The Ternary Water Cycle Of “Nature-Society-Trade” In The Inland Arid Area

As the source of life,water resources are an important material resource that is indispensable for human survival and development.Water resources are cyclic in nature,and the water cycle is important for maintaining the dynamic balance of regional water resources.With the development of social economy and the growth of material demand,commodity trade is becoming more and more frequent,and water resources are continuously transferred and transformed between natural environmental systems,socio-economic systems and different regions in the form of both physical water and virtual water,constituting a “nature–society–trade” ternary water cycle model.At present,there are many studies on natural water cycle,“nature–artificiality” binary water cycle,social water cycle,and virtual water trade.Some scholars have also proposed a ternary water cycle model of “nature–society–trade”,but few researchers take the “nature–society–trade” ternary water cycle as a system to conduct empirical studies on the formation of regional water resources and its cyclic transformation process.Located in the hinterland of Asia and Europe,Xinjiang is a typical inland arid area with arid climate and scarce precipitation.Due to the influence of natural conditions,historical traditions and others,Xinjiang has the advantage of producing special agricultural and animal husbandry products,and the virtual water resources outflow caused by the massive export of agricultural and animal husbandry products has intensified the water resources pressure in Xinjiang,making its water resources carrying capacity has been on the edge of overload and mild overload,so the water resources problem has become a key issue that restricts the sustainable development of Xinjiang.Therefore,it is not only particularly important to formulate reasonable water management strategies and promote the optimal allocation of water resources in Xinjiang,but can also complement previous studies and provide new ideas for water cycle and water resources management research by conducting empirical studies on the ternary water cycle model and exploring the problems in the process of water resources development and utilization in Xinjiang.To sum up,this study takes Xinjiang as the case area,and with the guidance of the“nature–society–trade” ternary water cycle theory and the help of the ternary water cycle flux accounting model,analyzed the formation process,typical characteristics and changes of water resources under the natural state from 2007 to 2017 in Xinjiang.We also accounted for the water cycle fluxes in Xinjiang’s socio-economic system over the past 10 years,explored the dependence of water resources use among various industrial sectors in the social reproduction process of Xinjiang,and analyzed the transfer of implied virtual water resources after putting physical water resources as production factors into the production of various industrial sectors and then transformed into the output of products or services containing virtual water.The research results show that:(1)in the arid area of Xinjiang,where evapotranspiration was much greater than precipitation,mountainous areas were the main production areas of surface runoff.Subsurface runoff and surface runoff were frequently converted to each other,and it’s interaction was obvious.(2)From 2007 to2017,the inter-regional transferred out of water is much larger than the inter-regional transfer in in the arid area of Xinjiang.The Xinjiang’s supply and water consumption showed a year-on-year growth trend,the scale of water resources development and utilization as well as the social water cycle flux kept expanding,the regional water distribution coefficient was always far less than 1,and the water consumption of the socio-economic system seriously crowded out the water consumption of the ecological environment.(3)The agricultural has always been the largest sector in terms of direct water consumption and net transfer of virtual water.The direct water consumption of the agriculture in Xinjiang in 2007,2012 and 2017 all accounted for over 90% of total water consumption.The agriculture mainly transferred virtual water to the light industry and service sector where the production of final products requires a large amount of agricultural products as raw materials or intermediate products.(4)In terms of inter-regional trade water cycle,the virtual water flowing out of Xinjiang along with the trade of products and services was much larger than the inflow from 2007 to 2017.Xinjiang as a whole has always showed a net virtual water outflow.In China’s interprovincial trade,Xinjiang mainly transferred virtual water to water-rich,economically developed and densely populated regions in eastern China,such as Shanghai,Tianjin,Henan,Jiangsu,Beijing and Shandong.Finally,based on the research results we put forward scientific suggestions for further optimizing water resources allocation in Xinjiang,relieving water resources pressure in Xinjiang and achieving sustainable social and economic development in Xinjiang:(1)strictly control the upper limit of water consumption in social and economic systems and ensure water consumption for ecological environment;(2)improve water consumption efficiency in agricultural sector and adjust planting structure;(3)extend regional industrial chain to indirectly reduce water consumption;(4)implement virtual water strategy and adjust regional trade structure.