Exploring the driving forces on sustainable energy and water use in China

With the rapid growth of global demand for water and energy, the two increasingly restrict economic and social development. The total energy consumption and water use are positively correlated. Identifying the key drivers influencing the energy-water development can realize national resource management and sustainable supplement. In this context, this study aims to capture the key driving forces that affect the sustainable energy-water development characteristics in Chinese change processes throughout 2000-2017. Five driving forces, the EW intensity effect, industrial structure effect, GDP value-added effect, income improvement effect, and population-scale effect, were further decomposed by the logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) model to explore the energy consumption and water use. Our findings indicated that the largest and lowest energy consumers were the manufacturing and construction sectors, while agriculture accounted for the largest share in water use. During the three time intervals, the cumulative effects increased the EW use, but the contributions were declining. Further, these effects had a more prominent influence on water use than energy consumption; GDP value-added effect, income improvement effect, and population-scale effect increased the EW use, while intensity effect played a vital role in decreasing EW use during the study period. Notably, the industrial structure effect had a seesaw role during 2000-2006, which led to a tradeoff between various driving factors. In future sustainable issues, policymakers should pay more attention to energy-saving than water-saving to achieve the national energy and water conservation targets.

Automated summary

This study aims to capture the key driving forces that affect the sustainable energy-water development characteristics in Chinese change processes throughout 2000-2017. The manufacturing and construction sectors are the largest and lowest energy consumers, while agriculture accounts for the largest share in water use. The GDP value-added effect, income improvement effect, and population-scale effect increase the energy-water use, while the intensity effect plays a vital role in decreasing energy-water use during the study period.