China's Yangtze River And The Yellow River Irrigation Water Efficiency Research

China is a country with serious water scarce problem. In the face of the increasingly serious water crisis, the central government specified rule to construct a water-saving society in the eleventh five-year plan. Agriculture is the foundation of China’s economy and society, and the total agricultural water takes up a large amount of the total water use, which makes the agricultural water as an absolute major water user. Therefore, it’s important to improve agricultural water efficiency and realize water saving in order to realize water-saving society. Yangtze and Yellow River Basins as China’s major agricultural areas play a pivotal role in guarantee China’s food security, and agricultural water consumption also account for the majority of the two River basins. The agricultural water consumption of the Yangtze River basin account for49%of the total water consumption, the agricultural water consumption of the Yellow River basin account for72%of the total water consumption, Which are the absolute major water users, the irrigation water efficiency in the two River Basins is not optimistic(far below the world average). Low efficiency of irrigation water will not only affect agricultural production, but also affect sustainable development of water resources, environmental security and food security. According to the information, at present, water resources is increasing shortage and water quality is seriously deteriorating in two River Basins, which has become a "bottleneck" to constrain building a harmonious society and achieving sustainable development in the two River basins. Therefore, the author uses Data Envelopment Analysis model (DEA) to give an objective analysis of water use efficiency, also give an in-depth analysis of major agricultural provinces within the two River Basins. The paper typically selected one of the provinces from upstream, midstream, downstream respectively as the study object within Yangtze and Yellow River Basins:Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu Province are as the study objects of Yangtze River Basin, at the same time, Ningxia Autonomous Region, Henan and Shandong Provinces are as the study objects of Yellow River Basin. Besides, the paper made an in-depth analysis of irrigation water efficiency of Vegetable Industry in Shandong Province. This paper gives effective proposals to improve irrigation water efficiency and expect that contribution of the paper will be of great value for improving agricultural water management policies for the natural conditions of different regions, irrigation status and research findings, through multi-level and multi-angle analysis of the agricultural irrigation water with the combination of macro data and the field survey data.This dissertation is based on the conditions in China, selects the Yangtze and the Yellow River basins as the research object, microscopically analyzes irrigation water efficiency in different provinces, meanwhile makes a case study of vegetable industry in Shandong Province based a on the survey data. The first chapter is instruction. The research background and research significance are firstly determined. Combing literatures reviews, the research goals, research content and methods can be further made, as well. In the second chapter, the main technical tools used by this paper are:Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model overview. The main content and characteristics of DEA are deeply discussed and demonstrated on its applicability. Chapter three is the irrigation water efficiency analysis of the Yangtze and the Yellow River basins. This chapter is the main part of this paper, not only exploring the irrigation water use efficiency of representative provinces of upper reaches, middle reaches, downstream in the Yangtze and Yellow River Basins, but also comparing the agricultural water use efficiency between two River Basins. Finally it takes vegetable planting base of Shandong Province-Wang Zhuangzhen in Feicheng County as a case study to explore irrigation water use efficiency base on relevant data through field work (including data collecting, door-to-door interviews).In the final chapter, combining the theoretical research and empirical research, the final conclusions of the dissertation can be made. Irrigation efficiency of three representatives of provinces (Ningxia Autonomous Region, Henan Province and Shandong Province) is different, the lowest irrigation water use efficiency is Ningxia Autonomous Region, its unreasonable water structure as following: agricultural water accounts for more than90%of the total water, industrial and urban construction water accounts for only about10%of the total water.Although we found that irrigation water use efficiency is relatively high in Henan Province and Shandong province through macro analysis of the data, the possibility exists that the irrigation efficiency is low in somewhere. For a decade, Shandong province has been China’s largest vegetable province where vegetable industry has become the second largest production model after planting. Irrigation water efficiency of vegetable industry of Shandong province needs to be improved based on the data analysis of field research. Compared to the Yellow River Basin, irrigation water use efficiency of the three provinces (Sichuan Province, Hunan Province, Jiangsu province) is obviously different in upstream, midstream, downstream of the Yangtze River. Irrigation water efficiency of Sichuan Province is good, but Hunan and Jiangsu provinces should improve the irrigation water use efficiency. As an important economic province in China, the agricultural water efficiency of Jiangsu Province should be improved, due to water conservancy facilities with disrepair, increasingly permeable irrigation channels, and low-attention in agricultural production, agricultural water use efficiency is relatively low.According to the conclusions, the paper puts forward valuable policy recommendations:①Reasonably adjusting crop planting structure is an efficient way to realize water saving in view of serious status quo of water shortage in the Yellow River Basin;②Water pollution is increasingly serious in the Yangtze and the Yellow River watershed which aggravates the crisis of agricultural water, so closely observing water quality and strengthening pollution control are important measures to improve the present situation;③In order to realize agricultural water saving, government investment should be dominant and the ministry of water resources should organize the implementation of water conservancy infrastructures;④Some developed provinces of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River Basins should promote precision agriculture and build technology demonstration fields. Promoting precision agriculture is the efficient way to enhance the competition of agricultural production based on3S (Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographic information system (GIS), Remote sensing (RS) in Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu etc. provinces;⑤It’s necessary to strengthen the construction of water conveyance system to reduce water leakage because the two River Basins currently adopt earth canals to transport water; Applying advanced water saving irrigation techniques within River Basins;⑥The government should improve laws and regulations and define water rights and price to improve current situation of agricultural water and prevent water resource abusing during water using process.⑦To some extent, the uneven spatial distribution and improper distribution of water resources affect water efficiency, therefore The Yangtze and the Yellow River basins should reasonably optimize the allocation of water resources.