Study on the Decoupling Relationship and Rebound Effect between Agricultural Economic Growth and Water Footprint: A Case of Yangling Agricultural Demonstration Zone, China

Abstract

The coordinated development of the economy, water resources, and environment is key to the concept of sustainable development. In this study, in respect to the water footprint, it calculated the water resource input and sewage dilution for the Yangling Agricultural Demonstration Area during the agricultural economic growth period from 1999 to 2019. This study also established the Tapio decoupling analysis model on this basis to study the decoupling relationship between economic growth and the water resource environment, as well as its evolution law. A residual free-complete decomposition model was introduced to analyze the influence of the water resource input and sewage dilution on the agricultural economic growth in the Yangling Demonstration Area and its transmission mechanism. The results showed the following: (1) the economic growth and the blue and green water footprints of the Yangling Demonstration Area were decoupled from one another from 1999 to 2019, and the degree of decoupling between economic growth and the grey-water footprint was poor, indicating that economic growth had a more obvious promotion effect on the reduction of water resource consumption, and the pressure on the water environment was increased year by year; (2) the main factor affecting the reduction of water resource consumption in the Yangling Demonstration Area was the effect of technology, and this was greater than the effect of water resource consumption increments resulting from the expansion of the economic scale; (3) the progress of environmental governance technology was the main reason for the decrease in the grey-water footprint in the Yangling Demonstration Area. To improve the quality of our economic development, the pattern of economic development should be transformed to regulate economic growth and expand the scale, reducing water consumption, improving pollutant emission control technology, and making full use of water resources to provide evidence for a reasonable water resource management policy.