State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China.
School of Economics, Guizhou University, Huxi Street, Huaxi District, Guiyang, 550025, China.
J Environ Manage. 2021 Feb 1;279:111747. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111747. Epub 2020 Dec 8.
Water scarcity is a severe problem for regional environmental protection and socioeconomic development, and water footprints are effective tools for evaluating the magnitude of the water scarcity. However, water is closely intertwined with energy. Carbon taxes are an essential policy tool for managing energy use, and could therefore indirectly change the water footprint. Previous research on water footprints has revealed the historical characteristics of water footprints, but has not predicted how these characteristics would change under a carbon tax. Identifying the indirect impacts of carbon taxes on water footprints could therefore offer important information to support more effective energy and water policies. In the present study, we explored the impacts of carbon taxes on water footprints. We established a computable general equilibrium model to predict the effects of carbon taxes on the socioeconomic system, and adopted an input-output model to account for changes in the water footprint. We then used China as a case study. We found that a carbon tax could reduce the total water footprint, even though the water footprint for primary industries increased. In addition, the tax could decrease the virtual water content, and the reduction of virtual water content is the greatest for the secondary industries.
水资源短缺是区域环境保护和社会经济发展的严重问题，水足迹是评估水资源短缺程度的有效工具。然而，水与能源密切相关。碳税是管理能源使用的重要政策工具，因此可以间接改变水足迹。以前关于水足迹的研究揭示了水足迹的历史特征，但没有预测在碳税下这些特征将如何变化。因此，确定碳税对水足迹的间接影响可以为支持更有效的能源和水政策提供重要信息。在本研究中，我们探讨了碳税对水足迹的影响。我们建立了一个可计算一般均衡模型来预测碳税对社会经济系统的影响，并采用投入产出模型来考虑水足迹的变化。然后，我们以中国为例进行了研究。我们发现，碳税可以减少总水足迹，尽管第一产业的水足迹会增加。此外，该税种还会降低虚拟水含量，而虚拟水含量的减少在第二产业中最大。
