Spatiotemporal characteristics of water use change and its driving factors in China’s urban agglomerations

Abstract

Under the background of water scarcity, water use change is a vital indicator for coordinated development of socioeconomic and eco-environmental system, especially in China’s urban agglomerations which are “markers” that identify water use change across the country. Therefore, this study adopts detailed data for irrigation, industrial, and domestic subsectors at the prefecture-level city scale to reveal the spatiotemporal characteristics of water use changes across and within China’s urban agglomerations during 2000–2020. Meanwhile, the contributions of nine socioeconomic drivers are quantitatively dissected by Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI). The results show that, total water use in China’s urban agglomerations experienced a trend of rising first and then declining, but it remained about 360 billion m3 over the whole period. Total and sectoral water use changes across and within China’s 19 urban agglomerations showed significant differences. The activity and structure effects increased water use by 160 billion m3 and 10 billion m3 for China’s urban agglomerations over the whole period, while the intensity effects decreased water use by 170 billion m3. Most urban agglomerations and prefecture-level cities had the same dominant driving factors as the overall situation of China’s urban agglomerations, belonging to the intensity-driven and activity-driven type. The results could serve as scientific supports to propose targeted water management policies and development pathways for China’s urban agglomerations.