Spatiotemporal Evolution and Drivers of Chinese Industrial Virtual Water in International Trade

As a water-scarce country and the world’s largest trader of industrial products, China’s virtual water (VW) flow may exacerbate its scarcity problem. Thus, VW flows’ spatial temporal evolution in international trade should be analyzed, influencing factors must identified. This study developed multiregional input–output (MRIO) model, combined with Leontief inverse matrix, to measure decompose flows between China other economies from 2000 2014. extended MRIO model considers intermediate production consumption indirect use, which technically distinguishes sources pressure on use more accurately, thus enabling new elaboration composition use. Then, is analyzed spatiotemporally, structural decomposition analysis (SDA) method invoked identify endogenous drivers further. The results indicate following. (1) was net exporter trade. main export sectors were manufacture textiles wearing apparel, paper chemical had characteristics high consumption, pollution, low added value, respectively. (2) exports mainly went US, EU, ROW (rest world), Japan. US Japan are declining, while EU Russia increasing. (3) decrease water-use coefficient all most critical reason for inhibiting increase country’s exports. structure effect product foreign final demand, scale demand primary reasons rise exports, but gradually diminished. Moreover, effects domestic products significant positive In contrast, those an extremely weak effect.