Water Resour Manage (2011) 25:857–873 DOI 10.1007/s11269-010-9730-9
Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China Xiao-meng Song · Fan-zhe Kong · Che-sheng Zhan
Received: 13 March 2010 / Accepted: 8 November 2010 / Published online: 7 December 2010 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Abstract Regional sustainable development is an important focus on natural resources management, and also is a critical requirement for socio-economic system’s sustainability. Water resource is one of the most important supports for the sustainable development of society and economy. The study proposed the concept of water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) to assess the scale of economy and population that the local water resources can support. And the study took Tianjin city of China for an example, and its population size and economic scale were chosen as two main indices. Based on the historical statistical datum, the carrying index (CI) and index of water supply–demand balance (IWSD) were evaluated, and then the current WRCC in Tianjin city and its dynamic tendency were evaluated by means of the method of carrying capacity of relative resources (CCRR). The results showed that the utilization of water resources in Tianjin is inefficient for now, the dynamic trend would be partly rational after the protection policy of water resource was put into practice in 2010 and 2020, and the WRCC of Tianjin city went beyond the average WRCC of China and was roughly equal to that of Beijing city. This paper showed that the rational policies and measures should be established and implemented to make sure utilize water resources efficiently in Tianjin city. Keywords Water resources carrying capacity · Carrying capacity of relative water resources · Carrying index · Index of water supply–demand balance · Tianjin City of China
X.-m. Song (B) · F.-z. Kong School of Resource and Earth Science, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221008, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China e-mail:
[email protected] C.-s. Zhan Key Laboratory of Water Cycle & Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, China Academic Science, Beijing, 100101, China
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1 Introduction Water is indispensable and fundamental resources for national or regional socioeconomic development and ecological environment construction, and it is also regional strategic resources for economic sustainable development (Shi and Qu 1992). With population growth and economic development, water scarcity is increasingly becoming a crisis that constraints regional sustainable development. It is very important for how to coordinate the sustainability between economy and the water environment for the sustainable supplies of the water resources in our economical development and life (Xu and Cheng 2000). Study on WRCC is the foundation of sustainable development and water security strategy (Cheng 2002; Gao et al. 2002; Feng and Huang 2008). The concept of carrying capacity can be traced back to the research on relations between land productivity and economic wealth by Francois Quesnay in 1978 and the research on the role of natural factors in limiting population growth by T. Malthus in 1978. And the theory was first introduced into the grassland management, and some homologous concepts were put forward (Guo et al. 2000). Subsequently, various concepts and theories of carrying capacity theories were introduced on different development stages and resources conditions. But these theories were mainly concentrated on the carrying capacities of natural resources (Di et al. 2007), among which, the carrying capacities of land and water resources have been studied for a long time and some fruitful research results have been achieved. And some others, such as human carrying capacity (Graymore et al. 2010; Yue et al. 2008; Zhang et al. 2010), environment carrying capacity (Arrow et al. 1995), aquaculture carrying capacity (Duarte et al. 2003), etc., were also used to assess the regional sustainability. The concept of WRCC was first suggested by the China Xinjiang Water Resource Soft-Science Research Panel in 1989. And the WRCC is a new concept that has yet to be clearly defined for now (Shi and Qu 1992). But some studies consider the WRCC to be a capacity to sustain a society with a good standard of living (Feng et al. 2008); others consider it a threshold value, for example, the capacity of supporting the activities of human beings (Li et al. 2000). Internationally, very few breakthroughs have been achieved in a single project related to researching WRCC which has been considered briefly only in theories of sustainable development (Ofoezie 2002). Some scholars use such terms as “sustainable water utilization” (Hunter 1998) and “the ecological limits of the water resource” or “the natural system limits of the water resource” (Falkenmark and Lundqvist 1998) to express a similar meaning to it (Feng et al. 2008). URS Corporation performed a study on the WRCC in the Florida Keys valley (Clarke 2002) and Harris and Kennedy (1999) focused on it in areas of agricultural production. Research performed by scholars such as Kuykendtierna et al. (1997) and Falkenmark and Lundqvist (1998) also dealt with the limits of WRCC. Rijsberman and van de Ven (2000) made the carrying capacity as a standard for urban water resource safety with urban water resources evaluation and water resources management system. In fact, the WRCC is a concept with the twin attributes involving nature and society but not limited to these (Giupponi et al. 2004). In this paper, we define the WRCC as the maximum bearing capacity of water resources for human activity in a certain stage of socio-economic development or a certain living standard in a favorable ecological system. So the population size and economic scale are chosen as the two indices to assess the WRCC.
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Since the end of the twentieth century, the calculation methods of carrying capacity have been constantly improved, among which, ecological carrying capacity model and ecological footprint model are the most representative models (Wackernagel and Rees 1996; Wackernagel et al. 1997). These models are widely being used in the field of regional sustainability evaluation in China, and the WRCC has become a topic of great debate since 2001 and represents a new academic frontier at present (Liu and Chen 2007). And many methods were used to assess the WRCC at present (Yao et al. 2002), such as usual tendency prediction method, fuzzy comprehensive assessment model (Chen et al. 2008; Gong and Jin 2009), main component analysis model (Fu and Ji 1999), artificial neural networks model (Liu and Chen 2007; Lu et al. 2009), multi-objective computation model (Fang et al. 2006), system dynamics model (Chen et al. 2000; Feng et al. 2008; Zhu 2008), matter-element model (Tang and Zhu 2006), etc. However, the traditional methods cannot be used directly in China due to the huge population and limited resources. The actual population in China is always much more than the population carrying capacity of resources calculated by the international standards (Li et al. 2009). It is obviously that the population overloading and even serious overloading in China, and the significance of conclusions drew for traditional carrying capacity is limited. Therefore, the concept of carrying capacity of relative resources (CCRR) was introduced firstly by Huang and Kuang (2000) and refers to “taking the specific one or more regions (Reference zone) as a benchmark, calculating relative carrying capacity of resources in the study area, according to the possession of resources or consumption per capita in the reference zone and resources stock of the research area”. As an assessment method of regional sustainability, CCRR has been widely accepted (Chen and Jing 2006; Jing 2006; Li et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2004; Ye et al. 2007). And the research on CCRR has made great achievements, mainly including the follow three aspects: (1) the researches focus has been transferred from single studies on land resources or water resources to integrated studies on multi-resources, including land resources, water resources, and economic resources measured by GDP (Chen and Jing 2006; Jing 2006; Li et al. 2008); (2) the static study has been replaced by dynamic studies, with intensifying on the relatively long time-scale dynamic change research of regional carrying capacity (Wang et al. 2004; Ye et al. 2007); (3) the study has changed from simply considering the single factor of population to comprehensively taking population and economic factors into account. In the last 30 years, Tianjin has undertaken numerous efforts to supply more water. A total of 13.8 billion m3 of water was transferred to Tianjin by the Luanhe River Diversion Project in 1983–1999, and the water was diverted from the Yellow River to Tianjin in the 1970s and 1980s (UNDP 1994). The city of Tianjin has an available per capita volume of water resources of only 1/15 the national average and 1/50 the world average. In suburban areas, the ground has subsided drastically, revealing bedrock due to groundwater overdraft. Furthermore, with rapid economic growth, the increase of urban population, and the improvement of living standard of citizens, there has been an ever-increasing demand for water in Tianjin. And the water issues have become a pronounced factor that limits the development of the city. Water resources management in the city has been a central government focus in recent years. During decades of work on the water resources in the region, a great deal of research work has been accomplished. However, the current water management
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and policy systems tend to end-of-pipe technologies. The study attempts to provide a broader thinking, holistic view, and systematic approach to evaluate the carrying capacity and sustainable development of water resources in the study area.
2 Materials and Methods 2.1 Study Area Tianjin, 137 km southeast of Beijing (Fig. 1), is located at the northeast edge of the North China Plain and in the lowest reach of the Haihe River. Tianjin covers an area of 12,200 km2 , and the mountainous area is 727 km2 , accounting for 6.43% of the total area. Tianjin is in a temperate zone with a semi-humid monsoon climate, which is characterized as dry and cold in winter while humid and hot in summer. The yearly average temperature is 10–13◦ C. Located next to a desert, strong winds blow into the region from the north year round and are most severe in the spring. Average annual precipitation in Tianjin varies from 560 mm to 720 mm. Rainfall
Fig. 1 Study area location in China
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varies geographically, seasonally and yearly. On the order of 85% of the rainfall occurs between June and September. At times, 40–70% of the rainfall falls within 3 days. Precipitation is also extremely varied from year to year, typically in cycle of several consecutive wet years followed by several consecutive dry years. In the study, it is necessary to obtain the time-series data of the population, GDP, total utilization of water resources in China, Beijing and Tianjin. The total population and GDP can be acquired directly from China Statistical Yearbook, Beijing Statistical Yearbook and Tianjin Statistical Yearbook of corresponding years respectively; and the total utilization amount of water resources from the Water Resources Bulletin (1997–2008) of whole country issued by the Ministry of Water Resources, and Beijing City Water Resources Bulletin (1999–2008) and Tianjin City Water Resources Bulletin (1997–2008). 2.2 Methods Although water resources are limited, the exact amount of water resources from the environment is unknown at present (Beuhler 2003). Water resources supplied by any body of water, including rivers, lakes and groundwater, have a threshold value. If this threshold is exceeded, ecological conditions will enter a deteriorative cycle (Ghassemi et al. 1997; Falkenmark and Lundqvist 1998). In this paper, the data of the volume of water resources demand and usable water resources are used to calculate the IWSD and WRCC. And water demand indicates the expected water volumes that are needed in any given area to be supplied in a given time span, while the usable water resources or utilizable water resources is the maximum available volume of water resources involving surface usable water resources and ground usable water resources at the level of the one guaranteed rate and some certain conditions in any given region. 2.2.1 Water Resources Carrying Capacity In this paper, the WRCC can be calculated according to the following equation (Wang et al. 2005): GDPc = GDP/W D × W S
(1)
Pc = GDP/ GDPP
(2)
where GDPc represents maximum economic scale can be carried by the volume of usable water resources (×108 RMB), and GDP, WD and WS denote gross domestic product (×108 RMB), the volume of utilization and usable water resources (×108 m3 ), respectively. Pc is the maximum population size can be supported by the maximum volume of usable water resources in a certain stage of social development, and [GDPP] represents the minimum standard of GDP per capita in a certain stage of social development. In this paper, it can be divided into six levels involving basic level of living with adequately fed and clad, well-off level of living (I, II, and III) and affluence level of living (I and II), in which the [GDPP] are respectively equal to 3,000, 6,300, 13,000, 24,000, 34,000, and 62,000 yuan RMB. And also, Xia and
862 Table 1 Division criterion of carrying index (Song et al. 2009)
X.-m. Song et al. Basic types
Sub types
Carrying index
Overload (I)
Highly overload(IA) Moderate overload(IB) Lowly overload(IC) – Highly surplus(IIIA) Moderate surplus(IIIB) Lowly surplus(IIIC)
≥2 1.5∼2 1∼1.5 =1 < 0.5 0.5 ∼ 2/3 2/3 ∼ 1
Critical(II) Surplus(III)
Zhu (2002) took a concept of index of water supply–demand balance (IWSD) into evaluation of the WRCC, and can be represented as follows: IW SD = 1 − W D /W S
(3)
W D = W P + W I + W A + We
(4)
where W D is the volume of water resources demand, and W S the volume of usable water resources. And W D consists of domestic water demand (W P ), industrial water demand (W I ), agricultural water demand (W A ) and environmental water demand (We ). From the Eq. 3, we can find that if IWSD is smaller than zero, the volume of usable water resources can’t carry and support the economy–society–environment development, with unsustainable development state; or else, it is sustainable development state. In order to evaluating the WRCC, we used carrying index to represent the three carrying basic types including overload, critical and surplus, and defined the subtypes in detail as shown in Table 1 (Song et al. 2009). But the simplex carrying index couldn’t effectively identify the different effect of population and GDP on WRCC because their results may be inconsistent (Li et al. 2009). And then we respectively defined CIe and CI p as economic carrying index and population carrying index as follows: CIe = GDP0 /GDPc
(5)
CI p = P0 /Pc
(6)
where GDP0 and P0 are the actual economic scale and population size in any year. 2.2.2 Carrying Capacity of Relative Water Resources In the paper, the CCRR method is used to evaluate the WRCC of Tianjin City, and the formulas based on the carrying capacity of relative water resources (CCRWR) are as follows (Tang et al. 2009): The population index of the CCRWR: Crp = I1 × Qw1
(7)
I1 = Q p0 /Qw0
(8)
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And the economic index of the CCRWR: Cre = I2 × Qw1
(9)
I2 = Qe0 /Qw0
(10)
where Crp and Cre represent the population size and economic scale of carrying capacity of relative water resources respectively, and I1 and I2 are the carrying index of relative water resources, Qw0 and Qw1 respectively are the volume of usable water resources of reference zone and study area, and Q p0 and Qe0 respectively represent the population size and economic scale of reference zone.
3 Results 3.1 Evaluation and Prediction of WRCC 3.1.1 Present Evaluation In this model, the WRCC was calculated based on a well-off level of living (III) in 2004, and an affluence level of living (I) in 2005–2008, i.e. [GDPP] is equal to 24000 and 34000 yuan RMB respectively. Table 2 shows that the actual population is lower than the carrying population size (Pc ) based on the WRCC of Tianjin city, while the actual GDP is larger than the carrying economic scale (GDPc ). The population carrying index (CIP ) reduced to 0.613 in 2008 from 0.968 in 2005, and it is sustainable development status for all years, which is moderate surplus (IIIB) in 2008 and lowly surplus (IIIC) in 2004–2007; the economic carrying index (CIe ) changed from 1.22 to 2.27, which are highly overload (IA) from 2005 to 2007, moderate overload (IB) in 2004 and lowly overload (IC) in 2008. And the growth rate of actual economic is rapider than that of the GDPc in Tianjin from 2004 to 2007, however, the growth rate of actual population is smaller than that of the Pc . 3.1.2 Prediction Results According to The Eleventh Five Year Plan and the Twelfth Five Year Plan of Tianjin City and the Mid-Long Plan of Tianjin City (2005–2020), the population is 13.50 million in 2020 and with the annual growth ratio of 1.4%, and the annual growth ratio of economic scale is 12% in Eleventh Five Years, thus we assumed 10% as the Table 2 The water resources carrying capacity from 2004 to 2008 Year
Usable amount of water resources (108 m3 )
Demand (108 m3 )
IWSD
GDPc (108 RMB)
CIe
Pc (104 )
CIP
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
14.31 10.63 10.11 11.31 18.30
22.06 23.10 22.96 23.37 22.33
−0.54 −1.17 −1.27 −1.07 −0.22
1,903.818 1,688.415 1,910.894 2,424.29 5,208.508
1.54 2.17 2.27 2.07 1.22
1,221.617 1,077.606 1,275.803 1,475.965 1,868.935
0.838 0.968 0.830 0.755 0.613
Data source: the usable water resources and water resources demand come from the , and the GDP from the
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Table 3 Predictions of water resources carrying capacity based on different guaranteed rate Year
Demanda (108 m3 )
Supplya (108 m3 )
IWSD
GDPc (108 RMB)
CIe
Pc (104 )
CI p
2010b 2010c 2020b 2020c
48.46 51.12 54.21 56.87
50.23 45.64 55.1 51.33
0.035 −0.120 0.016 −0.108
8261 7116 21009 18656
0.965 1.120 0.984 1.108
1285.48
0.914
3333.87
0.405
a The
data of the demand and supply come from the work of Wang et al. (2005). The water resources demand is the sum of the urban demand and the rural demand, and the water resources supply involve the surface water, ground water, water diversion, waste water disposal, seawater desalination and water saving b A normal year (50%) c A moderate dry year (75%)
growth ratio of economic scale value in 2010–2020, the population size is 11.75 million and 13.50 million and the GDP is 797 billion and 2067 billion yuan RMB in 2010 and 2020 respectively. And the stage of social development will be an affluence level of living (II) in 2010 and 2020, so the [GDPP] is equal to 62,000 yuan RMB. The data of supply and demand in Tianjin city in 2010 and 2020 based on different guaranteed rate, which 50% represents water inflow reliability for a normal year and 75% for a moderate dry year, can be obtained from the work of Wang et al. (2005) and the prediction results are shown in Table 3. And then the results of the WRCC in 2010 and 2020 are shown in Table 3. From the calculated results of the IWSD, we can find that the demand is lower than supply at a normal year (50%) but the demand is greater than supply at a moderate dry year (75%) in 2010 and 2020. And the actual GDP approximates to the GDPc for a normal year (50%), i.e. it is lowly surplus (IIIC), while it is lowly overload (IC) for a moderate dry year (75%). However, it is always sustainable development state in 2010 and 2020, which is lowly surplus (IIIC) and highly surplus (IIIA) respectively, based on the calculated results of the population carrying index. 3.2 Evaluation of CCRWR In this paper, the CCRWR method was used to assess the WRCC in Tianjin city via taking China and Beijing city as the reference zones. The time-series data of population size, utilization amount of water resources and GDP in China, Tianjin city and Beijing city from 1997 to 2008 are shown in Table 4, and the data series in China include all the provinces except the Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Firstly, taking China as a reference zone, the results of the WRCC in Tianjin city in 1997–2000 are shown in Table 5 and the dynamic curve of the CCRWR is drawn as shown in Fig. 2. We can see that the CI p is dynamic change from 1.67 to 2.29 and the average value is equal to 2.01, i.e. it is highly overload (IA) and relatively larger population density than that of China. While the CIe is changing from 3.87 to 5.59 and the average is 4.78, and it means that the economic development is sufficient and the utilization efficiency of water resources is much greater than that of the average level of China. From the Fig. 2a, we can see that the actual population in Tianjin city from 1997 to 2008 shows the slow upward trend, while the population size of CCRWR (Crp ) shows the slow downward with slight fluctuations, because the dynamic variation tendencies of the utilization amount of water resources among
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Year
123,626 124,761 125,786 126,743 127,627 128,453 129,227 129,988 130,756 131,418 132,129 132,802
5,566 5,435 5,590.88 5,497.59 5,567.43 5,497.28 5,320.4 5,547.8 5,633 5,795 5,818.7 5,909.9
73,142.7 78,017.8 82,067.5 89,468.1 97,314.8 103,553.6 135,823.8 159,878.3 183,217.4 211,924.5 257,306.9 300,670
953 957 959 1,001 1,004 1,007 1,011 1,024 1,043 1,075 1,115 1,145
Tianjin city
GDP (108 RMB)
Population (104 )
Utilization amount of water resources (108 m3 )
China
Population (104 )
24.14 21.53 25.51 22.64 19.14 19.96 20.53 22.06 23.1 22.96 23.37 22.33
Utilization amount of water resources (108 m3 )
Table 4 Population, water resources and GDP in China, Tianjin city and Beijing city in 1997–2008
1,235.28 1,336.38 1,450.06 1,639.36 1,840.1 2,051.16 2,447.66 2,931.88 3,663.86 4,359.15 5,050.4 6,354.38
GDP (108 RMB)
Beijing city
– – 1,257 1,382 1,383 1,423 1,456 1,493 1,538 1,581 1,633 1,664
Population (104 )
– – 41.7 40.4 38.9 34.6 35 34.6 34.5 34.3 34.8 35.1
Utilization amount of water resources (108 m3 )
– – 2,174.46 2,478.76 2,845.65 4,330.4 5,023.77 6,060.28 6,886.31 7,870.28 9,353.32 10,488
GDP (108 RMB)
Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China 865
866 Table 5 The WRCC in Tianjin compared with the whole China from 1997 to 2008
X.-m. Song et al. Year
Crp (104 )
CI P
Cre (108 RMB)
CIe
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
536.17 494.22 573.93 521.95 438.76 466.40 498.65 516.88 536.21 520.68 530.68 501.78
1.78 1.94 1.67 1.92 2.29 2.16 2.03 1.98 1.95 2.06 2.10 2.28
317.22 309.06 374.46 368.44 334.55 375.99 524.11 635.73 751.34 839.65 1,033.44 1,136.05
3.89 4.32 3.87 4.45 5.50 5.46 4.67 4.61 4.88 5.19 4.89 5.59
years for the whole country and Tianjin city are out of step as shown in Table 4. It means that the difference value between actual population and Crp becomes more serious, and put more and more pressure on the society sustainable development. In the Fig. 2b, the economic scale of CCRWR (Cre ) also shows slow upward while the actual GDP shows the rapid upward trend and almost exponentially increasing. And the rapid economic development has increased rapidly the demand of water resources and exacerbated the water resources pressure on sustainable development in some way. According to the change track of Crp , Cre , actual population and GDP, we can see that the actual GDP growth ratio is much larger than that of Cre , and also the actual population growth rate is higher than the growth rate of Crp at this phase. Secondly, the results are shown in Table 6 and in Fig. 3 taking Beijing city as a reference zone. The results show that the range of CI p is from 1.01 to 1.29 and the average value is equal to 1.16, and it is lowly overloading (IC). While the CIe is changing from 0.76 to 1.31, and it is apparent that it can be divided into two stages, i.e. the stage I (1999–2001) is lowly overloading (IC) and stage II (2002–2008) is lowly surplus (IIIC). From the dynamic curve of Crp and Cre , we can see that the WRCC of Tianjin city is almost approximate to Beijing city, but the utilization rate of water resources of per unit GDP in Beijing is higher than that of Tianjin city. We also find that the population density based on water resources in Tianjin city is greater than that of Beijing city, while the economic output is lower than that of Beijing city. And the Crp shows rapid upward tendency with slight fluctuations, and the disparity value between actual population and Crp shows a decreasing tendency. The Cre shows slow upward tendency and the curve can be also divided into two stages. And the Cre is lower than actual GDP in the stage I while it is greater than actual GDP in the stage II.
4 Discussion and Suggestions 4.1 Discussion Sustainable water resources management has become a critical issue for the development of cities that suffer the shortage of water resources (Bai and Imura 2001). Tianjin city is located in Haihe basin which is one of the most pollutant and thirsty river basins for water in China, and is typical region where water is a major constraint to the development. And some literature focused on the water resource issue of
Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China
a
1400
867
Actual Population Carrying Population
y = 16.154x - 31324
1200
Population (104)
1000
800
600
400
y = -0.2972x + 1106.4 200
0 1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
Year
b
7000 Carrying GDP Actual GDP
6000
0.1513x
y = 6E-129e
GDP (108RMB)
5000
4000
3000
2000
y = 1E-108e0.1272x
1000
0 1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
Year
Fig. 2 Population and GDP of CCRWR in Tianjin city compared with whole China
Tianjin city, which were mostly on the water resources planning (Zhang et al. 2008b) and water resources demand forecasting (Zhang et al. 2008a) based on complex system dynamics approach, and the urban water resources management (Bai and Imura 2001). While there was little work on the WRCC of Tianjin city, this paper proposed the practical method to assess the WRCC of Tianjin city based on the IWSD, CI and the CCRWR method. There is not a most appropriate method to appraise regional sustainability now (Zou 2006; Zhu 2008), but it is an attempt to obtain in-depth cognition for the relationship with socio-economic system and water resources. And the method proposed in this paper is more simple and convenient to use for assessment the
868 Table 6 The WRCC in Tianjin compared with Beijing city from 1999 to 2008
X.-m. Song et al. Year
Crp (104 )
CI P
Cre (108 RMB)
CIe
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
768.97 774.47 680.48 820.90 854.05 951.90 1,029.79 1,058.30 1,096.64 1,058.61
1.25 1.29 1.48 1.23 1.18 1.08 1.01 1.02 1.02 1.08
1,330.23 1,389.09 1,400.15 2,498.12 2,946.80 3,863.87 4,610.83 5,268.27 6,281.24 6,672.28
1.09 1.18 1.31 0.82 0.83 0.76 0.79 0.83 0.80 0.95
WRCC compared with the system dynamic approach (Fang and Liu 2010; Feng and Huang 2008; Feng et al. 2008), although it is lack of some factors, for example, water environment conditions, which is one of the main factors for Tianjin city or Haihe basin to calculate the region carry capacity. Therefore, the assessment of the WRCC in Tianjin city or Haihe basin needs to focus on the coordinated development of the environment–socio-economic system and water resources. But the above results indicate that the WRCC model is a relatively appropriate method. And the method based on the concept of CCRWR is suited to the current situation in China, and the significance of results proposed in the paper is better than that of the traditional carrying capacity. However, there are some difficulties to find a relatively large and sustainable-development area as an ideal reference zone (Li et al. 2009). Usually, the whole China is often chosen as the reference zone although it may be not necessarily sustainable. So we select China and Beijing city as the reference zones because the various conditions for both Beijing and Tianjin are located in Haihe basin. In the model based on the CCRWR, the theoretical population and GDP carrying capacity of a region can be calculated, and by comparing the theoretical value with the actual value of population and GDP, the development state of the region is obvious, which is helpful to plan development policies in the future. And the assessment on water-related socio-eco-environmental carrying capacity involving the society system, economic system and environment system will be a tendency for studying on the regional and large-scale WRCC (Zhu et al. 2010). In the future, the theories or concepts of CCRWR will be widely accepted and used to other fields. And the breakthrough of CCRR is how to take more kinds of resources into the model and meanwhile take consideration of the match relationship among all resources (Li et al. 2009). The difficulty of the WRCC is that it deals with an integrated system of socio-economic, environmental and water resources. The complexities, uncertainties and dynamic characteristics of the system make the decision-making process particularly perplexing and lead to the unpredictability of the WRCC to some extent. It is necessary to strengthen the research on the WRCC in Tianjin city coupling the society system, economic system and environment system and taking consideration of the other resources and their interaction relationships. 4.2 Suggestions In the future, there are two main stresses for sustainable development in Tianjin city including serious shortage of resources and socio-economic rapid development. It is
Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China
a
869
1200
Actual Population 1150
Carrying Population y = 17.867x - 34757
1100
Population (104)
1050 1000 950
y = 45.306x - 89862 900 850 800 750 700 1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Year
b
9000 8000
Carrying GDP Actual GDP
0.2049x
y = 2E-175e
GDP (108RMB)
7000 6000 5000
y = 8E-142e0.1661x
4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Year
Fig. 3 Population and GDP of CCRWR in Tianjin city compared with Beijing city
suggested that the reasonable system of developing, utilizing and protecting water resources should be established and implemented in Tianjin city. The suggestions and measures are as follows: (a) Optimize modern economic structure and establish a new economic structure pattern. Restriction on the industries with the high consumption and pollution
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(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
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of water resources (Zhang et al. 2010) and developing continuous cleaner production are essential to reduce the quantity of new water intake and wastewater discharge at the source. And the city should adopt some industrial development policies to control the development of large water using industries and allocate its limited resources more effectively in the next Five-year planning (2011–2015) and the Mid-long term development and planning (2010–2020); Strengthen the construction of an information network on water resources management and establish a water resource monitoring system (Liu et al. 2010). An information platform needs to be established with the circular economy office as the main body. A monitoring system should be strengthened to ensure that the reclaimed water quality satisfies the relevant water use standards and to avoid harm to the production, living things and local ecosystems. The water quality of groundwater, river and reservoir, etc., should be monitored real time by the monitoring system. And then the quality and quantity of water use and wastewater discharge information can be collected and released through the platform coupling the monitoring system; Strengthen the technology research and popularize the use of water-saving facilities and technologies. The researchers must be encouraged to find new or improved more efficient and implementable technological solutions for water saving (Xia et al. 2007), wastewater reusing (Zeng et al. 2008), reducing water consumption, improving water-use efficiency (Zhang et al. 2005), transferring water and seawater desalination. And the government should try to improve efficiency of water conservation by popularizing the use of water-saving facilities and technologies in agriculture, industry and daily life; Implement water tariff reforms (Zhong and Mol 2010), establish the scientific and rational water price system, and work out perfect laws and regulations system. As water resources are a kind of economic goods, to select appropriate water right and water price system can obviously improve the utilization efficiency of water resources (Jia et al. 2002). Optimization of current water tariff structure and water price system is important to achieve the optimization of economic structure and increasing utilization efficiency; Prefect the sustainable decision support framework for urban water management (Pearson et al. 2010), establish and implement comprehensive water resources management program (Bao and Fang 2009; Zarghami 2010). The decision support framework moves decision-making in urban water systems from traditional command and control approaches to a more sustainable, inclusive and dynamic decision-making process driven by social learning and engagement (Pearson et al. 2010). And with the help of the framework and the comprehensive water resources management program, it can promote water resources sustainable utilization and accelerate the urbanization processes.
5 Conclusions The water resources are particularly important in Tianjin city. In this paper, the tendency of WRCC in 2004–2020 is studied comprehensively due to the theoretical
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method on WRCC and CCRWR, and several conclusions can be drawn from the above simulation and analysis. The main conclusions are as follows: (a) A practical model based on the theories or concepts of IWSD, CI and CCRWR was proposed and used to assess the WRCC in Tianjin city. And the results are satisfactory as well. It is possible for this method to be expanded to other city WRCC evaluation. (b) The water resources security is a main issue and bottleneck for sustainable development of socio-eco-environment system, and also the water availability is a major constraint to raise its standard of living in Tianjin city due to the great growth rate of socio-economic development. (c) The economic scale supported by water resources located at highly overload and was close to the critical state for current and future situation respectively, while that of population size was all along surplus and sustainable development state. (d) Taking China as a reference zone, the WRCC of Tianjin city was highly overload, while it is almost approximate to that of Beijing city. (e) Some alleviation and exploitation schemes of water resources should be established and implemented, such as water transfer project, water saving, wastewater reusing and seawater desalination, etc. and then the sustainable development could be realized in the foreseeable future.
Acknowledgements This work was partially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No.2010CB428403) and the Technology Foundation of China University of Mining and Technology (Grant No.OF4522).
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