Decoupling Of Water Resources Utilization And Economic Development In Shaanxi Province From The Perspective Of Water Footprint And Its Driving Factors

As the gateway to the opening up of the northwest region,Shaanxi Provinc e is the key area of China's “One Belt,One Road” initiative.Economic developm ent will be in a critical period of acceleration and transformation for a long time.As a core element of economic development,water resources in our province h as become a bottleneck factor that affects and restricts the sound and rapid devel opment of the economy and society.The “decoupling” relationship between the t wo is to measure whether regional economic development is sustainable.Importa nt indicators are also the core of the pursuit of water-saving society.Shaanxi Pro vince is located in the northwest of China,across three climatic zones,and has different water resources.Therefore,the development models,development stages,and water resources utilization structures of different regions are different.It is necessary to realize economic development and water resources utilization in vari ous regions.Decoupling,it is necessary to study the current decoupling state and its driving factors in various regions of Shaanxi Province.Based on the water footprint model,this paper calculates the actual water c onsumption of production and life in Shaanxi Province and all regions.Based on this,the Tapio decoupling model and the Kaya identities and LMDI decompositi on models are used to decouple the economic development from the water footpr int.The driving factors have been studied accordingly.The results show that duri ng 2007-2016,the total water footprint of Shaanxi Province and various regions increased steadily,but the growth rate slowed down.From the perspective of wat er footprint assessment,first of all,Shaanxi Province and various regions should gradually change into water footprint input sites.To improve the current selfsufficiency rate of water footprint.Secondly,the overall water resources pressure in Shaanxi Province is relatively high,especially in the Tongchuan area of Tongchu an,Weinan and Baoji,which deserves the attention of the local government.The decoupling state of economic development and water footprint utilization in Shaanxi Province during 2007-2012 was mainly weak decoupling,but it was gradually transformed into high-quality coordination of strong decoupling during2013-2016.The decoupling state of each region was different from the whole.The Guanzhong area showed a better and better quality coordination in 2013-2016.The economic growth rate in southern Shaanxi is the best,but the water foot print is also increased.The decoupling state is mainly weak decoupling,and the northern Shaanxi region is subject to objective economy.The environmental impa ct,during the study period 2012-2015,showed an uncoordinated state of expansi on coupling and strong decoupling.Economic factors and demographic factors have hindered the decoupling of economic development and water footprint in Shaanxi Province for many years.The intensity of water use and industrial structure have promoted the decoupling between economic development and water footprint in Shaanxi Province.Differe ntly,the decoupling effect of the population factor in Guanzhong area in 2013-2016 has been enhanced,and the industrial structure has shown significant decoup ling effect on water footprint in northern Shaanxi in recent years.Through the above conclusions,the state of water footprint,the decoupling s ituation and the driving factors of Shaanxi Province and each region have certain differences,which indicates that in order to realize the decoupling of water foot print growth and economic development in Shaanxi Province and various regions,In addition to formulating corresponding policies as a whole,it is also necessar y to combine the research results of various regions to carry out policy revisions and focuses.