Study on Urbanization Level, Urban Primacy and Industrial Water Utilization Efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract

Considering the undesirable output, this paper adopted the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model with the slack variable and super efficiency improvement, to measure industrial water utilization efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The paper also creatively introduces urbanization level and urban primacy into driver factors' estimation by stochastic and fixed Tobit models, exploring how urbanization characteristics affected the water utilization in regional industrial production. The results showed that industrial water efficiency has maintained an upward trend during the whole period, while most central and western provinces have shown a U-shaped trend of decreasing first and then rising. However, the industrial water utilization efficiency of central regions is the lowest, and the eastern regions are the highest, catching up with western regions. Utilization efficiency shows an overall convergence during the research period from 2005 to 2017. Regarding the factors' estimation, both population urbanization and land urbanization negatively affected industrial water utilization efficiency, particularly blind expansion and disorderly development. The urban primacy meant the unbalance of urbanization, which would lead to urban diseases and pollution transfer, while the effects of urban primacy depended on the urbanization level. However, the utilization efficiency of industrial water did not become better automatically along with urbanization development; therefore, the scale and speed of urbanization should be scientifically formulated. The effects of the level of economic development, the advanced industrial structure, and the level of foreign investment are significantly negative. rate has increased from 14.08% in 1978 to 58.28% in 2017. The average rate of water quality qualification was only 73.2% in 2017, while the rate of water quality qualification lower than Class III was 16.1% [2]. The Class III water was mainly suitable for centralized drinking water, fishing and swimming, while the water of Class IV was mainly for industrial production and was not suitable for direct human contact. The built-up urban area was 22,182 square kilometers in 2017 and had been doubled from 12,122 square kilometers in 2005. Urbanization is always accompanied by industrialization and the transfer of rural populations, which also leads to the continuously optimization of the allocation of production factors. However, the industry cluster, the rapid growth of the urban population and the rapid expansion of construction land are also likely to cause irreversible water resources crises and water environment problems [3]. Moreover, water management and allocation, apart from the current competing demands, such as industrial water, urban water supply, agricultural irrigation, and ecosystems preservation, will be further affected, mainly by demographic and climatic changes drivers that increase the stress on water resources [4].

What Factors Affect the Level of Green Urbanization in the Yellow River Basin in the Context of New-Type Urbanization?

“…Besides, their trade is dominated by processing trade, with a high degree of dependence on foreign trade. Most export products are industrial products with high energy consumption [42]. At present, the Yellow River Basin provinces are accelerating the pace of opening and strictly implementing the environmental access system of the Yellow River Basin.…”

Analysis on the Agricultural Green Production Efficiency and Driving Factors of Urban Agglomerations in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River

“…(2) This paper took both the macro and micro levels into account and used the undesirable output SBM model to study the agricultural green production efficiency of 31 prefecture-level cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2008 to 2018. (3) This paper applied the panel fixed effect Tobit model to analyze and discuss the driving effects of external factors that affect the agricultural green production efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River [23], which could provide new ideas for improving the efficiency of agricultural green production of urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, and can also guide the transformation and upgrading of regional agricultural production [24].…”

How High-Quality Urbanization Affects Utilization Efficiency of Agricultural Water Resources in the Yellow River Basin under Double Control Action?

“…Ding (2019) found a convergence trend when studying the overall water use and industrial water use efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. He opined that this convergence is due to innovation spillovers in water-saving technologies and the spatial flow of related talents [68,69]. The upper reaches of the Yellow River Basin also converged relatively quickly, but this was related to the large-scale development of the northwestern region and the strategy for the economic rise of the central region.…”