Improving Agricultural Water Use Efficiency: A Quantitative Study of Zhangye City Using the Static CGE Model with a CES Water?Land Resources Account

Yu Liu (), Xiaohong Hu, Qian Zhang and Mingbo Zheng
Additional contact information
Xiaohong Hu: School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of technology, Beijing 100081, China
Qian Zhang: Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Mingbo Zheng: School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, Shaanxi, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 2, 1-15

Abstract: Water resources play a vital role in human life and agriculture irrigation, especially for agriculture-dominant developing countries and regions. Improving agricultural water use efficiency has consequently become a key strategic choice. This study, based on Zhangye City’s economic characteristics and data, applies a static Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model with a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) composited water?land resources account to assess the impact of improving agricultural water use efficiency on economy, water conservation and land reallocation. Results reveal that: Zhangye City’s GDP increases by 0.10% owing to an increasing average technical level by improving agricultural water use efficiency; total water consumption decreases by 122 million m 3 , 69% of which comes from a reduction of surface water use; and land demand increases by 257.43 hectares mainly due to agricultural land demands. With respect to the sectors’ output, export-oriented sectors with higher water intensities in the agricultural sectors benefit most. In contrast, land-intensive sectors contract the most, as the rental price of land rises. Therefore, agricultural water conservation technology should be introduced considering more in surface water. Furthermore, higher demand for agricultural land would reduce land availability for other sectors, thus inhibiting urbanization pace on a small scale.

Keywords: agricultural water use efficiency; CGE model; economic impact; water conservation; land reallocation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/2/308/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/2/308/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:2:p:308-:d:90930

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().