Abstract
This paper presents an extended two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) method for analyzing water resource use efficiency (WRUE) and related WRUE issues, which was developed by introducing regional water resource metabolic theory into the two-stage DEA method. It has the following advantages: (1) it has the ability to reflect the inner difference and connection of the regional water resource consumption process, which developed the corresponding physical model instead of making it a “black box”; (2) the built physical model for WRUE divided the main body of water resource consumption into social and economic subsystems, which can thus elaborate WRUE; (3) it can analyze not only WRUE but also related WRUE issues. The proposed method was applied to a real-case study in Gansu Province, China. Results show that decision makers can determine the comprehensive and accurate WRUE and negative factors of WRUE in Gansu Province. Moreover, the results offer recommendations for decision makers to plan for efficient use of water resources in different cities.
Highlights
Water is essential for human life, socioeconomic activity and environmental development
Sustainability 2017, 9, 52 effective to deal with water resource use efficiency (WRUE) based on the physical model, which was founded on the regional water resouSrucsetaimnabeitliatyb2o0l1i7c, 9t,h5e2ory
Most of the cities are on the efficiency frontier in the second stage of the extended two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, which means a high socioeconomic development efficiency
Summary
Water is essential for human life, socioeconomic activity and environmental development. The shortage of water resources has become a worldwide problem and is prominent in arid and semiarid areas [3,4,5]. The water use problems in Gansu Province further aggravate the shortage of freshwater. A very important issue is how to coordinate socioeconomic development and reasonable water resource utilization under these limited water resource conditions. It is widely accepted that the fundamental way to solve these problems is to improve water resource use efficiency (WRUE). This paper aims to analyze WRUE by utilizing the data from a real-world case study in Gansu Province, China
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
