TY - JOUR
T1 - Imbalance in the city-level crop water footprint aggravated regional inequality in China
AU - Wang, Qian
AU - Zheng, Guangyu
AU - Li, Jixuan
AU - Huang, Kai
AU - Yu, Yajuan
AU - Qu, Shen
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/4/1
Y1 - 2023/4/1
N2 - Crop production is the main consumer of water resources. The heterogeneous water resource endowments and imbalanced crop water use exacerbate regional resource consumption inequality. In this study, we quantified the crop water footprint (CWF) of 356 cities in China from 2000 to 2020, measured the inequality between the city CWF and water resources, and identified different strategies to alleviate regional CWF inequality. We found that the average CWF from 2000 to 2020 varied widely across cities, ranging from 0.03 × 108 m3 to 806.78 × 108 m3, and the inequality between city CWF and local water resource endowment was increasing. China had a strong dependence on green water in crop production, and its proportion increased from 52.48 % to 67.17 %. The Gini coefficient of the green water footprint increased from 0.545 to 0.621, and the degree of inequality increased significantly. In addition, the blue water and gray water continuously showed great inequality, especially the blue water, the Gini coefficient of which was 0.724 in 2020. The results show significant disparities in CWF among cities, which have highly exacerbated regional inequality in China. Improving the utilization rate of green water is an important measure to balance the allocation between serving the natural ecosystem and meeting the basic human needs. This study revealed for the first time the inequality of city-level CWF and highlights the severe situation of inequality among regions in China. Balancing the inequality between CWF and water resource endowment at city-level is conducive to fundamentally solving the problem of unreasonable water resource allocation.
AB - Crop production is the main consumer of water resources. The heterogeneous water resource endowments and imbalanced crop water use exacerbate regional resource consumption inequality. In this study, we quantified the crop water footprint (CWF) of 356 cities in China from 2000 to 2020, measured the inequality between the city CWF and water resources, and identified different strategies to alleviate regional CWF inequality. We found that the average CWF from 2000 to 2020 varied widely across cities, ranging from 0.03 × 108 m3 to 806.78 × 108 m3, and the inequality between city CWF and local water resource endowment was increasing. China had a strong dependence on green water in crop production, and its proportion increased from 52.48 % to 67.17 %. The Gini coefficient of the green water footprint increased from 0.545 to 0.621, and the degree of inequality increased significantly. In addition, the blue water and gray water continuously showed great inequality, especially the blue water, the Gini coefficient of which was 0.724 in 2020. The results show significant disparities in CWF among cities, which have highly exacerbated regional inequality in China. Improving the utilization rate of green water is an important measure to balance the allocation between serving the natural ecosystem and meeting the basic human needs. This study revealed for the first time the inequality of city-level CWF and highlights the severe situation of inequality among regions in China. Balancing the inequality between CWF and water resource endowment at city-level is conducive to fundamentally solving the problem of unreasonable water resource allocation.
KW - China
KW - City level
KW - Crop water footprint
KW - Inequality
KW - Influence factors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85147090211&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161577
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161577
M3 - Article
C2 - 36638997
AN - SCOPUS:85147090211
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 867
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 161577
ER -
