Decoupling Economic Development and Water Consumption: An Empirical Analysis in China between 1997 and 2008

Abstract:

In order to explore the relationship between water consumption (WC) and economic growth (EG) in China, this paper introduced the concepts related with decoupling in the fields of resources and environmental research to define the decoupling EG from WC. Furthermore, the assessing approach was built up and a coefficient was proposed to estimate the decoupling degree. Afterwards, the relations between WC and EG from 1997 to 2008 were investigated. The results show strong decoupling of agricultural WC from GDP of primary industry and weak decoupling of WC from EG. It can be concluded that agricultural WC plays an important role to improve the decoupling degree between WC and EG.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 955-959)
• Pages: 2979-2982
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.955-959.2979
• Online since: June 2014
• Authors: Kui Wang, Yi Deng, Xia Hua Jiang
• Keywords: Decoupling Analysis, Economic Growth, Relationship between Water Consumption, Water Consumption, Water Efficiency

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