Why an urban population continues to grow under intensifying water scarcity: an answer from generalized water resources

ABSTRACT

Previous studies indicated that the population size would arrive at its upper limits under the intense water scarcity in Urumqi. However, these ‘limits’ have been repeatedly exceeded, and the population has grown from one million in the 1980s to four million in 2014. This phenomenon is viewed as a ‘mystery of the population carrying capacity of water resources’. This paper investigates the mystery under an amplified framework of generalized water. The entropy of virtual water was 48.9, and 3.08 billion m³ of external virtual water flowed into Urumqi. External virtual water makes a main contribution to increase water supplies under acute water scarcity, and this contribution results from the characteristic of dissipative structure in an urban economy. It is proved that generalized water is one of the most essential answers to the mystery at least. Generalized water plays an important role and generalized water management is necessary in an urban economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Population carrying capacity
• non-competitive water input-output model
• entropy
• generalized water resources
• Urumqi

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences for On-job Doctor Student Cultivation Planning of Western China (ZZBS201303), and the key project of Urumqi Statistical Bureau (UTJJ201401). The authors also thank two anonymous reviewers and the members of the Journal for their useful comments. All errors are our responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences for On-job Doctor Student Cultivation Planning of Western China [ZZBS201303]; the key project of Urumqi Statistical Bureau [UTJJ201401].