Abstract
In China, electricity transmission has increased rapidly over the past decades, and a large amount of virtual water is delivered from power generation provinces to load hubs. Understanding the evolution of the virtual water network embodied in electricity transmission is vital for mitigating water scarcity. However, previous studies mainly calculated the virtual water transferred in short periods in low-spatial resolution and failed to reveal driving forces of the evolution of virtual water. To solve this problem, we investigated the historical evolution of the virtual water network and virtual scarce water network embodied in interprovincial electricity transmission between 2005 and 2014. The driving forces of the evolution of virtual (scarce) water networks were analyzed at both national level and provincial level. The results show that the overall virtual water transmission and virtual scarce water transmission increased by five times, and the direction was mainly from southwest and northwest provinces to eastern provinces. Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou played an increasingly important role in virtual water exporting, and northwestern provinces had dominated the virtual scarce water exporting in the decade. At the national level, the increase of virtual water is mainly driven by the change of power generation mix and power transmission. At the provincial level, the increase of virtual water transmission in the largest virtual water exporter (Sichuan) is driven by the power generation mix and the power transmission, between 2005 and 2010, and 2010 and 2014, respectively. Considering the expanding of electricity transmission, the development of hydropower in the southwestern provinces and other renewable energies (solar and wind) in the northeastern provinces would overall mitigate the water scarcity in China.
Highlights
Water scarcity is serious in China, and per capita water resources are only 25% of the average world level [1]
Virtual Water Transfers Embodied in Electricity Transmission
The different increasing speed between virtual water transmission (VWT) and VSWT can be ascribed to the imbalance distribution of water resources in China
Summary
Water scarcity is serious in China, and per capita water resources are only 25% of the average world level [1]. Over 80% of water resources are reserved in southern China, while northern China sustains 47%. The Chinese government has implemented the strictest regulation to mitigate water scarcity, e.g., constraining the total use of water resources within 700 billion cubic meters by 2030 [4]. Industry sectors consumed 126 billion cubic meter water accounting for 20% of the total water consumption in 2018 [5]. The power system is the largest water consumer contributing to 70% of the total industrial water consumption [6]. Investigating electricity-related water consumption is a key aspect to mitigate water scarcity in China
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