| Since China’s reform and opening up, China’s economy has been growing rapidly, but with the over exploitation and utilization of resource and environmental pollution. Water resource shortage and water pollution is particularly prominent. In recent years, the central and local authorities have introduced a number of economic policies to control water pollution and ease the contradiction between supply and demand of water resources. Water resources endowment, economic structure, development level vary widely in different regions. There is also an economic link between the regions. These may have an impact on the policy effect. In order to study the role and economic impact of various policies, a computable general equilibrium model of water resources in China is constructed, which is based on the input and output table of China’s 31 regions. This model is used to study the economic impact of the sewage charges policy of industrial water pollutant, water resources fee, and interregional water rights allocation.The simulation results of the industrial sewage charges policies’impacts on regional economy show that national sewage rates increase, the real GDP will be negative impact. Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu region decreased significantly, and the negative impact will further increase in the long term. The output of paper industry and textile industry has been greatly negative affected, and the real output of Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangxi has been reduced by high margin. If the implementation of regional differences in the sewage charges rate, then the region of higher the rate of sewage charges will be lost, and the region of lower the rate of sewage will be benefit. In the long term, with the capital and labor elements of the regional and inter sectorial flow, the regions of lower sewage rate further increase the degree of benefit. Regional difference of sewage rate leads to the transfer of the sewage, and weaken the effect of the national scale of sewage charges policy. Therefore we need to take into account the regional differences and the role of regional economic linkages.The simulation results of the water resources fee policies’ impacts on regional economy show that increase of agricultural water resource fee is conducive to reduce agricultural water consumption, but the real GDP will reduce. The real GDP of Shandong, Heilongjiang, and Ningxia region has a large decline, while the real GDP of Hainan, Tibet region shows a slight increase. Increase of industrial water resources fee has different influence on different regions of our country, which the real GDP of Shandong, Tianjin and Zhejiang decrease, while Chongqing, Heilongjiang, Guizhou obtain benefits. Residents’water resource fee policies have negative impacts on the real GDP. Guangxi, Tibet, Hainan region are more affected, while Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu are less affected.The simulation results of regional water rights allocation policies’impacts on regional economy show that the initial water rights allocation of Middle Route Project of South-to-North Water Diversion will cause the economic gain of regions of receiving water, but economic losses of other regions. The economic gap of regions will further expand. The initial water right allocation has a positive effect on the real agricultural output in the regions of water receiving, but the real output of other regions is negative. But the real output of the industry in all of the regions increase. If the water transfer of water rights can be carried out among the regions of receiving water, it will promote the real GDP in the overall regions of China, and the long-term economic value of water rights transfer will be greater than the short-term. If the water rights transfer can be carried out among agriculture, industries, and services in regions of receiving water, the gain of real output value of industry and service industry is more than the loss of agricultural output value, which indicates the economic feasibility of the transfer of water rights from agriculture to industries and services. |
