The Research Of “Collect Then Refund” Water-pricing Mechanism Policy Evaluation In Taocheng District,Hebei Province

With the development of economy and society,the human demand for water is increasing rapidly,the problem of water shortage has become a big problem that disturbs people’s daily life and restricts the rapid development of society.Since the 1970 s,groundwater has become increasingly important in agricultural production,especially in the north China plain.The new irrigation projects are mainly based on groundwater as water source.The long-term groundwater exploitation has cause mining subsidence,sea water inwelling,water quality hardens and many other environmental problems,and has made the north China plain formed the world’s largest deep subsidence funnel of groundwater,and the groundwater level still falling at an annual rate of 2 meters.However,in spite of such urgent condition,a lot of farmers still prefer using flooding irrigation and obviously they have not been aware of the damaging results if this valuable resource are exhausted.At present,the low water price is the main factor causing the groundwater overexploitation.The present water price is too low to give farmers’ impetus to save water and is too low to help water suppliers recover cost.So it is urgent to increase agriculture water price.While a direct increase in agricultural water prices has been controversial because it could do harm to farmers’ interests,and policy makers have been exploring a "win-win" water price adjustment mechanism.The local government of Taocheng District of Hebei Province put up “Collect then Refund” Water-Pricing Mechanism at Aug,2005 and is anxious to realize a winwin goal between farmers’ interests and resource protection.This essay,using the rural investigation statistics of 332 households in Taocheng District,Hebei Province,established Mediation effect and DID model to analyze the effect of “Collect then Refund” Water-Pricing Mechanism on water use,crop yield per unit and farmers’ income.The results show: the implementation of this mechanism does not have a net significant effect on corn irrigation groundwater consumption,but it has a remarkable watersaving effect and a net significant effect on wheat irrigation groundwater consumption;the mechanism’ s effect on corn’s and cotton’s yield per unit is not significant,but it will exert a weakly negative effect on wheat’ s yield per unit and the irrigation water consumption has a total mediation function in the process;since the exist of technical progress,this weak negative influence can be counteracted;the implementation of this mechanism will not decrease farmers’ income.Based on the results above,it shows that this mechanism has a strong function on water-saving,and will not decrease the farmers benefits at the same time,so it is worth promoting.And several suggestions are promoted:(1)Increase the financial support from government;(2)Discuss about making a further increase on water price in the future;(3)Improving the metering infrastructure;(4)Enhance the initiative of farmers on water management;(5)Promote agriculture mechanization.