The Provincial Differences of China's Water Use Efficiency in Recent Years:Technological Progress or Technical Efficiency

Sustainable use of water resource is a strategic issue of China’s economic and social development and its core is to improve water use efficiency.Using the panel data of China’s 30 provinces during 2003-2009,this paper has calculated the total-factor water use efficiency by selecting input-oriented DEA model,and the technological progress,technical efficiency and TFP by Malmquist.Besides,it has investigated the influences of technological progress and efficiency on water use efficiency in different areas.The results are as follows:the cut-off point of water use efficiency change in recent years appeared in 2007 and water use efficiency is the highest in eastern region,followed by central region and last is the western region;technological progress and technical efficiency growth can lead to the improvement of water use efficiency,but technological progress makes a relatively small impact because of rebound effect;technical efficiency growth has led to more substantial improvement in water use efficiency mainly due to the positive effects of pure technical efficiency and allocative efficiency;technological progress makes most effective effect on water use efficiency improvement in central region while less effective effect in the western region.From the above conclusions,we can draw some useful and important policy recommendations;1)Deal cautiously with the decomposition of water-saving goals.The controlling red line of water use efficiency in the coming years has been made by central government in China,but due to big differences in China's regional economic development and technical level,the relative efficiency of water resource also has great gaps in different regions. Therefore,we should decompose the water-saving goals based on the actual situation of different regions’water use efficiency and avoid"one size fits all"phenomenon;2)Pay full attention to the influences of technological progress,resource allocation,management level and level of price on water use efficiency.Government should increase the investment in technology,encourage technological innovation and reform water price so as to meet the economic and social development requirements for water use efficiency.