Abstract
In order to address the serious water shortage problem in northern China, China has launched the South-to-North Water Diversion Scheme, which is a large-scale inter-basin water diversion project. With Beijing as an example and using input–output analysis, this paper analyzes the macroeconomic impact of the increased water supply on the affected areas in the industrial sector. Our empirical results show that the increased water supply has brought about direct economic benefits to Beijing, which had increased from RMB 4.39 billion in 2008 to RMB 55.99 billion in 2013. The estimated full value of economic benefits had increased from RMB 14.07 billion in 2008 to RMB 231.86 billion in 2013. In addition, management of water conservancy, environment and public facilities, and public management, social security and social organization are the two main industrial sectors which drive the most direct economical benefits. This paper also forecasts the impact of the South-to-North Water Division Project on Beijing’s various industrial sectors by 2020. Based on our analysis, this paper puts forward policy recommendations to further improve the efficiency of water usage in Beijing.
Highlights
Beijing is a city with a shortage of water resources, and the water resource per capita is far below that of the lower limit of international water shortage
Since the beginning of South-to-North Water Diversion in 2008, the total volume of the South-to-North Water has grown to 0.32 billion cubic meters in 2013
Water diverted from the south to Beijing is mainly used for industrial and domestic purposes and to substitute the previously overexploited underground water. 0.3 billion cubic meters per year is being used as domestic water in the city center, substituting 0.2 billion cubic meters of water supplied by the Miyun reservoir and reducing the exploitation of underground water by 0.1 billion cubic meters
Summary
Beijing is a city with a shortage of water resources, and the water resource per capita is far below that of the lower limit of international water shortage. During the operational period of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the macro-influence of increased water supply on the benefitting areas needs to be further analyzed. The social production output of water-dependent industries in the benefitting areas will be altered due to the increased supply of available water This will result in the alteration of production achievement and will be directly reflected in regional GDP changes. The remaining content of this paper is as follows: Sect. 2 introduces the research model and parameter estimation method in this paper, Sect. 3 introduces the economic benefit evaluation of South-to-North Water Diversion in Beijing and Sect. 4 introduces the main conclusion and policy suggestions in this paper
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