Abstract
Agricultural water use accounts for the largest proportion of water withdrawal, so improving agricultural water use efficiency is an important way to alleviate water shortage. However, the expected water saving by the improved agricultural water use efficiency may be offset by the rebound effect, which means the goal of water saving by improving agricultural water use efficiency is not achieved. Based on the definition of the rebound effect of agricultural water use, this paper first uses a fixed model to measure the causal effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use to analyze the agricultural water rebound effect, then analyses the heterogeneity and mechanism of the effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use with the panel data from 30 provinces or cities in China from 2000 to 2017. The results show that, firstly, the agricultural water use efficiency has a significant negative effect on agricultural water use, but the average agricultural water rebound effect is 88.81%. Secondly, the effect of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use is heterogeneous, in which the improvement of agricultural water use efficiency in humid or major grain-producing areas will have a lower agricultural water rebound effect. Finally, agricultural water use efficiency can affect agricultural water use through planting area and planting structure. An increase in agricultural water use efficiency will expand the planting area to increase water use. However, this will change the planting structure to decrease water use. The implication for agricultural water management is that the irrigation agricultural scale has to be controlled under the condition of available water resource, while improving agricultural water use efficiency.
Highlights
In the context of finite supply and climate change, the growing demand for freshwater is one of the most significant challenges facing humanity [1]
The regional fixed effect was included in Model 1 without the control variables, and the regression results show that agricultural water use efficiency has a negative impact on agricultural water use at a significance level of 1%
In Model 2, after the effective irrigation area was added as the control variable, the influence of agricultural water use efficiency on agricultural water use was still significant at the level of 1%, but the absolute value of the estimated coefficient decreased relative to Model 1
Summary
In the context of finite supply and climate change, the growing demand for freshwater is one of the most significant challenges facing humanity [1]. Promoting agricultural water use efficiency is a basic and fundamental approach to alleviating water scarcity because of regional differences in water resources endowment. Over the past few decades, water conservation practices in many places did not result in reduced agricultural water use as expected, though agricultural water use efficiency had increased significantly [3]. This phenomenon is happening in China, which is a country with water scarcity and one of the 13 water-poor countries in the world. In 1998, the Chinese government began to formulate policies to promote water saving and vigorously develop water-saving agriculture, greatly improving agricultural water use efficiency. The expected goal of reducing the total amount of water used in
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