*5.2. Suggestions*

From the perspective of planning the utilization of water resources nationwide, the research findings suggest reducing water pressures and virtual water-flow imbalances. The nationwide allocation of water resources and the rational use of precipitation in the territory can not only prevent floods and droughts, but also bring a sufficient water supply to China's industrial and agricultural development and residents' lives. It also has a certain value in transportation and power generation. There is little difference between the topography of North and South China, and water resources can be mobilized from north to south. The Beijing–Hangzhou canal and the middle route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project are examples of the North–South distribution of water resources in China. In addition to these two major projects, China can also carry out the large-scale networking of rivers, lakes, and other water areas across the country to make them interconnected. In the case of a flood in a certain place, the excess water could be transferred to another area with fewer water resources. In the case of a drought in a certain place, the water resources of other areas could be mobilized to supplement it, so as to avoid the waste of water resources and maximize the utilization of water resources. According to the decision-making process and

the deployment of water-resource management in China, the multi-functional properties of water resources could be fully accomplished in the near future. Under the overall framework of the distribution scheme of the available water supply of the Yellow River, taking into account the ecological water demand, sediment transport volume, external water transfer volume, and water-use structure of provinces along the Yellow River Basin, a joint water-supply pattern of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River will be formed, a dynamic water-distribution scheme of the Yellow River Basin will be constructed, the water-right transfer and compensation system will be gradually improved, and the linkage mechanism between water-use indicators and land indicators will be explored. This will result in comprehensively coordinating the relationship between water, energy, and food; limiting water use for fossil energy development; improving the utilization efficiency of agricultural water resources; building a wind–water complementary power generation system, and implementing the transmission, storage, and utilization of hydrogen energy at normal temperatures and pressures. Ideally, water-scarce regions will import waterintensive products to meet the production and consumption of the region, rather than relying on local production, so as to protect the domestic water resources. In this case, the water resources required by the whole production chain actually come from export to import regions through interregional trade.

According to the research results mentioned above, this paper puts forward the following suggestions in order to achieve the rational allocation of water resources:


**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, X.L. and R.X.; methodology, X.L.; software, R.X.; validation, R.X. and X.L.; formal analysis, R.X.; investigation, R.X., X.L., P.G. and L.N.; data curation, W.L.; writing—original draft preparation, R.X.; writing—review and editing, J.C. and Q.S.; visualization, Q.S.; supervision, X.L. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42001257 and Grant No. 71874119), the Philosophy and Social Sciences Research of Higher Learning Institutions of Shanxi (Grant No. 20210115), the Shanxi Postgraduate Education Innovation Project (Grant No. 2021Y571), and the Research Project of Social and Economic Statistics in Shanxi Province (Grant No. KY2021113).

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Ethical review and approval were waived for this study, due to studies not involving humans or animals.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The input-output table data are from *China's carbon accounting database*, and the water use and GDP data can be obtained from *China's statistical yearbook*.

**Acknowledgments:** We also thank our anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful suggestions.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **References**

