Study On Driving Forces And Regulation Of Water Demand

Water supply-demand, as one of the crucial supply-demand relationships, plays a remarkably important role in keeping the national economy well-being development. In the water supply-demand, water demand is very significant. The changing trend and the driven forces of water demand are the primary foundation for the national development strategy and the water resources planning. Since the reform and opening, the water demand changes are special in China, with some driven forces those can not be found in some developed countries. Hence, it does not work to manage water demand in China just only following to the experiences from those developed countries. Based on the economic development, the industrial structure, and the economic institution, this paper primarily studies the driven forces, their changes and the regulation of water demand in China. The main issues discussed in this paper involve:1. Some basic concepts on water resources and water demand. Chapter one first analyzes the connotations and attributes of water resources and water demand, and then presents the classification according to demand hierarchy, realization degree, rationality, and different sectors, finally analyzes the characteristics of water demand, such as phases, limitation, regional difference, hierarchy and manageability.2. Analysis on the driven forces on water demand. First, the main driven forces are singled out by analyzing the history of water supply-demand from the aspect of social economic development, then some significant driven forces, such as population, urbanization, economy development, land use, industrial structure, ecological environment, water market condition, national policy, law and regulation, and natural water gift, have been discussed in detail.3. Principiums of water demand regulation. Based on the analysis of the driven forces on water demand, this paper discusses the principiums of water demand regulation. The principiums mainly include threshold principium, structural principium, leverage principium and mutual-complementary principium. First of all, threshold principium refers to the magnitudes and proportions of the limiting factors in an economic ecosystem should be restricted within a certain scope for the wellbeing of the system; excess over this scope will result in the qualitative change of the structure and function Magnitude threshold and proportion threshold are the two important parameters in this principium. Secondly, structural principium comes from the systematic theory. According to this principium, when water demand is managed, the structures of the economic ecosystem should be optimized as possible as man can in order to improve the efficiency of water use. Thirdly, leverage principium means that, the merchandise attribute of water resources is remarkably outstanding in economic market condition; therefore, many economic means, such as price, finance, revenue, can be utilized to regulate water demand. Finally, mutual-complimentary principium denotes on the base of well understanding on great difference of available water resources in different regions or countries, it is necessary to complement mutually in different seasons or regions, and the water resources advantage should be fully exerted.4. Two mathematic models are established to deal with the integrated water demand analysis and the effect analysis on water demand regulation in China. Based on the statistical water use data and the statistical social and economic data in China from 1980 to 2000, two mathematic models are established to analyze the driven forces and the water demand regulating effect. Four conclusions are drawn from the results of compuation and analysis. First of all, since 1980s, the social and economic development is the positive driven forces of watter demand whilst the industrial regulation and improvement of water use efficiency are the negative ones. Secondly, the contribution rates of both the water use efficiency improvement and the industrial regulation have been much higher than those of water supply increment since 1980s. Thirdly, China has a vast territory, various physical conditions and different levels of social and economic development, the same driving forces and countermeasures have different effects in different regions. Finally, at present and in the coming future, China is and will be in the process of rapid development and the main strategic countermeasures of water demand regulation should be water use efficiency improvement and industrial regulation.