Abstract
Objectively evaluating the decoupling status of water resources utilization and economic development is an important sign of judging the sustainability of regional economic development. From the perspective of water footprint (WF), this paper expands the scope of water resources accounting by assessing agricultural blue WF, green WF and gray WF. The Tapio decoupling index was used to explore the decoupling status of agricultural WF and economic development in Gansu Province from 2006 to 2015, and the logarithmic mean divisor index (LMDI) decomposition model was used to identify the main driving factors of agricultural WF changes and explore the degree of divergence between agricultural economic development and water resources utilization. The results showed that agricultural economic growth was a main factor for the increase of WF; the improvement of agricultural production technology had a restraining effect, and the population effect and structural effect had a lesser effect. During the research period, the relationship between agricultural WF and economic growth in Gansu Province changed from weak decoupling to strong decoupling, and the contributing factors to decoupling were in descending order: economic, technological, structural and population. Finally, this paper puts forward suggestions on optimizing planting structure, improving agricultural technology and economic development mode to promote the sustainable development of local agriculture.
Highlights
Water resources are the basic resources for the development of agricultural economy, and the shortage of water resources has become an important factor restricting Chinese agricultural development
The first is agricultural that based on the perspective of waterfootprint, footprintbymethod is the introduced into thefootprint, decoupling analysis to study theis decoupling water measuring agricultural water the water footprint method introduced relationship between water use and economic development in thebetween agricultural sector
The Tapio decoupling model has been widely used in the field of resources and environment since the decoupling theory was proposed, and the decoupling status of water resources utilization and economic development has become an important indicator for judging regional sustainable development
Summary
Water resources are the basic resources for the development of agricultural economy, and the shortage of water resources has become an important factor restricting Chinese agricultural development. The concept of water resources accounting and overcame the problem that previous research on water use efficiency water not footprint gradually become one of the perspectives to study the relationship water could truly has reflect water resource consumption. The first is agricultural that based on the perspective of waterfootprint, footprintbymethod is the introduced into thefootprint, decoupling analysis to study theis decoupling water measuring agricultural water the water footprint method introduced relationship between water use and economic development in thebetween agricultural sector. The water footprint in this region, and the degree of divergence between agricultural economic development paper takes into water account the actual situation of crop planting in situation. The paper takes into accountstructure the actual of crop planting bottom-up accounting method is used to quantitatively measure the blue water footprint, green and structure in Gansu Province. Decoupling is usedstatus to discuss the decoupling status of agricultural water development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
