Assessment of Regional Water Resource Security: A Case Study from Hebei Province, China

Abstract

The present severe safety situation of water resources has become one of the main risk factors restricting global economic development and influencing social stability and progress. Relieving the current water safety problem and mitigating the restriction imposed on social sustainable development have become popular topics regarding water resource management. Previous index cases were scrutinized and analysed through a wide-range mathematical statistics method based on the "Dynamic-Pressure-State-Influence-Response" (DPSIR) model framework, and 15 strongly associated evaluation indexes were screened out and selected using the grey clustering method following the preliminary identification of 30 influence factors to determine the acting path between the influence factors of water resource safety and the appropriate scientific judgment method. An evaluation model was constructed by integrating the Entropy Weight Method (EWM) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The actually surveyed panel data of Hebei Province, China from 2012 to 2018 as taken for example, the weights and correlation functions of the influence factors were calculated, the feedback relationships between the subsystems of water resource safety were analysed, and the water resource safety levels of the criterion and target layers in this region were obtained. Results show that the water resource safety status in Hebei Province in 2012 - 2018 rises from weakly bearable level in 2017 to bearable level, indicating that Hebei Province has achieved good results in its water resource environmental management in recent years.The conclusions can provide governmental water resource management departments with a theoretical reference for scientifically identifying the regional water resource safety status and formulating management and control measures for water resource crisis.

Keywords

• public administration
• security assessment
• sustainable development
• water resources security