Study On The Utilization Efficiency Of China's Industrial Water

Water shortage,water pollution,and deterioration of water ecology are serious in China.The acceleration of urbanization and industrialization has led to the continuous growth of industrial water demand.In 2016,industrial water consumption accounts for 21.6% of total water consumption,ranking second in China's overall water consumption.Moreover,industrial wastewater discharge is large.Hence,improving the utilization efficiency of industrial water resources is very helpful to alleviate China's water resources pressure and protect water environment.Most previous studies on industrial water utilization efficiency didn't consider environmental impact.Among the studies which considered environmental impact,industrial water utilization efficiency dynamic changes and factors decomposition of the changes were not analyzed.Clustering analysis was frequently used in previous studies.However,the indicators of clustering analysis are too simple.Therefore,this paper mainly studies the industrial water utilization efficiency of China considering the impact on water environment,and industrial water use efficiency dynamic changes and the changes' decomposition are analyzed in this study.Meanwhile,the industrial water use efficiency of all provinces is clustered.This study firstly analyzes the current situation of industrial water use in China,and then uses the SBM model to measure the annual industrial water efficiency considering the impact on water environment from 2006 to 2015.Then,the industrial water use efficiency of all provinces is clustered by using Ward clustering method.Lastly,the Malmquist-Luenberger index is used to study the dynamic changes of industrial water use efficiency and the driving factors of change from 2006 to 2015.The conclusions of this study are:(1)China's overall industrial water use efficiency was low between 2006 and 2015,and more than two-thirds of the provinces' industrial water utilization was not effective.The industrial water use efficiency of the four regions is quite different,and the central region has greater potential for industrial water efficiency improvement;(2)From the perspective of indicators,the main reasons for inefficiency of some provinces are excessive industrial water consumption and discharge of industrial wastewater pollutants,rather than the lack of industrial economic output.The clustering results of provinces' industrial water use efficiency show that,the differences among the four clusters are large.The fourth cluster of provinces have the lowest efficiency,and the fourth cluster of provinces have a large space for each indicators' improvement;(3)China's overall industrial water utilization efficiency was increased annually from 2006 to 2015,and the main driving force for industrial water efficiency improvement in most of China's provinces was technological progress,while the effect of technological efficiency changes was small.It shows that the production frontier of industrial water in China is moving forward,but some provinces have insufficient catch-up effect on the production frontier.According to the results of this empirical study,the policy implications proposed mainly include:(1)Optimize the industrial water utilization efficiency assessment indicators;(2)Formulate different industrial water efficiency control targets in different provinces;(3)Provinces with low industrial water use efficiency should focus on reducing industrial water consumption and wastewater pollutants discharge to improve industrial water use efficiency;(4)Intensify the driving force of technological progress and technological efficiency changes.