Business School, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, PR China.
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1041, United States.
J Environ Manage. 2023 Mar 1;329:116984. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116984. Epub 2022 Dec 21.
The virtual water trade (VWT) has been proposed as a means of balancing national water budgets while also saving water globally. Since humans require both sufficient quantity and quality of water, the drivers of VWT flows should be thoroughly examined, including its three components. Multiregional input-output (MRIO) and gravity methods are used to investigate the influence of multiple factors on the green, blue, and grey water trading flows among 177 countries in 2014. Several factors were found to be strongly correlated with the grey water trade, offering valuable insight into water resource management, especially about water pollution. The findings verify the driving effects of socio-economic status and agricultural activities on virtual water trade. The study shows that the influence of water resources endowment on the virtual water trade flow is relatively small compared to economic structure in determining virtual water trade flows. The paper contributes to the research on the interaction between virtual water trade and various factors, which can assist decision-makers in optimizing economic structure by integrating water quantity and quality factors and realize sustainable management of water resources.
虚拟水贸易（VWT）被提出作为平衡国家水预算的一种手段，同时也在全球范围内节约用水。由于人类既需要足够的水量，也需要水的质量，因此应该彻底研究 VWT 流动的驱动因素，包括其三个组成部分。本研究采用多区域投入产出（MRIO）和引力方法，调查了 2014 年 177 个国家之间的绿水、蓝水和灰水交易流动的多种因素的影响。研究发现，有几个因素与灰水贸易密切相关，为水资源管理提供了有价值的见解，特别是关于水污染的见解。研究结果验证了社会经济地位和农业活动对虚拟水贸易的驱动作用。研究表明，与经济结构相比，水资源禀赋对虚拟水贸易流动的影响在确定虚拟水贸易流动方面相对较小。本文有助于研究虚拟水贸易与各种因素之间的相互作用，这可以帮助决策者通过整合水量和水质因素来优化经济结构，实现水资源的可持续管理。
