份虚拟水贸易的净接受者，尽管原因不同，例如上海是为了满足最终需求（净流入的 67.8%），而浙江则是为了价值链相关贸易（净流入的 40.2%）。总之，我们研究结果的多样性揭示了在制定水资源分配和保护政策时，迫切需要考虑贸易类型和水资源短缺问题。
