Liu Jinliang, a PhD student at the College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), is the first author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that proposes a new way to manage the water used to produce China's food. The study, "Mitigating China's food-related water scarcity and spatial inequality via integrated basin-city management", was guided by Professor Wang Qunwei and Associate Professor Wang Changbo.
When food is traded, the water used to grow it — known as "virtual water" — effectively moves with it. Water resources follow river basins, but food production, consumption and trade policies are mostly carried out by cities. The team found that about 38% of China's food-related scarce water is transferred through trade between basins, and about 30% is embedded in trade between cities within the same basin.
The researchers simulated nine types of intervention, such as adjusting consumption and changing crop structures. Acting at only one scale created trade-offs: managing trade between basins could widen gaps between cities, while optimising within a basin could not solve basin-wide shortages. An integrated basin-city framework greatly reduced these trade-offs. With half of the measures in place, it would cut water inequality between basins by 7% and save more water than four-fifths of the Yangtze River Basin's annual food-related water use.
According to the team, the framework offers a tool not only for China's food-related water management but also for transboundary river basins worldwide and other resource problems where natural and administrative boundaries do not match.
Interested in sustainability and resource management research? Meet Professor Wang Qunwei and Associate Professor Wang Changbo, or find a supervisor.
