Evaluation on Sustainable Utilization of Water Resources in Shandong Province Based on Water Footprint

Abstract

The paper adopts 17 prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province as geographical unit, selects the indicators concerning regional sustainable development capacity from the perspective of resource, environment, social economy and efficiency support, etc., introduces the concepts of water footprint and evaluates the sustainable development condition of water resource and overall sustainable development condition in these geographical units. It’s indicated that the overall sustainable development capacity of the 17 prefecture-level cities in Shandong Province is ranked in descending order as follows: Weihai, Yantai, Qingdao, Binzhou, Zibo, Dezhou, Jining, Rizhao, Jinan, Laiwu, Linyi, Zaozhuang, Weifang, Dongying, Liaocheng, Taian and Heze. The score of sustainable development capacity achieved by the former nine is larger than 0 and the cities are in a state of sustainable development; while the score of sustainable development capacity achieved by the latter eight is smaller than 0 and the cities are in a state of unsustainable development. On this basis, the geographical units are further divided into four types by means of optimal partition method, i.e., with strong sustainable development capacity, with comparatively strong sustainable development capacity, with comparatively weak sustainable development capacity and with weak sustainable development capacity, and the sustainable development characteristics of each type are analyzed.