158
L. Chai et al.
Water Day, the United Nations report warned that as the global economy grows year
by year, humanity may face a water shortage crisis in 2030. From the perspective
of foreign and domestic development trends and subject development prospects,
the water resources system’s sustainable development and management are one of
the world’s water resources research and international water science research. Due
to social development, economic improvement, and environmental changes, water
resources systems and related systems have become more and more complex. The
concept of green GDP has gradually penetrated industrial production, and the connotation of sustainable development has also been deepened and expanded. Therefore,
the rational planning of water resources and effective allocation of water consumption must be coordinated and harmoniously developed with the city’s comprehensive
development plan, and the development plan should carry out from the scope of the
entire city system. Only in this way can the water resources planning be positioned
in a proper place, so as to better serve the overall sustainable development of society,
economy, and ecological environment.
With the rapid development of industrialization, water and energy have become the
main constraints for urban development, because energy supply (such as coal mining,
power generation, etc.) directly or indirectly consumes a lot of water and produces a
lot of wastewater [18]. The concept of “water-energy nexus” can be introduced as a
useful metaphor to study the interdependence of energy and water, and the conversion
process embedded in interwoven multidisciplinary chains on multiple scales [4]. At
present, the quantitative analysis of the water–energy relationship mainly focuses on
the parallel relationship between them: how much water is used for energy supply and
what is the energy consumption of water [10, 20, 21]. In these studies, material flow
analysis or life cycle assessment is usually used to determine the leverage point of
the relevant system by evaluating the path and demand of materials or commodities
through the use of a complete supply chain of energy and water [22, 33, 37, 38, 40].
Besides those methods, the input–output (IO) analysis can be used to evaluate the
indirect flow of water in addition to the direct flow to illustrate the amount of money
needed to produce goods and services based on sector interaction and exchange in a
complex system [2, 43, 44].
2 Water Footprint
2.1 Water Footprint Assessment
Water footprint was proposed by Hoekstra at an international expert meeting on
virtual water trade in December 2002 in Delft, the Netherlands [14]. Water footprint
(WF) of an individual, community, or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services consumed by the individual, community,
or business. With the increasingly serious problem of water shortage, the use of water
resources and the work to solve the problem of water shortage are increasing. The
L. Chai et al.
Water Day, the United Nations report warned that as the global economy grows year
by year, humanity may face a water shortage crisis in 2030. From the perspective
of foreign and domestic development trends and subject development prospects,
the water resources system’s sustainable development and management are one of
the world’s water resources research and international water science research. Due
to social development, economic improvement, and environmental changes, water
resources systems and related systems have become more and more complex. The
concept of green GDP has gradually penetrated industrial production, and the connotation of sustainable development has also been deepened and expanded. Therefore,
the rational planning of water resources and effective allocation of water consumption must be coordinated and harmoniously developed with the city’s comprehensive
development plan, and the development plan should carry out from the scope of the
entire city system. Only in this way can the water resources planning be positioned
in a proper place, so as to better serve the overall sustainable development of society,
economy, and ecological environment.
With the rapid development of industrialization, water and energy have become the
main constraints for urban development, because energy supply (such as coal mining,
power generation, etc.) directly or indirectly consumes a lot of water and produces a
lot of wastewater [18]. The concept of “water-energy nexus” can be introduced as a
useful metaphor to study the interdependence of energy and water, and the conversion
process embedded in interwoven multidisciplinary chains on multiple scales [4]. At
present, the quantitative analysis of the water–energy relationship mainly focuses on
the parallel relationship between them: how much water is used for energy supply and
what is the energy consumption of water [10, 20, 21]. In these studies, material flow
analysis or life cycle assessment is usually used to determine the leverage point of
the relevant system by evaluating the path and demand of materials or commodities
through the use of a complete supply chain of energy and water [22, 33, 37, 38, 40].
Besides those methods, the input–output (IO) analysis can be used to evaluate the
indirect flow of water in addition to the direct flow to illustrate the amount of money
needed to produce goods and services based on sector interaction and exchange in a
complex system [2, 43, 44].
2 Water Footprint
2.1 Water Footprint Assessment
Water footprint was proposed by Hoekstra at an international expert meeting on
virtual water trade in December 2002 in Delft, the Netherlands [14]. Water footprint
(WF) of an individual, community, or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater used to produce goods and services consumed by the individual, community,
or business. With the increasingly serious problem of water shortage, the use of water
resources and the work to solve the problem of water shortage are increasing. The