the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
The interprovincial green water flow in China and its tele-connected effects on socio-economy
Abstract. Green water (terrestrial evapotranspiration), flowing from source regions and precipitates downwind via moisture recycling, generates surface water resources and sustains socio-economy in sink regions. However, unlike blue water, there has been limited assessment of green water flows and their tele-connected effects on socio-economy. This study used the moisture tracking dataset of 2008–2017 to quantify interprovincial green water flows in China and their socio-economic contributions. Results reveal a complex flow network where green water of each province reciprocally exchanges with each other. Despite self-recycling, green water from source provinces mainly forms precipitation in neighboring provinces, with average interprovincial flow directions from west to east and south to north. About 56 % of total green water exported from 31 provinces retains at home and contributes 43 % of precipitation in China. Our assessments show that green water from source provinces embodies substantial socio-economic values for downwind provinces with regionally varying importance. Western provinces are the largest contributors to surface water resources while southwestern and central provinces embody the highest GDP, population, and food production. About 40 % surface water resources, 45 % GDP, 46 % population, and 50 % food production of China are supported by green water from 31 provinces. There is an overall increase in embodied socio-economic value of green water flow from source to sink provinces, suggesting that less developed provinces effectively support the higher socio-economic status of developed provinces through green water supply. The results emphasize the substantial tele-connected socio-economic values of green water and the need to incorporate it for a more comprehensive and effective water resources management.
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Status: open (until 17 Jul 2024)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-1420', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 Jun 2024
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Sang et al. studied the interprovincial connections of green water. They quantified this by calculate the precipitation of each province from the green water inside or outside the province. The work is based on the data generated from a previous particle tracking work. Authors connect the results with social-economic effects, which is very interesting and novel. The structure and writing of the paper are clear. However, I have some thoughts as follows:
- I don’t think authors have clear enough introduction about how they connect the green water with the social-economic value. The introduction is in lines 140-175, but not clear. There are even no dimensions of the variables, and it is hard to know the relationship between different variables in the equations.
- It looks like authors assume linear relationships between water and all the social-economic indices. I am not quite sure if this is rigorous. For example, whether the food productivity has the positive, linear relationship with water? Similar question to other social-economic indices.
- For the sections of sources and sinks of green water (sections 3.1 and 3.2), it is hard to say they are really novel as it looks like some known results with a new wrapper. You are talking about the evapotranspiration circulation by adding the ‘interprovincial’ concept.
- Authors said the data are high quality data from previous studies. I think a bit more introduction is necessary.
- It is a long-term dataset. So why not analyze the temporal variations of these teleconnections? I think this is more important to audience. The average state is also important, but they are the natural pattern which are caused by the long-term climatic conditions. We should know this basic pattern, but we cannot change it much. The more important thing is the temporal variations which represent the variations caused by some interannual variations of natural conditions or by man-made climate change. This is important to inform the future social-economic development, e.g., if such variations are good or bad and if we need actions to control or facilitate such variations.
I suggest major revision of this manuscript.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1420-RC1
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