Global water withdrawal and structural Path Analysis under consumption and production attribution

Abstract:

With the development of the global economy, the fact that water resources are in short supply makes water resources more and more precious. Managing water resources more effectively and cooperatively is one of the major challenges facing mankind at present. Based on the GTAP10 database, we constructed the global multi-regional input-output (MRIO) table in 2014 and matched the corresponding water withdrawal coefficient. In this paper, the environmental extended multi-region input-output method is mainly used to explore the global water extraction distribution in 2014, and the extended structure path decomposition analysis (SPA) is used to analyze the key water withdrawal path of global water extraction from production attribution to consumption attribution. The results show that: (1) in 2014, the global total water withdrawal reached 3,981.62 billion cubic meters, and India, China and the United States are the major countries of global water withdrawal consumption. These countries have expanded their cross-regional consumption of water withdrawals through international trade. Neighboring countries such as the United States and Mexico, China and Tajikistan, China and India also have significant water withdrawal flows, which confirms the importance of cross-regional consumption of water withdrawal from international trade. (2) From the perspective of the sector, the water intake of the agricultural sector accounts for 73.5% of the total water consumption due to production, mainly rice and wheat, while the water intake of the petroleum sector and the power supply sector is also relatively large. Consumption was attributed to higher water withdrawals in the processed food sector and other service industries except construction. (3) The analysis of critical path indicates that the path of higher production layer influences the water withdrawal due to consumption to a large extent. The supply of higher-level agricultural sectors to the processed food sector, the flow of processed food to other services, and the supply routes of energy and energy products to services are critical pathways affecting water withdrawals and are important concerns in the formulation of global water conservation policies. There are also policy implications.