Research on the Assessment and Spatial Correlation Pattern of Water Poverty in China Based on WPI-ESDA Model

The water poverty theory has created opportunities and inspired ideas to provide a theoretical basis of mitigating water shortage. Water poverty is defined as the lack of water in nature or the lack of capacity or power to use water. Water poverty can be divided into natural level and eco-social level. To build a reasonable index system, the sub-systems of Water Poverty Index (WPI) were appropriately adjusted, deviating from the original WPI. The new index system includes natural resource, access, capital, usage, and the environment. Access sub-system was expanded with supply, usage, and sewage treatment of water. The use sub-system was expanded with pressure and anti-reverse zone. The capacity sub-system was enriched by government capacity, economic capacity of citizen, and technological level. The environment sub-system was enriched by governance. Weights of the index in each subsystem were determined by the combination weighting method, which synthesized the results of the analytic hierarchy process and entropy method. The dynamic analytic hierarchy process was used to determine the weights of five subsystems to respond the current situation that the capability of adaption to water resource scarcity is enhancing with the development of economy and society. The theory of WPI was used in China and data for analysis were collected from China Statistical Yearbooks, China Water Resources Bulletins, and China agricultural Statistic Yearbooks. Results showed good coupling of water resource and human development. Specifically, situations of water poverty of Gansu, Shanxi, Henan, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Jilin and Shandong were relatively severer, whereas that of Guangdong, Hainan, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Chongqing, Sichuan, and Hunan were better. Radar chart was used to illustrate which aspect of the subsystems was weak in each province. The quantity of water in the southeastern China is more than the northwest in general. The situation of access and capacity in eastern coastal areas is generally better than other regions. Most of top 10 access and capacity is in eastern provinces. Most of areas which show good results in the use sub-system have limited natural water resources. The pressure of population and economy forces those areas to improve the efficiency of water use and enhance the realization of saving water. Most of provinces having good scores in the environment sub-systems have relatively developed economy. The government has more experience and strength to protect the environment and control pollution. Results of ESDA show that the global spatial association of water poverty in China was significant in both natural water poverty and eco-social water poverty. The natural water poverty is slightly mitigated in some regions in China. In terms of regional exploratory spatial data analysis, these provinces could be classified into four categories. The patterns of water poverty were almost the same for both natural water poverty and eco-social water poverty. The result demonstrates that the capacity of social adaption still seems weak for most regions.