بررسی تجارت منطقه ای و جریان مجازی آب در چین

The success of China's economic development has left deep marks on resource availability and quality. Some regions in China are relatively poor with regards to water resources. This problem is exacerbated by economic growth. Flourishing trade activities on both domestic and international levels have resulted in significant amounts of water withdrawal and water pollution. Hence the goal of this paper is to evaluate the current inter-regional trade structure and its effects on water consumption and pollution via ‘virtual water flows’. Virtual water is the water embedded in products and used in the whole production chain, and that is traded between regions or exported to other countries. For this assessment of trade flows and effects on water resources, we have developed an extended regional input–output model for eight hydro-economic regions in China to account for virtual water flows between North and South China. The findings show that the current trade structure in China is not very favorable with regards to water resource allocation and efficiency. North China as a water scarce region virtually exports about 5% of its total available freshwater resources while accepting large amounts of wastewater for other regions' consumption. By contrast, South China a region with abundant water resources is virtually importing water from other regions while their imports are creating waste water polluting other regions' hydro-ecosystems.

The latter half of the 20th century is considered the period of the ‘economic miracle’ for East Asia, achieving industrialization and urbanization in a relatively short time period. China, in particular, accelerated its economic development with an annual GDP growth rate of almost 10% after economic reforms were started in 1978. In comparison, the world average was 3.3% during the same period. By 2005, China's GDP had reached 1.13 trillion US dollars, which put China among the four largest economies in the world. China's economic reform has created very competitive and favorable circumstances for domestic and foreign investors in terms of cheap labor costs, a huge domestic market, low workers safety standards and environmental standards. These and other reasons, such as the undervalued Yuan, have led to large amounts of capital flowing into China, especially in the southern and eastern parts, which has made China one of the largest manufacturers and exporters in the world. However, Deng's ‘ladder-up’ strategy of economic development has increased income inequality between regions and urban and rural areas. This is also reflected in differing regional development policies, economic production structures, unequal spread of foreign direct investment, and huge differences in people's lifestyles pattern.

The economic success in China has come at the expense of over exploitation of natural resources and huge impacts on the environment and especially water resources. In North China, water scarcity has become one of the bottlenecks for regional economic development. In this paper we have looked at the economic and trade structure of the water-scarce northern regions of China and the water abundant southern regions of China, and we assessed the implications for water resources in those regions.