Moving to economic growth without water demand growth -- a decomposition analysis of decoupling from economic growth and water use in 31 provinces of China

Abstract

Increasing water consumption from various economic activities has posed increasing challenges for the sustainability of developing countries. In particular, China is facing a sharp conflict between rapid economic development and water shortage. Evaluating the decoupling state between economic growth and water consumption and exploring the driving factors behind this could serve to develop strategy to moving to economic growth without water use growth. To this end, this work uses the Tapio decoupling and LMDI decomposition methods to evaluate the decoupling performance between China's water consumption and economic growth at the national and provincial levels, and six driving factors are decomposed, namely water consumption intensity, industrial structure, economic development, water resource utilization rate, water resource endowment and population size. Results show that: (1) Only two decoupling states, strong decoupling and weak decoupling, occurred at national level, and the decoupling index shows a decreasing trend. (2) 31 provinces showed only two states of strong decoupling and weak decoupling. More than 60% of the provinces showed strong decoupling after 2011, and the decoupling effect was significantly better than that of 2004–2011. (3) The effects of water consumption intensity and industrial structure drive the occurrence of decoupling. Economic level and population size have a positive incremental effect on water consumption. Finally, we propose policy recommendations such as developing water-saving technologies and optimizing industrial structure to promote water sustainability. The comprehensive methodology in this paper provides a theoretical reference for research in other countries or other environmental issues. Governments in various regions can formulate effective measures to achieve sustainable use of water resources, responding to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.