determinants of agricultural water saving technology adoption_ an empirical study of 10 provinces of china

1、462Ecological Economy (2008)4:462-472Empirical StudyDeterminants of agricultural water saving technology adoption: an empirical study of 10 provinces of ChinaLiu Yu 1, 2, 3 *, Huang Jikun 1, 3, Wang Jinxia 1, 3, Scott

2、 Rozelle 41. Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, P. R. China2. Graduate University, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China3.

3、Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP), Beijing 10010, P. R. China4. Center for Asian Pacific Studies, Stanford University, 95615, U.S.A.Abstract: In recent years, China has been faced by an increasingly severe wa

4、ter shortage due to the continual growth of demand on water resources. Although the Chinese government has been actively promoting the agricul-tural water-saving technology adoption, it is ill-informed of the adoption de

5、gree of the current agricultural water-saving technologies as well as the function of the governmental policies. Therefore, this paper analyzes the aforesaid problems based on investigative data of 10 provinces in China.

6、 The results demonstrate that although there is a rapid increase of adopted agricultural water-saving technologies, the actual adoption area is rather limited. Moreover, the governmental policies and scarcity of water re

7、sources are the determinants of agricultural water-saving technology adoption. Ultimately, the paper proposes some policy suggestions. Keywords: Agriculture; Water saving technology; Water resource; Water shortageReceive

8、d Mar. 20, 2008; Accepted June 3, 2008* Corresponding author. E-mail address: jkhuang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cnAutor: Liu Yu (1977- ), male, PhD candidate, specialized in agricultural economics.1. IntroductionChina is confronted

9、 with severe shortage of wa-ter resources. On the one hand, the supply of water resources is constantly decreasing. Although the na-tional water resources total 2.5 trillion m 3, listed as No. 6 in the world [1], the wa

10、ter resource per capita is merely 1,945 m 3, less than 1/4 of the average world per capita [2] listed among the 13 water-poor coun-tries. Furthermore, the shortage is aggravating, espe-cially the total underground water

11、 resources tends to decrease [3]. On the other hand, the total demand for water resources is dramatically increasing. Since the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the total demand for water resources h

12、as been growing rapidly. Total water consumption of China increased from 103.1 billion m 3 in 1949 to 543.5 billion m 3 in 2005 [1, 4].The shortage of water resources and fierce competition between various departments r

13、esult in decreasing water consumption rate of agricultural sectors. Back to the early period after establishment of P.R.C., the water consumption rate of China's agricultural sectors was up to 97%; however, by 2005,

14、that rate had decreased to 69% and the water consumption rate of non-agricultural sectors had exceeded 30% [5]. It can be foreseen that the water consumption rate of agricultural sectors in China will further decrease a

15、long with the rapid economic development. Nevertheless, the use efficiency of China's ag-ricultural irrigation water is rather low. Researches demonstrate that the use coefficient of agricultural irrigation water is

16、merely 0.3-0.4, with a difference of 0.4-0.5 compared with 0.7-0.9 of those developed countries; and the water use efficiency of crops av-erages 0.87 kg/m 3, with a difference of 1.45 kg/m 3 compared with Israel's 2.

17、32 kg/m 3 [6]. From similar studies we have found that the use efficiency of ir-rigation water in China is far lower than that of de-veloped countries [7, 8]. In addition, studies of Wang Jinxia et al. [9] and Lohma e

18、t al. [10] have found that the shortage of investment, dilapidated condition without repair and improper management have re-sulted in the low use efficiency of irrigation water. Confronted with increasingly severe cond

19、ition of agricultural irrigation water, the Chinese govern-ment has been continuously increasing investment 4642004, another follow-up investigation was completed in Ningxia in August, 2005. The investigation of this pro

20、ject randomly sampled 77 villages based on the scarcity degree of water resources. The second project was investigation on water resources of Northern China in December, 2004. 6 provinces were investigated, including

21、 Henan, Hebei, Shannxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Liaoning. The invested periods were 1995 and 2004 respectively. To make the research more representative, we ad-opted the way of randomly stratified sampling to select

22、sample villages in Northern China. Firstly, we selected counties in each sample province and then divided them into 4 categories in accordance with their irrigation area, namely sever water shortage, partial water shorta

23、ge, normal and absolute water shortage (mountain areas and deserts). We randomly sampled 2 townships in each county and 4 villages in each county. The second investigation collected 401 sample villages b.The third proje

24、ct was investigation on water-consuming consortiums of 3 provinces in July, 2006, including Gansu, Hubei and Hunan. We adopted the randomly stratified sampling based on scarcity degree of water resources in 1995 and 2005

25、 respectively. Al-together 60 sample villages were selected. Investigation of the first and second projects col-lected 478 sample villages and investigation of the third obtained 60 sample villages. Therefore, there are

26、a total of 538 samples from the three investiga-tions. As samples of the final investigation are data of 2005, we deal with all data of 2004 in accordance with those of 2005 in consideration of consistency c.2.2 Types o

27、f adopted water-saving technologies Based on investigation of 538 villages in 10 prov-inces, we have found that there are various types of water-saving technologies in the rural area. To facili-tate analysis, we categori

28、ze them into three types in accordance with capital needed, separability and time of adoption. The first type is traditional water-saving technolo-gies including border irrigation, furrow irrigation and land leveling. W

29、e categorize these technologies into the same type as they were adopted rather early and some were adopted in 1980s prior to agricultural reform as most village leaders reflected. Besides, these technologies have relativ

30、ely low fixed cost and are separable for each household to operate indepen-dently. The second type is household-based water-saving technologies which include ground pipes (film plastic pipe or water bags), plastic f

31、ilm cover, leaving stub-ble to avoid plough (wheat straw covering), intermit-tent irrigation and anti-drought breeds d. Normally this type of technologies can be adopted by a single household (rather than village commit

32、tees or farmer household group). In addition, they have relatively low fixed cost but high separability. In comparison with traditional technologies, these types of technolo-gies were adopted later. The third type is co

33、mmunity-based water-saving technologies which include underground pipes, sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation and anti-seepage channel. These types of technologies are usually ad-opted by the community or farmer group i

34、nstead of individual farmer household as they demand equip-ment with relatively high fixed cost and require co-operation of the collective or the majority of farmer households. Compared with the previous two types, these

35、 technologies were not adopted by farmers until recent years. 2.3 Status quo and changing tendency of adopted water-saving technology Generally speaking, villages adopting water-saving technologies in China are distrib

36、uted widely and scattered rapidly. It can be seen from Table 1 that 79% villages adopted water-saving technologies in 1995 and that number increased to 95% in 2005, b At Dadeng Town, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, ou

37、r in-vestigation team has investigated an additional village (Qianhe Village) which was also included in the paper as effective sample.c Due to only one year's interval between 2004 and 2005 and no big change in real

38、 conditions thereof, they were incorporated in the treatment.d Here, it does not mean draught-resistant species in real sense and it only means that such species has property of draught-re-sistance in itself because the