An analysis of decoupling relationships of water uses and economic development in the two provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou during the first ten years of implementing the Great Western Development Strategy

摘要

With the decoupling elasticity model,this paper studies the decoupling relationships (DRs) of total water uses (TWU) and provincial GDP,agricultural water uses (AWU) and agricultural added value (AAV),as well as industrial water uses (IWU) and industrial added value (IAV) respectively in Yunnan and Guizhou during the first ten years for the implementation of the Great Western Development Strategy.The results indicate that the DRs of water uses and economic development are highly undesirable in both provinces.Among the three groups,the DRs of AWU and AAV are the worst of all,with strong or weak coupling in 5 of the 10 years; the DRs of IWU and IAV are slightly better with strong coupling respectively in 3 of the 10 years in Yunnan and in 2 of the 10 years in Guizhou; and the DRs of TWU and GDP are the best,with strong or weak decoupling in 7 of the 10 years in both provinces.The DRs have improved in the period of 2006-2010 if compared with that in the period of 2001-2005.It is concluded that slow economic growth,low efficiency and poor structure of water uses are the main reasons for the worse status of DRs,and the development of economy and water uses efficiency promotes the DRs getting better.