Understanding Beijing鈥檚 Water Challenge: A Decomposition Analysis of Changes in Beijing鈥檚 Water Footprint between 1997 and 2007

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• 作者：Zhuoying Zhang ; Minjun Shi ; Hong Yang
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T)
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：November 20, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：46
• 期：22
• 页码：12373-12380
• 全文大小：305K
• 年卷期：v.46,no.22(November 20, 2012)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Beijing has been experiencing increasing water shortage alongside its astonishing economic growth over the past decades. This study conducts a quasi-dynamic input-output (IO) analysis to investigate changes in Beijing鈥檚 water footprint (WF) and decompose the effects of contributing factors to the changes during 1997鈥?007. The analysis distinguishes 鈥渋nternal鈥?and 鈥渆xternal鈥?WF to depict connections of Beijing鈥檚 water use with outside. The results show an increase in Beijing鈥檚 WF from 4342 million m³ in 1997 to 5748 million m³ in 2007. Almost all the increase was attributable to the expansion of the external WF, while the internal WF only changed slightly, indicating a growing dependence of Beijing on external water resources. The decomposition analysis reveals that the technological effect was the principal contributor to offset the WF increase and the structural effect stemmed from the shift of demand toward products of the tertiary industries also contributed to reducing the WF. However, these effects were not sufficient to reverse the expansion of Beijing鈥檚 WF resulted from the scale effect induced by expansion of final demand and the economic system efficiency effect associated with the growth of trade between Beijing and outside. The study provides insights into Beijing鈥檚 water challenge and sheds lights on the combating strategies for the future. It is also an endeavor to enhance the policy relevance of the WF studies.