Challenges for Sustainable Water Use in the Urban Industry of Korea Based on the Global Non-Radial Directional Distance Function Model

Na Wang,Yongrok Choi

doi:10.3390/su11143895

Abstract

Since water stress and industrial water pollution pose a huge threat to South Korea’s sustainable water use, it is an urgent task to assess industrial water green use efficiency (GUEIW). Based on the global non-radial directional distance function (GNDDF) model, this paper calculated GUEIW in 16 Korean local governments from 2006 to 2015 using two decomposition indicators: Economic efficiency of industrial water use (ECEIW) and environmental efficiency of industrial water use (ENEIW). The growth of GUEIW is mainly driven by ECEIW, and subsequent environmental problems are obstacles to achieving green use of Korean industrial water. The regional heterogeneity of GUEIW is so important that the downstream region outperformed the upstream region in all three indicators. The government’s efforts to ensure water quality inhibits industrial development in upstream areas, where incomes are much lower than in downstream areas, and downstream industrial areas have to pay upstream industrial areas extra for water. However, regarding upstream industrial areas, low prices easily promote water waste. Because of relatively high water use costs, downstream producers are encouraged to save water. To improve the economic efficiency of industrial water use in upstream areas, advanced water technology should be developed or introduced to make full use of water resources in industrial production.

Highlights

We calculated green use efficiency of industrial water (GUEIW) based on the non-radial directional distance function (NDDF) and global non-radial directional distance function (GNDDF) models for comparison
This indicates that the GUEIW based on the NDDF model might be over-estimated, as it is based on contemporary environmental production technology
Empirical results showed that GUEIW exhibited fluctuations during the study and that the growth of GUEIW was mainly driven by efficiency of industrial water use (ECEIW)

Summary

Introduction

Water policies have long aimed at optimal water use due to the ever-increasing demand for limited water resources in many parts of the world [2,3]. Many countries around the world still face significant challenges in managing their scarce water resources due to industrialization, urbanization, and climate change. Industrialization and urbanization, driven by population pressure, are the main factors of economic growth; intensive agricultural spread-out use of high pesticides has become dominant, resulting in water shortage and degradation in many parts of the world. Climate change has increased characteristics of severe spatial and temporal variations in water resources [4]

Methods

Results

Conclusion