Abstract
Unprecedented economic achievement in China’s textile industry (TI) has occurred along with rising water consumption. The goal of industrial sustainable development requires the decoupling of economic growth from resource consumption. This paper examines the relationship between water consumption and economic growth, and the internal influence mechanism of China’s TI and its three sub-sectors: the manufacture of textiles (MT) sector, the Manufacture of Textile Wearing Apparel, Footwear, and Caps (MTWA) sector, and the manufacture of chemical fibers (MCF) sector. A decoupling analysis was performed and the Laspeyres decomposition method was applied to the period from 2001 to 2014. We showed that six of the fourteen years analyzed (2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2013) exhibited a strong decoupling effect and three of the fourteen years (2005, 2007, and 2010) exhibited a weak decoupling effect. Overall, China’s TI experienced a good decoupling between economic growth and water consumption from 2002 to 2014. For the three sub-sectors, the MTWA sector experienced a more significant positive decoupling than the MT and MCF sectors. The decomposition results confirm that the industrial scale factor is the most important driving force of China’s TI water consumption increase, while the water efficiency factor is the most important inhibiting force. The industrial structure adjustment does not significantly affect water consumption. The industrial scale and water use efficiency factors are also the main determinants of change in water consumption for the three sub-sectors.
Highlights
Water is a significant natural resource for maintaining ecological balance, and a scarce, strategic resource in economic development [1]
The results show that the production intensity of many major crops produced in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region are much higher than the global average blue water level, expressing the fact that trade can reduce the blue water of MENA, and enable the network to reduce global blue water
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 offers an overview of the main methodology and data this paper uses to investigate the relationship between water consumption and the economic growth of the textile industry (TI); and Section 3 evaluates the water usage situation of the TI and its three sub-industries; it analyzes and discusses the decoupling states, eventually turning out to be a report of the main results of decomposition analysis
Summary
Water is a significant natural resource for maintaining ecological balance, and a scarce, strategic resource in economic development [1]. Zhu et al [21] performed research on the decoupling relationship between water utilization and economic growth based on the data of two provinces in China (Yunnan and Guizhou), which both faced a shortage problem of available water resources. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 offers an overview of the main methodology and data this paper uses to investigate the relationship between water consumption and the economic growth of the TI; and Section 3 evaluates the water usage situation of the TI and its three sub-industries; it analyzes and discusses the decoupling states, eventually turning out to be a report of the main results of decomposition analysis.
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