Lifang Wang

Population and economic growth cause an increase in water demand leading to ever-increasing water shortage and water crisis. The paper presents China’s future long-term changes in water demand driven by socio-economic development based on the construction of a water demand model. At the national and state or provincial level, the water demand model was calibrated and validated with historical data involving developed countries and developing countries, respectively, which exemplifies the feasibility and applicability of the model. Through analyzing the historical data and predicting the future water demand, the following conclusions are obtained. First, total water use in 2013 is not peak water. Second, total water demand is projected to continue increasing to an extent, which would not surge for the next few decades. Third, peak water of around 630 billion m³ may appear in 2026 or 2027. Fourth, the peak water will not be beyond 700 billion m³ issued by the National Comprehensive Water Resources Plan from China, even at the possible peak of population. In general, the water demand model can inform early intervention to prepare for times of scarcity and help track the effectiveness of water policy and management activities.

Scarcity and irreplaceable attributes of water resources and the increasing demand for water resources are exacerbating the water crisis in China. The “Most Stringent Water Resource Management System” was implemented in 2011, then a series of regulations and policies had been issued centering on it. In this paper, based on rigid constraints from the Most Stringent Water Resource Management System, taking economic development, per capita welfare level, and so on into consideration, the water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) model was constructed. The results show that rigid water resources constraints would have carried more population than actual respectively during the periods 2015–2019, at the national level. At the provincial level, the maximum population under rigid constraints for Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Xinjiang are overloaded. And we analyzed the overloaded causes from the aspects of water resources endowment, social and economic development, and water resources utilization. In conclusion, the rigid constraints from the Most Stringent Water Resource Management System are not reasonable. In this paper, the WRCC model can be used to assess water safety or water resources sustainability based on water policy.

From the perspective of information, this paper constructs a theoretical model based on information system (IS) success model and information adoption model (IAM), aiming to further disclose the action mechanism of business intelligence (BI) on user information adoption (UIA). Firstly, the BI factors affecting UIA were modeled in reference to the existing literature. Next, a questionnaire survey was carried out to collect valid samples from 423 Chinese enterprises. After that, an empirical analysis on structural equations was conducted on Amos 24.0 and SPSS 26.0. The results show that BI information content quality (ICQ), expected performance (EP), expected ease-of-use (EEOU), and perceived risk (PR) have a direct and significant influence on UIA, and ICQ further significantly influences UIA via mediators such as EP, EEOU, and PR; BI information access quality (IAQ) has a direct yet insignificant influence on UIA, but exerts a significant positive effect on UIA of BI via EP and EEOU. The research provides a new perspective into BI user behaviors in the context of big data, and a good reference for the successfully implementation and use of BI in practice.

Water shortage is a global risk that could arguably be mitigated using water more efficiently. However, the profound relationship between water use efficiency and regional economic size has not been empirically tested. The research design employed an exploratory empirical analysis done through non-linear curve function and attempted to analyze the evolution of water use efficiency over economic growth. First, the water use efficiency change was decomposed into pure technical efficiency change, scale efficiency change, and technological advance change. Second, the scale efficiency is generally less than 1, revealing that it is the main reason for the decreased water use efficiency by the empirical analysis of trends across China. Third, the fitting function between water use efficiency and economic development was constructed. The results supported the existence of an inverted-S shape between water use efficiency and regional economic growth. This analysis will be the reference to formulate scenarios for economic and demographic growth coupled with water use, particularly for planning and managing future water provision and demand.

Construction land reduction (CLR) is an important instrument for achieving environmental sustainability by reducing intensive land use, controlling the unrestrained extension of construction land, and ensuring a balance between construction and arable lands in China. Existing studies on key factors of CLR projects are rare, lacking comprehensive and systematic understanding. In this study, the fuzzy-AHP and fuzzy-DEMATEL methods were used to obtain the comprehensive causality and centrality values, whereby factors with a comprehensive causality value larger than 0 and a comprehensive centrality ranking in the top 20% were identified as key success factors (KSFs). Results indicate that KSFs include the presence of a supportive policy for CLR, coordination with the original landowner, coordination with the surrounding residents, a diversity of enterprises participating in the CLR, a legal environment, and land acceptance and testing standards. This paper lays a theoretical foundation for CLR projects and provides guidelines for achieving successful project implementations.

This paper is distinct from existing studies on water resources carrying capacity which usually use dimensionless data to represent trend and status of water resources carrying capacity. Here, on the grounds of the most stringent water resource management system and following the principles of water determining population, water determining city scale, water determining production and so on, water resources carrying capacity prediction model was established. The water resources carrying capacity was represented by population, which can directly reflect the status of water resources. Under the rigid constraints of water use quantity and water use efficiency, six scenarios were set to predict China's maximum population in 2030. The results demonstrated that the maximum population in each scenario is close to 1.45 billion of National Population Development Plan. It means water resources rigid constraints can support population and economic growth at the socio-economic development current pace and path. Total water use quantity will not break through the limit of 800-900 billion m(3) when achieving the expected goals of social and economic development, not even more than 700 billion m(3). Meanwhile, in order to relieve water resources stress, to improve water resources carrying capacity, and to accelerate construction of a water-saving society, some suggestions were put forward.

Phosphorus recovery from industrial wastewater has attracted considerable interest. In this study, struvite crystallization method has been used for treatment of high phosphorus wastewater. The new combination agents of Mg₅(CO₃)₄(OH)₂·4H₂O and NH₄Cl were used as the precipitant. The effects of initial pH, n(Mg):n(P), n(N):n(P), and reaction time on the removal of total phosphorus (TP) in wastewater were investigated. The results showed that under the condition of initial pH = 4, Mg:N:P = 1.2:1.1:1, reaction time for 30 min, and static storage for 20 min, the residual amount of TP in wastewater was 2.98 mg /L, and the removal rate of TP reached 99.99%. The mass fraction of P₂O₅ in the generated sediment reached 25.22%, equivalent to high grade phosphate ore and slow-release fertilizer, so as to realize the recycling and utilization of phosphorus in ultra-high phosphorous wastewater. This work will have practical application potential in treatment of high phosphorus wastewater and environmental management.

Open innovation theory believes that external knowledge acquisition is the key to gaining competitive advantage. This research aimed to examine the relationship between external knowledge acquisition, environmental innovation, and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study divides the external knowledge acquisition of enterprises into external technical knowledge acquisition and external market knowledge acquisition, and examines this theoretical framework with environmental innovation as a mediator. Using a sample of 416 Chinese SMEs, empirical results revealed that high levels of technical knowledge acquisition and market knowledge acquisition were positively related to SMEs’ performance. The positive impact of technical knowledge acquisition is mainly embodied through economic performance; the positive impact of market knowledge acquisition is mainly embodied through environment performance. Meanwhile, environmental innovation plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between external knowledge acquisition and enterprise performance; environmental performance plays a significant mediating role in the relationship between environmental innovation and economic performance. This paper provides several managerial implications for managers and policy makers to improve SMEs’ performance.