Boyang Sun

Water Resources Carrying Capacity is an important indicator of water sustainable and economic development, yet few studies investigated a bibliometric analysis of Water Resources Carrying Capacity research. In this research, we proposed a four-staged bibliometric analysis method for Water Resources Carrying Capacity studies following the René Descartes’s Discourse on the Method guidelines which makes the bibliometric analysis process more systematic. Our four-staged bibliometric analysis method contains a refined screening process of the records, which can successfully delete poorly correlated data from tens of thousands of data within a short period of time and determined the subject-related data. The screening results shortlisted 271 records from an initial 16,769. We further conducted a complete bibliometric, statistical and meta-analysis of the 271 records. The results showed that China is the major country that conducts research on Water Resources Carrying Capacity. Modeling in various forms and system dynamics are the mainstream methods of Water Resources Carrying Capacity research. Water Resources Carrying Capacity is intrinsically linked to population carrying capacity, groundwater resources, urbanization and water shortage. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the research of Water Resources Carrying Capacity, we divided the research progress into five stages lastly. The method proposed in this research can provide reference for future bibliometric studies.

How to formulate scientific and effective water-saving policies is of great significance for the sustainable water consumption. As a country with the largest water consumption in the world, China has been committed to formulating scientific and effective water-saving policies. However, due to geospatial variations of water consumption in different regions, how to formulate targeted and efficient water-saving policies which suit for different local characteristics has always been a key issue to be solved. In a quest to understand the water consumption patterns, this study first adopted a dual evaluation index system combining Gini coefficient and Global Moran’s Index to classify different types of water consumption. Taking 110 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt as research objects, the water consumption of 110 cities was divided into nine types. According to each type, a targeted water-saving policy is given. This study provides important theoretical support for the efficient management of water resources in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and provides reference for water resources management in other regions at the same time.

Hebei is a representative province facing the scarcity of water resource in China. China is promoting the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, as well as the establishment of Xiong’an New Area. Hebei Province therefore has to bear the population pressure brought by the construction of Xiong’an New Area, while also absorbing the transfer of industries from Beijing and Tianjin. Therefore, its water supply tensions will be further exacerbated. This study constructed an input–output (IO) table utilizing the input and output data of Hebei in 2015 and analyzed the industrial structure and the characteristics of water usage in relevant industries. The research results show that the agricultural sector in Hebei Province consumes the highest water consumption per 10,000 yuan in output value, while the service and transportation industries are the lowest. And a large amount of water used in the agricultural sector is transferred to the manufacturing sector and construction sector in the form of virtual water. The main way to solve the contradiction between water supply and demand in the typical water-deficient areas represented by Hebei Province is to improve water resource utilization efficiency in the short term, and to change the regional water use structure through industrial structure adjustment in the long term.

China’s water shortage problem is becoming increasingly severe. Improving water use efficiency is crucial to alleviating China’s water crisis. This paper evaluates the water use efficiency of 31 provinces and municipalities in China by using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. When the usual DEA model has too many indexes selected, it will cause the majority of the decision making units (DMUs) efficiency values be one, which leads to invalid evaluation results. Therefore, by using the entropy weight method, a new synthetic set of indexes is constructed based on the original indexes. The new synthetic set of indexes retains the full information of the original indexes, and the goal of simplifying the number of indexes is achieved. Simultaneously, by empowering the original indexes, the evaluation using synthetic indexes can also avoid the impact of industrial structure and labor division on water use efficiency. The results show that in China’s northeastern grain producing areas, water use efficiency is higher due to the high level of agricultural modernization. The provinces in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have the lowest water use efficiency due to water pollution and water waste. In general, China’s overall water use efficiency is low, and there is still much room for improvement.

In order to comprehensively evaluate the water resources carrying capacity in Xiong’an New Area, a system dynamics (SD) model was established to evaluate the regional water resources carrying capacity, for which several scenarios were designed: the original development scenario, the accelerated industrialization scenario, the environmental governance scenario, and the optimization development scenario. The results show that, compared with the original development scenario, the water resources carrying capacity in Xiong’an New Area can be improved in other scenarios, but a water supply and demand gap will be generated due to the lack of groundwater overdraft and a water transfer project. In 2026, under the accelerated industrialization scenario, the population carrying capacity will be 2.652 million, and the water supply and demand gap will be 1.13 × 10⁸ m³; under the environmental governance scenario, the population carrying capacity will be 2.36 million, and the water supply and demand gap will be 0.44 × 10⁸ m³; under the optimal development scenario, the population carrying capacity will be 2.654 million, and since the supply of water resources will be greater than the demand, there will not be a gap between supply and demand, making it the most feasible scenario to effectively alleviate the tension between industry restructuring, environmental management, and water resources development and utilization. The findings of this study can provide reference and decision support for optimizing regional water resources allocation and enhancing water resources carrying capacity in Xiong’an New Area.