The Evaluation Of Water Usage Efficiency And Controlling Indices In The Huai River Catchment Of Anhui Province

Water is the source of life, the focus of production, and the basis of ecology. With thedevelopment of the economy, the demand for water resource is increasing gradually, whilethe imbalance between its supply and demand is becoming more and more prominent. Inorder to realize the optimal configuration and sustainable utilization of the water resource,the premise and key factors are to strengthen its management and improve its usageefficiency. The water resource problem in Huai River of Anhui Province has become one ofthe main constrains of the sustainable development of regional economy and society. Inorder to sort out the current situation of water utilization and know how to improve theefficiency of water usage, a research entitled “The evaluation of water usage efficiency andcontrolling indices in the Huai River catchment of Anhui Province” is carried out. At thesame time, the research meets the need of formulating controlling indices and implementingthe strictest management of water utilization.In this paper, the Data Envelopment Analysis model（DEA）, which lies at theintersection of operational research, management, and economics, along with severalagricultural, industrial and residential indices, are used to evaluate the utilization of waterresource From the above methods, we get the relative efficiency of water usage of theriverside cities along the Huai River and divide them into four groups according to suchstandards of higher, high, lower, or low efficiency. For each group, we also point out thepossible future directions of improving water utilization efficiency. In addition, takingeconomical, societal, and environmental benefits into account, a different assessmentsystem called Analytic Hierarchy Process（AHP） is built. The histograms plotted from theAHP model and the DEA model share the same fluctuation, which validates the resultdrawn from the DEA model. At the same time, in terms of water utilization efficiency,Hefei ranks the first among all the cities of effective DEA, followed by Huaibei andHuainan. This is an example which shows that when pursuing economic growth, we shouldnot consume too much water or even at the cost of polluting the environment to improvethe use of water.Based on each city’s current efficiency of water usage, we analyze the relationshipbetween water usage and1) the development of economy,2) the status of water resource, and even3) the current level of water use. It comes up with the declining formula forindustrial added value per￥10,000every5years versus water usage. Also the formulaprovides the indices suitable for Huai River. Form it, we work out the water use indexes forindustrial added value per￥10,000both in2015and2020. Huainan is the city with highestpotential in saving water according to the data calculated from industrial water-savingpotential empirical formula.Finally, we put forward the managing and controlling measures to control the wateruse efficiency, which guarantee that the water use level among cities can meet the standardsof controlling indices by the year2020.