Sustainable urban development in water-constrained Northwest China: A case study along the mid-section of Silk-Road – He-Xi Corridor

Abstract

The urbanization process in the middle section of Silk-Road (He-Xi Corridor) bears noticeable inscriptions of its fragile physical environment. This paper develops an integrated research approach to examine urban growth under severe water shortage and to quantify the dynamic relationship between sustainable urbanization and restricted water supplies. This new approach is synthesized from the field survey often adopted in regional studies of resource management, the policy study of sustainable urban development and rational water utilization, and the regional predictive analysis of economic and demographic growths based on the economic base theory. The total available water resources and the water quotas by major economic sectors at present were calculated from the field survey. The water quotas and their change rates by economic sectors over the period of 2000–2030 were estimated on the basis of policy study of regional development goals and future trends of water usages and changes. Finally the water quotas and their change rates were integrated with regional models of demographic and economic predictions to compute sustainable economic development by economic sectors, and then to derive total population and urban population. Therefore, a sustainable urban growth under the limitation of insufficient water supplies in He-Xi was determined.