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Water Poverty in Urban and Rural China Considered Through the Harmonious and Developmental Ability Model

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Abstract

This paper details an application of the Water Poverty Index (WPI), a holistic tool for water resources planning and management, to evaluate the water resources situation in urban and rural areas in China. In using the WPI, we selected twelve indicators and twelve variables to reflect the situation in these areas. The results of our analysis show that WPI varies widely in both urban and rural areas, suggesting the need for location-specific policy interventions. In addition, this paper establishes a harmonious and developmental (H-D) model to analyze the water poverty situation of urban and rural areas. Using a temporal-spatial perspective, this paper analyses the causes of variation in H-D ability, and defines four levels of H-D ability through the clustering method. These research findings are intended to provide a theoretical foundation for policies to resolve conflicts of water use in the context of China’s dualistic urban and rural structure.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Ministry of Education’s Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-13-0844). We appreciate the constructive suggestions and comments on the manuscript from the reviewer(s) and editor(s).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Studies of Marine Economy and Sustainable Development, Liaoning Normal University, 850 Huanghe Road, Dalian, 116029, China

    Caizhi Sun & Wenxin Liu

  2. School of Foreign Languages, Liaoning Normal University, 850 Huanghe Road, Dalian, 116029, China

    Wei Zou

Authors
  1. Caizhi Sun
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  2. Wenxin Liu
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  3. Wei Zou
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Correspondence to Caizhi Sun.

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Sun, C., Liu, W. & Zou, W. Water Poverty in Urban and Rural China Considered Through the Harmonious and Developmental Ability Model. Water Resour Manage 30, 2547–2567 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1290-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-016-1290-1

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