An input–output table based analysis on the virtual water by sectors with the five northwest provinces in China

Abstract

Virtual water refers to the volumes of water required to produce a commodity or service. It reflects human’s actual consumption of water resources and therefore has certain significance in water resources management. Over the years, the concept of virtual water has caught the attentions of water manager and decision maker. In order to utilize this concept, the accounting and estimation of virtual water is the foundation that lies in this issue. Till now, the accounting methods mainly include the method provided by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), water footprint and input–output analysis method. In this paper, we chose Northwest China, which is a typical arid region that is facing with rapid economic development, as the study area and built an Input–Output (IO) analysis method to estimate virtual water among different industry sectors in the northwest China. The accounting and estimation results could be used to give suggestions to increase water use efficiency and promote virtual water trade in the study area. Comparison of the proposed method with other prevailing method was also analyzed. The introduced method could be utilized for accounting and estimation of virtual water by sectors, with its superiority in characterizing industrial water consumption and the accounting results could lend certain credence to the water resource management and industrial transformation for the future economic development of northwest China.