Agricultural Economic Loss Of Water Pollution In China

Water resources play an important role in economic and social development, and China’s water pollution problem is increasingly serious. The occurrence of major water pollution incidents caused water pollution and water supply disruption, which not only threatened people’s health, but also caused huge economic losses to agricultural development. The severe situation make us think about the loss caused by water pollution from the economic point of view and quantify the loss so that people can understand the extent of water pollution intuitively and take measures to manage and protect water resources.This paper firstly reviews the existing research about the relationship between economic development, environmental pollution and agricultural production, and introduces the impact of water pollution on agriculture and the calculation methods of the loss of water pollution, which includes the classification calculation method, the econometrics method and the recovery fee method. Secondly, the paper introduces the current situation and characteristics of water resources in China, the causes and development of water pollution, the current situation and harm of sewage irrigation and water pollution. Then, the paper introduces the factors that affect the agricultural output and establishes a simple linear regression model and simultaneous equation models about economic development, environmental pollution and agricultural development, and uses the data of 31 provinces from 2004 to 2013 to verify the adverse effects of water pollution on agriculture. Based on the result, we calculate the agricultural losses, which are divided into two parts:losses of the nine river basins and losses of the provinces. We use shadow price to calculate the losses of the nine river basins from 2007 to 2013; the provinces losses includes losses of sewage irrigation and pollution-induced water shortage, we choose four crops of rice, corn, wheat and vegetables to calculate the sewage irrigation losses and for each crop we calculate respectively in production losses, decreased pollution losses and quality of crops losses. Finally, according to the research results, the relevant policy implications are given from three aspects of economic development, sewage treatment and agricultural development.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)Through the analysis of the current water pollution situation, we find that the total amount of waste water discharged has been increasing in recent years. Wastewater has a great harmful impact on agriculture, this paper uses data of grain and vegetable production to confirm the adverse effects of water pollution, the public and the relevant departments need to attach great importance to the problem.(2)From 2007 to 2013, the agricultural losses caused by water pollution in nine river basins range from 1090.73 to 1537.94 million yuan, accounting for 0.19%～0.57%　of the year GDP and 2.16%～6.24% of total agricultural output, the total loss is going down undulately. The losses of nine river basins differ greatly, and arrange by the annual loss in a declining is the Haihe River Basin, the Huaihe basin, the Yangtze River Basin, the Yellow River basin, the Songliao Basin, the Pearl River Basin, the inland river basin, the South East River Basin, the Southwest River Basin.(3)From 2010 to 2013, total agricultural losses of sewage irrigation of 31 provinces range from 76.62 to 95.18 billion, accounting for 0.016%～0.019% of GDP and about 0.2% of total agricultural output, which is relatively stable, and the loss is rising. From subitems of the total loss of each region, the losses caused by excessive pollutants have the biggest share, up to 80%, which shows that sewage irrigation lead to the production of a large number of substandard agricultural products and that’s a serious threat to the health of residents. Among the four crops, the losses of vegetables are the largest, accounting for more than half of the total loss, followed by rice, corn and wheat.(4)From 2010 to 2013, the total agricultural losses of 31 provinces caused by pollution-induced water shortage range from 270.47 to 285.92 billion, accounting for 0.047%～0.069% of GDP and 0.79%～1.1% of total agricultural output, the fluctuation of the total losses is similar with the losses of the nine river basins, decreased in 2013 and 2012 than in 2011 and 2010.(5) Water pollution levels are different in each region, and the difference of agricultural losses is relatively large. Make a horizontal comparison of 31 provinces we can find that the losses of pollution-induced water shortage in Heilongjiang and Guangdong are the largest; and losses in Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang are relatively small. Losses of sewage irrigation in Liaoning, Anhui and Henan are comparatively big, and losses in Fujian, Jilin, Tibet are small. Comparison the per capita loss in each region, per capita losses of sewage irrigation in Tianjin, Liaoning and Anhui are the largest, per capita losses of pollution-induced water shortage in Tianjin, Guangdong and Heilongjiang are the largest. Divide the 31 provinces into three regions and South and north, we can find that losses of pollution-induced water shortage in the South is bigger than in the North, losses of sewage irrigation in the South is smaller than in the North. The loss of sewage irrigation is biggest in the Middle and smallest in the West, and the loss of pollution-induced water shortage is biggest in the East and smallest in the West.