ارزیابی تأثیر اصلاح قیمت آب
Abstract
Graphical abstract
1. Introduction
2. Policy background
3. Methodology
4. Results and discussions
5. Conclusions and policy implications
Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Supplementary data
References
Abstract
A water price increase has been used as an effective method to guarantee national water security and maintain national food security in China. The reasonableness of the water price has a direct influence on people’s attitude, behavioural decision regarding willingness to pay, and motivation for water conservation. A double-bounded dichotomous choice contingent valuation method was used to assess the impact of integrated agricultural water price reform on farmers’ willingness to pay for irrigation water in northwest China. The estimated mean willingness to pay in the study area was 0.144 RMB/m3 . A comparison showed that higher education and longer experience in farming were likely to result in a higher willingness to pay in the study area. Participants who had a higher awareness of water price reform showed a higher likelihood of agreeing to higher bidding. Those who thought the current water price was lower had a higher willingness to pay for irrigation water. Participants who considered agricultural water resources to be scarce in the area also had a higher willingness to pay. In contrast, the bidding variables were negative and significant at the 1% level, showing that participants were more inclined to reject a higher bid. Meanwhile, the older the participant, the less they were willing to pay. An unintended finding was that participants’ willingness to pay decreased if they chose to use water-saving technology. One possible explanation was that the investment in the construction of the infrastructure (such as pipes and pumps) may have exacerbated farmers’ burden and may not have resulted in any benefits to them. Based on the results of this paper, a related optimization policy was presented for water price reform.
Introduction
Water scarcity is increasingly becoming an issue both in developed and developing countries and is hindering social and economic development worldwide, particularly in semi-arid areas (Feng et al., 2017). Climate change has disrupted previously stable cycles of snow, rain and storms, resulting in an unpredictable natural supply of water, and the relative speed of the transition to such unstable global water conditions has surprised governments and companies alike (Schaefer et al., 2019). A recent study showed that there are at least more than 800 million people lacking a safe supply of freshwater and 500 million people are increasingly near this situation throughout the world (Cheng et al., 2019). The emerging water crisis is becoming among the most serious problems facing humans in the 21 st century (Zhao et al., 2017) throughout the world. As the largest developing country in the world, China’s situation in many respects exemplifies the global picture, particularly water scarcity in northern part of the country (Wu et al., 2015). The water resources per capita is less than a quarter of the world’s average, and water shortage in northwest China is more serious than that in other regions. As in many developing countries, irrigation has played an unsurpassed role in the sustained growth of Chinese crop production in China (Shen and Lin, 2017). Irrigation in regions of limited rainfall in northwest China dominates water use, often accounting for greater than 60% of total water use (MWR, 2015). However, with the growth of the global population and the demand for food, as well as competition between different water sectors, the pressure on irrigation systems to act as major consumers to release water for other uses and improve performance in these areas has increased (Sun et al., 2016).