Water Scarcity and Water Use in Economic Systems in Zhangye City, Northwestern China

Water has traditionally been considered a physically scarce resource in Northwestern China, and most investigations of water scarcity focus on the finite nature of water supplies. Based on the input–output analysis, this paper establishes a number of indicators of water consumption to analyze the structural relationships between economic activities and their physical relationships with the water resources. These indicators allow us to calculate the level of total water consumed by each sector and to distinguish between direct and indirect consumption, thus, offering the possibility of tracing the source of indirect water consumption. By drawing on the water consumption in Zhangye, a city situated in Northwestern China which is characterized by water shortage, we have discussed how the “problem” of scarcity has been constructed in this area. It is shown that the expanding agriculture and the unsuitable trade structure of exports and imports are likely to be responsible for the increasing scarcity of water in Zhangye. As a result, it seems that the problem of water scarcity in Zhangye is not necessarily a given, but instead the results of poor resource use, coordination and inadequate resource management. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009