Water Footprint Allocation under Equity and Efficiency Considerations: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in China

Gang Liu, Weiqian Wang and Kevin W. Li
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Gang Liu: State Key Laboratory of Hydrology of Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Weiqian Wang: Institute of Management Science, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, China
Kevin W. Li: College of Economics and Management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou 350116, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: From a water footprint perspective, this paper adopts Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the influencing factor to construct a lexicographical optimization framework for optimizing water resources allocation under equity and efficiency considerations. This approach consists of a lexicographic allocation of water footprints (LAWF) model and an input-output capacity of water footprints (IOWF) model. The proposed methodology is then applied to allocate water resources in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) by employing the 2013 cross-sectional data in the area. The results show that: (1) The LAWF scheme signifies reductions in water footprints in each of the YREB administrative units, thereby significantly strengthening their IOWFs. (2) IOWFs are affected by industrial attributes and natural endowments, and the impact tends to vary across different industries and regions. (3) Policy suggestions are proposed to effectively enhance the IOWFs of the weakest industries across the three YREB regions to exploit their natural endowments.

Keywords: Yangtze River Economic Belt; water footprints; lexicographic algorithm; equity and efficiency; input-output capacity of water footprints (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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