Abstract
With the outstanding investment in infrastructure during the past decades, the evaluation of the infrastructure-environment nexus is highly required to achieve the sustainable development of economy, resources and environment, as well as human being. This study analyzes the supply-chain-wide blue water withdrawal occurred in China for global infrastructure development, and one step further, the potential effects of policy and human intervention on future infrastructure-related environmental performances. Our results showed that the blue water withdrawal in China was main for the domestic infrastructure construction because of its rapid-growing investment, coupled with that in the United States, Japan, and India. Energy-related products (e.g., “Electricity by coal”) and primary materials (e.g., “Basic iron and steel”), highly required for the construction of infrastructure, have played relatively great roles in China’s blue water withdrawal. For the future sustainable development of infrastructure, we also addressed that efficiency improvement and nonconventional water resource utilization could cover half of the blue water gap between the current development trend and the sustainable one. In light of the synergies among infrastructure development, environmental sustainability and socioeconomic intervention, it is vital to uphold economic and environmental efficiency in the decision-making of infrastructure development.
Highlights
Infrastructure, e.g., roads and railways or wastewater and sanitation services or communication networks, enables daily commercial production, facilitates government operation and shelters and transports the population [1,2]
This study aims to explore the nexus between the territorial blue water withdrawal in China and the global infrastructure development during the past two decades, by the environmentally extended multi-regional input-output (EEMRIO) model, as well as the potential effects of policy and human intervention on the nexus in near future
Data about the investment in infrastructure is not available in annual national account, whereas there is another economic term as gross capital formation (GCF) which is the investment of capital assets and mostly for infrastructure, e.g., roads, bridges, power plants, or communication networks [2]
Summary
Infrastructure, e.g., roads and railways or wastewater and sanitation services or communication networks, enables daily commercial production, facilitates government operation and shelters and transports the population [1,2]. Constructing, utilizing and maintaining infrastructure require significant capital investment, at approximately USD $2.3 trillion per year around the world, which plays a major role in economic growth and is generally resource-demanding, especially during early stages of development [3,4,5]. Huge environmental pressures (e.g., energy use, water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and metal ore extractions) were appropriated in China for its infrastructure development. Researchers tempted to reduce the environmental impact by optimizing the operation and construction of infrastructure. A limited number of studies have looked into the supply-chain-wide infrastructure-water nexus [14,15], and there is little knowledge about the effects of national policies and human intervention on the environmental consequences of infrastructure development
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