Spatiotemporal Evolution and Drivers of Chinese Industrial Virtual Water in International Trade

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

 

Thanks for revealing this interesting study about the evolution of virtual water consumption of the Chinese industries. Manuscript is well organized and written, and conclusions are well supported. However, there are certain concerns that should be considered before deserving being published in Water journal:

 

Comment 01) Is the quality of the water contemplated? Manuscript deals with water consumed to produce goods or provide services, but, is this water capable of being reused after being consumed by these industries? (Curiously, S20 changes to an import flow.) What percentage of this water is contaminated and, therefore, wasted? Pollution is taken into account throughout the whole manuscript: lines 381-4: "However, enjoying positive environmental effects through VW trade must also consider the sustainable use of the world’s resources and avoid bringing irreversible resources and environmental damage to other economies, especially developing countries or regions", lines 513-4: "These 513 industries have high pollution", lines 373-4: "exports are more often reflected in high pollution and low value-added industries", line 161: "without a clear description of the components of industrial water use"; however, this issue is not clearly tackled. Nevertheless, it is crucial, since a proper water treatment not only preserves the environment, but also reduces VW at the end, by sharing the same water several industries. It is even more important to analyze it in cases where industries' water excess goes to another country or to the sea, because in these cases the study may have a bias (i.e., benefits of China would be at other countries' expense). If water contamination has been considered, it must be declared clearly in the text; otherwise, it should be taken into account.

 

Comment 02) Another concern is related to the previous comment: is reused water measured somewhere in this study? Perhaps the increase of DIW and DFW can be linked to this fact? Please, provide a possible explanation to the potential reader.

 

Comment 03) A clearer description of the matrix used is recommended: 

03a) Line 119, 2.1: Components "M" and "L" of matrix Q, A and Wv should be declared or substituted by dots. It is suggested, in any case, using another letter, in order to avoid confusion with "Leontief inverse".

03b) Lines 121 and 140, 2.1: matrix representation should be different than variables (perhaps bold or capital Greek letters), to enhance clarity.

03c) 2.1: Why cells are described as "submatrix"? If they are, indeed, submatrix and not cells, a further definition is required.

03d) Line 140, equation 5: Mathematically, if "X" is a vector, this expression is not correct. It is suggested using exponent -1 to express the inverse matrix (i.e., W·X^(-1)).

03e) Line 151, 2.1: In the text it is defined the symbol "?̂?", but this is not included in the previous equation, but in section 2.2. Not clear what is the difference between "?̂?" and "??", since the last one is supposed to be a cell, not a matrix.

 

Comment 04) Further description about the obtention of equation 13 and the meaning of L^W is necessary (line 208, section 2.3).

 

Comment 05) It is recommended a short explanation in the figure 4 caption (line 388) about why only on the S1, S16 and/or S20 industries are presented their VW import flows.

 

Besides, I have found these typographic errors so far:

- Lines 294, 304 and 304: "3" as exponent.

- Line 419, Figure 5: "USA (The United States), ROW (rest of the world)" is repeated.

- Line 395: There is an extra "3".

 

Best regards.

 I have found these typographic errors so far:

- Lines 294, 304 and 304: "3" as exponent.

- Line 419, Figure 5: "USA (The United States), ROW (rest of the world)" is repeated.

- Line 395: There is an extra "3".

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to improve the manuscript. We have studied your valuable comments and tried our best to revise the manuscript. We hope this revision can make the manuscript more acceptable. The point-to-point responses to the comments are listed in the Microsoft Word document.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 This study examines the spatial and temporal characteristics of Chinese industrial Virtual Water (VW) in international trade from 2000 to 2014. A multiregional input-output (MRIO) model was used to measure the industrial VW flows between China and other economies with the consideration of intermediate production water consumption and indirect water use. A structural decomposition analysis (SDA) model was also used to identify the factors of the changes in industrial VW flows.

 

General Comments:

The objective of this study is straightforward, and the methodology is well-established. The analysis provides additional values to advance the knowledge of the research community. My major concern is the implications of the findings and how useful these findings in guiding water resource management in China at national level. A more critical discussion is also needed to relate the findings in this study with the existing studies (e.g., Chen et al., 2018) and within the context of international VW trade and to address the impacts of China’s industrial VW international trade on its water scarcity (L57-58).

Chen, W., Wu, S., Lei, Y., & Li, S. (2018). Virtual water export and import in China’s foreign trade: A quantification using input-output tables of China from 2000 to 2012. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 132, 278-290.

Specific Comments:

L82-84: Cai et al., (2019) did not assess drivers of VW flows in China’s foreign trade, instead, they analyzed the regional water scarcity in China. Please check the appropriate reference.

L310-313: It seems to me that the authors only present Figure 2 without any explanation of the figure. Please clarify and elaborate on the results.

L316-337: The results presented here seem to be more related to Figure 3 rather than Figure 2. More analysis should be provided on the production-side VW flow.

L352-353: Could the authors elaborate on the relationship between the VW imports and exports and China’s domestic water resources strategy please?

L379-381: A more in-depth discussion is needed to examine how VW trade alleviate pressure on domestic water resources and ecological conditions.

Remarks:

Figure 5: It seems to me that the labels “VW Importers” and “VW Exporters” should be the other way round. Please check.

 

no

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to improve the manuscript. We have studied your valuable comments and tried our best to revise the manuscript. We hope this revision can make the manuscript more acceptable. The point-to-point responses to the comments are listed in the Microsoft Word document.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I congratulate and welcome the chosen topic and analysis of the situation. To be honest, it was really interesting for me to see this research solution because I myself have been a supporter of Leontiev's theories. :) The biggest drawback is usually the lack of data to analyze and the capacity of statistical organizations to collect data. The interest and contribution of the authors are clearly visible. The structure of the article is transparent and the outline is easy to follow. The discussion part is easy to review.

I missed the emphasis on the practical significance and future application of the research.

If the authors would more carefully outline their research GAP, which they have solved and directed here, then there would be recommendations for future research. I think it should be pointed out.

 

must be improoved

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to improve the manuscript. We have studied your valuable comments and tried our best to revise the manuscript. We hope this revision can make the manuscript more acceptable. The point-to-point responses to the comments are listed in the Microsoft Word document.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution and drivers of Chinese industrial virtual water (VW) in international trade. which may provide a basis to explore the pathways to water conservation through VW trade strategies. This is an important and interesting topic to build linkages between industrial production, international trade and water resources management. However, there are some weaknesses in different parts of the manuscript. It needs revision to increase the scientific soundness of presented research. Below are major comments and suggestions for the authors' consideration.

 Abstract:

Please give the full name of “S3, S5, and S8” and ROW. Please also shorten the description of research results, and add key recommendations for water conservation in China based on these results.

 1. Introduction

Line 39-41: What are China’s strategies and measures for water conservation before 2019, especially those before and during the study period 2000-2014?

Line 62-74: please specify the regional focus, i.e. China or other countries, for each cited research.

Line 90-91: “Focusing on various industrial sectors, filling the gap in studying industrial VW in international trade” is not a complete sentence. Also, please specify the regional focus here.

Line 103-108: please rewrite the content of Section 2 and Section 3.

 2. Materials and Methods

Please add references for each method and database used in this study. Particularly, the authors mention they “developed” or “constructed” the MRIO model. Please elaborate what are the new elements of the MRIO model in this study compared to the previous studies.

 3. Results and discussion

Again, the authors need to compare their results to those of previous studies. At least, there are numerous studies that analyze industrial water use in China and can be used to cross check the results of this study.

 4. Conclusions

Line 514-516: “This trade structure is not conducive to water conservation in China’s industrial sector” is not a very strong argument for “industrial restructuring is urgently required”.

Line 521: “China imports VW mainly from … Taiwan, China.” is confusing for readers who are not familiar with China’s history. Do you mean “mainland China” at the beginning of this sentence? If yes, please make it clear in the data sources part.

English language is generally fine, but a few incomplete setences and strange words can be found in the manuscript. Therefore, I'd like to suggest a minor editing of English language.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to improve the manuscript. We have studied your valuable comments and tried our best to revise the manuscript. We hope this revision can make the manuscript more acceptable. The point-to-point responses to the comments are listed in the Microsoft Word document.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

In order not to make it too long here, I have answered your replies in the enclosed document, in blue. Please, find it attached.

Best regards.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you for your further review of our revised manuscript. We have carefully studied and responded to your suggestions, as shown in green font in the Microsoft Word text. Thank you for your recognition of our work.

Thank you and best regards.

The authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Thanks for making the addtional revisions. 

Author Response

Thank you and best regards.