*4.3. Advantages and Limitations*

This study constructed a virtual water network and explored its evolution, based on the long-time series of electricity transmission data. Compared to previous studies using MRIO tables [30], we directly used the power transmission table, which could avoid the bias from sector aggregation and monetary inhomogeneity in MRIO analysis. The water intensity data for power generation technologies dismissed the impacts of spatial distribution. For example, the special climate is various, and di fferent temperatures and wind speed influence the water evaporation of the reservoir. Moreover, the water coe fficient for thermal power plants had been reduced with the improvement of cooling systems in the decade [37].
