Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Evaluating the ability of transformed urban agglomerations to achieve

Sustainable Development Goal 6 from the perspective of the water
planetary boundary: Evidence from Guanzhong in China
Yi Yang *, Yi Cheng
School of Economics and Management, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, 710054, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Editor:Bin Chen Differences in water resource endowment and socio-economic development of transformed urban agglomera­
tions (TUAs) lead to differences in the ability of cities to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6), which
Keywords: inevitably underestimates the possibility of water crises. This study employs the water footprint (WF) and
Water footprint reduced water planetary boundary (WPB) as absolute environmental sustainability indicators and uses a drive-
Sustainable development goals
pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) framework to describe the spatio-temporal differences and evolutionary
Water planetary boundary
characteristics of the ability of a TUA to achieve SDG6. This study takes the Guanzhong urban agglomeration
DPSIR framework
Transformed urban agglomeration (GUA) in China as a case. The WF of GUA increased from 19.55 billion m3 to 23.44 billion m3 in 2007–2018, but
Guanzhong it increased initially and then fell. The proportion of the ecological environment WF increased by 1.41%, which is
in line with SDG6.4 and SDG6.6. However, WF is larger than WPB. The water deficit was within the interval of [6
billion m3, 23 billion m3]. The pressure subsystems in Tongchuan and Weinan were as high as 28.80%, and the
response subsystems in Xi’an and Baoji had the highest weights of 33.79% and 25.84%, respectively. Thus, GUA
is under severe water pressure. Causal chain relationships between the socio-economic activities of each city in
the water resource system were not the same, reflecting a spatial difference in the ability to achieve SDG6. To this
end, this study proposes the potential value and policy implications of reducing the differences in the ability of
cities to achieve SDG6 to avoid water crises in TUAs.

1. Introduction requires water resources to be sustainable in terms of supporting urban

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the global urbanization
process has been accelerating. It is estimated that 66% of the population
will live in cities by 2050 (United Nations, 2014). The resulting shortage
of water resources will increase the possibility of conflicts among
stakeholders in urban agglomerations (Jia et al., 2020) and will cause
the original uneven distribution of water resources to evolve into a water
shortage crisis (Lv et al., 2020). At present, more than 2 billion people in
the world still live in water-scarce countries, with 31 countries having
water pressure thresholds between 25% and 70% and 22 countries
having water pressure thresholds greater than 70% (UN-Water, 2016).
Among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the
United Nations, the goal to “ensure the supply and sustainable management
of water and sanitation facilities for all” is defined as SDG6. SDG6 not only
development and ecological service value, but also requires the ability to
maintain or improve living standards without damaging the access of
future generations to water resources. There is a serious shortage of
water resources in China, which is listed by the United Nations as one of
the 13 most water-poor countries. Northwest China is arid, and water
resources are unevenly distributed in spatio-temporal. The land area of
Northwest China accounts for 41.4% of the country’s total land area, but
the total annual water resources account for only approximately 10%
(Wang et al., 2019). Water shortages have become a problem that re­
stricts the sustainable use of water resources in the north-western urban
agglomerations. In recent years, the Guanzhong urban agglomeration
(GUA) has leaped from the middle to latter stages of industrialization.
The speed of transformation has accelerated, manifested in population
growth and industrial agglomeration. As a result, the demand for water

Abbreviations: DPSIR, drive-pressure-state-impact-response; EPC, equal per capita; GUA, Guanzhong urban agglomeration; LCA, life cycle assessment; PBs,
planetary boundaries; SDGs, sustainable development goals; TUAs, transformed urban agglomerations; WF, water footprint; WPB, water planetary boundary.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yangyi_nwpu@xaut.edu.cn (Y. Yang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128038
Received 15 March 2021; Received in revised form 2 June 2021; Accepted 18 June 2021
Available online 20 June 2021
0959-6526/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
resources has increased, with a concomitant increase in sewage treat­
ment volume. However, the ability to increase the water supply and
improve water quality has not been enhanced. The development of
urban agglomerations has made it difficult to eliminate practical prob­
lems related to path dependence and achieve SDG6.3 and SDG 6.4. In
addition, the rural water intake facilities in the GUA are backward, and
the quality of drinking water is substandard. There is a large gap in the
ability to achieve SDG6.1. However, since most household drinking
water treatment equipment available on the market is relatively
expensive, there is a lack of cheap and affordable filters and treatment
technologies for household sewage in rural areas (Hussain and
Al-Fatlawi, 2020). The rural drinking water in the GUA still poses a large
potential safety hazard, which seriously affects the health of rural resi­
dents. The complex relationships among the sub goals of the 17 SDGs (Fu
et al., 2019) make it particularly difficult for transformed urban ag­
glomerations (TUAs) to realize SDG6. One of the salient features of TUAs
is that with rapid population growth and the rapid expansion of urban
space, water resources have undergone a rapidly changing relationship
with the socio-economic system. Due to the large differences in regional
resource endowments and uneven load of pollutants (Shi et al., 2015),
this condition has led to “polluted paradise”. Therefore, it is determined
that the key to enhancing the stability of the ecosystem and improving
people’s livelihoods is to assess whether the water resource utilization of
TUAs reaches the level required by SDG6. Achieving SDG6 presents an
opportunity for TUAs and a basis for coping with new water challenges.
Water resource constraint is a long-term problem that hinders the
sustainable development of TUAs. It is particularly important to carry
out assessments of the sustainability of water resources. The realization
of SDG6 within the safe operation boundary of water resources is a
difficult problem. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been used in envi­
ronmental sustainability assessment. The objects of research and dis­
cussion are usually related to products and services (Khoo et al., 2019;
Vinci et al., 2019). Moreover, most traditional LCA do not consider the
impact related to the use of water and ignore the problem associated
with the total amount of water used for the production of products,
which underestimates the damage to the environment (Payen et al.,
2015). To make up for this shortcoming, studies have combined LCA and
the water footprint (WF) to assess the impact of freshwater use (Deka­
min et al., 2018). However, the results obtained by LCA can show only
the proportion of the WF in each account in the entire life cycle and thus
cannot quantitatively reflect the WF. Rockström et al. (2009) set the
safety boundary with seven physical biological processes and proposed a
framework of planetary boundaries (PBs) that may cause irreversible
and nonlinear changes in the earth system. The global environmental
sustainability standard is based on the PBs. PBs define environmentally
safe operation spaces in consideration of human well-being and devel­
opment and overcome the shortcoming of LCA, which quantifies only
small changes in environmental interference levels (Bjørn et al., 2016).
It is possible to combine LCA and PBs to assess environmental sustain­
ability (Tuomisto et al., 2012), which is a relative environmental sus­
tainability evaluation method. However, PBs based on LCA will lead to
uncertainty in the results due to issues such as the definitions of the
thresholds (Sala et al., 2020). LCA focuses on global issues (Dong and
Hauschild, 2017), and it is difficult to account for regional differences in
water resources (Ryberg et al., 2016). In addition, LCA is
product-oriented, and it is usually used to compare alternatives and
evaluate the environmental impacts of different products based on the
same method (Karlsson Potter and Röös, 2021). However, a single
product has a small impact on the water planetary boundary (WPB).
Therefore, WPB cannot be used as a benchmark for LCA, and an “absolute
environmental sustainability index” needs to be established to measure the
threshold of the earth’s boundary (Bunsen et al., 2021). Accordingly, the
method combining the WF and WPB provides a new perspective for
evaluating the sustainable use of water resources. It can measure the
sustainability gap between the current scale of human activities and the
capacity thresholds of the water resource environment (Fang et al.,
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Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
2015). Although the global WPB has not been surpassed, excessive water
withdrawal in some areas will cause the collapse of the regional water
resource environment (Gerten et al., 2013), which means that exceeding
the regional boundary may cause irreversible damage to the water
resource environment. The uneven distribution of water consumption
pressure and the related benefits among regions or groups of people will
cause problems in environmental justice, responsibility sharing, and
scarce resource allocation. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
clearly puts forward fair but differentiated responsibilities. Using the
principle of fair quotas to reduce WPB is conducive to balancing the
pressure on regional water consumption. The PBs framework defines the
biophysical boundaries of the critical earth system. To avoid irreversible
changes and ensure that the earth system is in the current Holocene-like
state, human activities should be restricted to PBs. However, the relative
environmental sustainability assessment method cannot judge the ab­
solute sustainable nature of a certain human activity (International
Organization for Standardization, 2006). Therefore, it is necessary to
reduce the size of the entire safe operation space to reflect the spatial
differences in local water resources (Huang et al., 2020). Assigning WPB
to activities, regions and other research subjects not only sets reasonable
goals for assessing the sustainability of water use and its influencing
factors (Dong et al., 2021), but also provides a basis for policy formu­
lation and guidance on the use of water resources. The 17 SDGs were
formulated based on national governing principles and ignored the
importance of the diversity of local government water management
policies, which are the basis of sustainable development actions (Gil
et al., 2019). Considering only a country or certain city cannot funda­
mentally solve the problem of water shortages in urban agglomerations.
The WF reflects the water consumption in a country, province, city or
river basin. It can be used to evaluate the impact of human activities on
the sustainability of water resources in different regions (Cao et al.,
2018). However, the ability of the figures calculated according to the WF
and WPB to reflect impacts on the environment and sustainability is
limited. It is necessary to apply the drive-pressure-state-impact-response
(DPSIR) framework to further explore the changing characteristics of the
complex relationship between water resources, the environment, and
social and economic activities (Peng and Deng, 2020). Although it is
difficult to connect the pressure changes of the earth system with the
corresponding responses, it is still necessary to connect the drive of
socio-economic development and the increasing environmental pressure
with the response and avoid simple linear causal thinking by analysing
paths of mutual influence. Therefore, it is necessary to combine foot­
prints, PBs, and DPSIR to explore how the earth system responds to the
pressure measured by footprint indicators (Vanham et al., 2019). This
study proposes that there are differences in the ability to achieve SDG6
between regions. A key prerequisite is to quantify the occupation of
water resources by human activities and make it clear that these pres­
sures pose a threat to the water resource environment that can provide
human survival and development capabilities. Therefore, the WPB is
reduced based on the principle of fair quotas, and the WF and WPB are
used to represent water consumption and its safety limits, respectively.
In contrast to the sub-goals of SDG6, the DPSIR framework is used to
construct a water resource sustainable development assessment frame­
work, taking the GUA as a case study.
The main contributions of this study involve the following two as­
pects. Firstly, a method for assessing the absolute sustainability of water
resources in the TUAs is established by combining the WF and the
reduced WPB. The DPSIR framework is constructed to explore the
complex relationship between water resources and socio-economic ac­
tivities for comparative analysis of the capabilities and differences of the
cities in the TUAs in achieving SDG6, which is beneficial for summari­
zing, innovating and enriching water resource ecological space gover­
nance practices. Secondly, the uneven distribution of water
consumption pressure and related benefits will affect environmental
justice, responsibility sharing, and scarce resource allocation, which will
hinder coordinated development strategies for the TUAs. This study
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
holds that narrowing the differences in the ability of cities to achieve
SDG6 can enable the TUAs to meet new water challenges and avoid
water crises, indicating its potential value and policy implications. By
comparing the changing trends of water consumption in cities, it pro­
poses possible paths by which the TUAs can realize SDG6, broadens the
study and application fields of 17 SDGs in the TUAs, and provides a
scientific basis for local governments to formulate relevant policies. The
paper is organized as follows. Section 2 elaborates on the study area,
methods and data after the introduction. Section 3 discusses the dy­
namic changes in the WF and the changing characteristics of the sus­
tainable use of water resources and their spatial and temporal evolution.
Section 4 discusses the main contributions of this study compared with
existing research. Finally, section 5 draws conclusions, provides sug­
gestions, and identifies limitations.
2. Methods and data sources
2.1. Study area
The GUA (Fig. 1) is located in the Weihe River Basin between the
Northern Shaanxi Plateau and the Qinling Mountains.
The GUA has a flat terrain, diverse industries and good agricultural
production conditions. The GUA is one of the regions with relatively
good resource endowments in Northwest China. The GUA includes five
cities: Xi’an, Xianyang, Baoji, Tongchuan, Weinan, and the Yangling
Agricultural High-tech Industry Demonstration Zone (Yangling for
short). The GUA had a land area of 55,600 km2 (Shaanxi Provincial
Bureau of Statistics, 2019), accounting for 27.05% of Shaanxi Province
(Shaanxi for short). In 2020, the GUA had a permanent population of 25,
875,539 (Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics, 2021a) and a GDP of
245.05 billion USD (Shaanxi Provincial Bureau of Statistics, 2021b),
accounting for 65.46% and 64.56% of those of Shaanxi, respectively.
According to the income standard released by the World Bank in 2020
(The word bank, 2020), the per capita income level increased from the
“low-middle income” level of 1,475 USD per person in 2007 to the
“high-middle income” level of 8,625 USD per person in 2017, with
obvious transition characteristics.
According to current United Nations standards, a country with per
capita water resources of less than 1700 m3 will encounter water
shortages (Eurostst Statistics Explained, 2019). In 2018, China’s per
capita water resources was 1971.80 m3 (National Bureau of Statistics,
2018), while that of the GUA was only 299.65 m3 (Shaanxi Provincial
Bureau of Statistics, 2019), which is less than 1/6 of the national per
capita average. The GUA was experiencing an extreme water shortage.
Fig. 1. The location of the Guanzhong urban agglomeration in Shaanxi Province.
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Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
In terms of water resources, the GUA has abundant rainfall and abun­
dant surface water and groundwater resources. However, the water
system is affected by a reduction in river flow during the dry season, and
the water body has poor self-purification capabilities, which can easily
lead to heavy pollution. In the past ten years, the largest amount of water
resources was 11.87 billion m3 in 2011 (Shaanxi Provincial Water Re­
sources Department, 2011), and the smallest was 5.23 billion m3 in 2016
(Shaanxi Provincial Water Resources Department, 2016). The GDP of
the GUA grew at an average annual rate of 14.15% from 2007 to 2018.
However, the average annual growth rate of total water resources was
only 2.83%. Although the water consumption per ten thousand RMB of
the GDP in 2018 was 36.23 m3, it decreased by 262.85% from 131.46 m3
in 2007. Thus, the contradiction between water supply and demand
remains prominent, and water utilization efficiency still needs to be
improved. At the same time, the water quality of the GUA has not
improved significantly. The amount of waste and sewage discharge
increased from 0.79 billion m3 in 2007 to 0.98 billion m3 in 2018,
resulting in a sharp decrease in the amount of available water resources.
According to the Bulletin of the State of the Ecological Environment for each
city (district) in the GUA in 2019, the concentration of pollutants such as
ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus and the permanganate index in
Xi’an exceeded the standard. The water quality status of the Sanlidong
monitoring section and fork monitoring section in Tongchuan indicated
light pollution and moderate pollution, respectively. The fragility of the
water resource system caused by the decline in the total amount of water
resources and water pollution is becoming a problem that cannot be
ignored if the GUA hopes to achieve SDG6.
2.2. Methods
2.2.1. Modelling: general remarks
The WF includes accounts such as the agricultural production WF,
industrial production WF, daily life of residents WF, ecological envi­
ronment WF, and imported and export virtual water. By narrowing the
WPB, it can be applied to areas below the global scale. Compare it with
the WF to evaluate the sustainability of water resources and determine
the amounts of water deficit and water surplus, which are indicators of
whether the regional water resources comply with SDG6. If the region
does not meet the SDG6 standard, a DPSIR model needs to be established
to analyse the spatio-temporal characteristics of water resource sus­
tainability (Fig. 2).
2.2.2. Calculation of the water footprint
The WF refers to the real amount of water resources consumed by
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038

Fig. 2. Method flowchart.

products and services to meet the needs of residents under a certain
standard of living (Hoekstra, 2003). The Water Footprint Network
developed the international standard for WF evaluation (Water footprint
network, 2019), dividing the national consumption WF calculation
methods into two types: “bottom-up” and “top-down”. The former is based
on the perspective of consumption, considering that products and ser­
vices have greater mobility, and water consumption may stem from
other regions. This method is more suitable for WF calculations for in­
dividuals, companies, and communities for which import and export
data cannot be obtained. The latter is based on the assumption of local
water resource consumption and can account for the national WF from
the perspective of production (Hoekstra, 2009). This study uses the
“top-down” method to calculate the direct WF and indirect WF (Li et al.,
2017). The WF calculation formulas are provided in Appendix B Eqs.
(B.1) - (B.3).
2.2.3. Setting the water planetary boundary
The WPB quantifies the space for the safe operation of human ac­
tivities on a global scale. The equal per capita (EPC) (Lucas et al., 2020)
method is used to allocate the global budget according to the share of the

Fig. 3. A DPSIR framework that reflects the causal chain relationship between urban social and economic activities and the water resource system.

4
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
population of a certain region in the global population. This method can
be applied to regions smaller than the national scale. When the WF is
greater than the WPB, the regional water intake exceeds the safe range,
resulting in a water deficit. The larger the water deficit is, the less sus­
tainable the use of water resources. When the WF is smaller than the
WPB, a water surplus is generated. The larger the water surplus is, the
higher the level of sustainable use of water resources (Fang, 2014). The
WPB calculation formulas are provided in Appendix B Eqs. (B.4) - (B.6).
2.2.4. Establishment of the DPSIR model
In 1999, the European Environment Agency developed a compre­
hensive environmental reporting and assessment framework (European
Environment Agency, 1999). The DPSIR model describes the causal
relationship between human needs and behaviours and the ecological
environment system (Pinto et al., 2013), laying a foundation for eval­
uating the role of TUAs’ water resource systems in achieving the SDGs.
In the causal chain relationship between urban social and economic
activities and the water resource system (Fig. 3), GDP growth, popula­
tion growth, and increases in cultivated area are factors that drive
changes in the water resource system.
The impact of water quality and water volume under the pressure of
water resources and other water resources thereby affects the water
environment and highlights the need to implement response measures to
improve the environment (Sun et al., 2016). Based on the degree of
impact of each indicator on the sustainable development of water re­
sources, the weight of each factor is determined by the entropy method
(Yang and Hu, 2019). The calculation formulas are provided in Ap­
pendix B Eqs. (B.7) - (B.10).
2.3. Data sources
First, to calculate the WF, data were obtained from the 2008–2019
Shaanxi Provincial Statistical Yearbook and the 2007–2018 Shaanxi Water
Resources Bulletin. The exchange rate of USD to RMB from 2007 to 2018
was obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics, and missing data
were extrapolated using the average annual growth rates.
Second, to calculate the WPB, permanent population data on the
GUA were obtained from the 2008–2019 Shaanxi Provincial Statistical
Yearbook, and data on the total world population were obtained from the
Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Dynamics
(United Nations, 2019). The global WPB was set to 4,000 billion m3
(Steffen et al., 2015).
Finally, data on the DPSIR indicators were obtained from the
2008–2019 Shaanxi Provincial Statistical Yearbook, the national
Fig. 4. The dynamic changes in the WF of the GUA from 2007 to 2018.
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Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
economic development bulletins of the cities (districts) in the GUA, and
government websites. Missing data were replaced with existing year
data. The forest coverage area was replaced by forestland area. Data
were obtained from the Resource and Environment Data Center of the
Chinese Academy of Sciences, including raster data for 2010, 2015, and
2018. The data source is Landsat TM/ETM remote sensing images,
which have an accuracy of 1,000 m.
3. Results
3.1. Dynamic changes in the water footprint
Both the total WF and the WF of each city showed a trend of rising
initially and then falling from 2007 to 2018 (Fig. 4). The total WF in the
GUA increased from 19.55 billion m3 in 2007 to 23.44 billion m3 in
2018, which was an increase of 19.93%. Since 2007, the permanent
population of urban agglomerations has increased by 1,124,400, which
shows that concentration and rapid population growth has accelerated
the growth of the water demand. Water consumption has also increased
with the increase of the urbanization rate, improvement of living stan­
dards and improvement of water supporting facilities. The WF of GUA
dropped from 29.79 billion m3 to 23.44 billion m3 in 2016–2018. The
decline in the WF reflects the increased awareness of the damage caused
by socio-economic development to the water resource environment. The
water-saving society construction plan has be issued by Shaanxi in 2017.
On the one hand, the plan improved the construction of a water-saving
system. On the other hand, it controlled the total water resource con­
sumption and increased the construction of water-saving infrastructure
and the improvement of water-saving technologies. The water-saving
measures taken by cities have achieved good results in line with
SDG6.4: “Improve water efficiency to ensure sustainable water use”. Due to
the different geographical locations and production factors of the cities
in the GUA, the WF also showed great differences. Weinan’s WF was the
largest at 7.71 billion m3 in 2018, and Xianyang also reached 7.62
billion m3, accounting for 65.40% of the total WF. Weinan and Xianyang
are located in the hinterland of the Guanzhong Plain, with superior
agricultural production conditions and rich agricultural production re­
sources. This position reflects Weinan’s role as an important agricultural
product base in China and the best agro-ecological zone in Shaanxi. The
largest outputs of Shaanxi are grain, cotton and oilseeds. Agricultural
production WF accounts for more than 90% of the total WF in Weinan.
Xianyang has developed agriculture, complete industrial categories and
rapid economic development. It is the largest agricultural city in Shaanxi
and the country’s largest production base for high-quality apples.
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038

Therefore, agricultural production has a higher demand for water of sustainable water use. The results showed that the WF of the GUA was
resources. greater than the WPB (Fig. 6) from 2007 to 2018, resulting in a water
According to the comparison of the proportions of the GUA’s WF deficit.
accounts in 2007 and 2018 (Fig. 5), the agricultural production WF has The water deficit increased from 5.61 billion m3 in 2007 to 14.29
always accounted for a relatively large proportion of the total WF. In billion m3 in 2010, with an increase of 154.57%, and the unsustain­
2018, the planting area for crops increased by 22,500 ha compared with ability of water resources increased. The Weihe River flows through
2007, and the output of crops also increased by 8,118,100 tons. The Baoji, Xianyang, Xi’an, Weinan and other cities in the GUA. During this
demand for agricultural production water is high, and the proportions in period, the discharge of industrial wastewater and domestic wastewater
2007 and 2018 were both over 90%. The industrial production WF led to serious pollution in the Weihe River, undermined local water
dropped from 4.26% in 2007 to 3.66% in 2018, and industrial water security and exacerbated problems related to water shortages. This is
consumption was well controlled. This is mainly due to the govern­ contrary to SDG6.4. The water deficit grew steadily, from 14.05 billion
ment’s vigorous efforts to promote water-saving work in high-water- m3 to 16.52 billion m3, an increase of 17.37% from 2011 to 2017. The
consumption industries and improve the water efficiency behaviour. water deficit dropped significantly by 35.75% from 2017 to 2018,
In addition, industrial enterprises have also increased the number of highlighting the initial success of water pollutant reduction and control
high-tech enterprises with low water consumption by realizing the measures and ensuring the supply of water resources.
transformation of the industrial structure, improving industrial water- In terms of the changes in the water deficit of each city (Fig. 7),
saving technology, and establishing water-saving measures in various Xianyang has the highest water deficit, followed by Weinan. The water
production links. deficits of Xianyang in 2016 and Weinan in 2017 reached the highest
The proportion of the ecological environment WF increased by levels at 7.81 billion m3 and 5.31 billion m3, respectively. Xianyang has
1.41%, indicating the improvement of the urban water environment by a considerable volume of transit water, which is difficult to use. The
the increased amount of ecological water supply in rivers, lakes, wet­
lands and the achievement of urban ecological balance, which is in line
with SDG6.6. For example, Xi’an aims to improve the urban water
environment and build a “green lung” in the city, and further open up
the river and lake system. The Xi’an moat, which has a history of more
than 600 years and surrounds the ancient city wall over a distance of
14.6 km, has been transformed into an important public recreation area.
Chanba National Wetland Park, which is located at the confluence of the
Bahe and Weihe rivers, now has a water area of 1.5 km2. Historical sites
such as Seoul Lake, Qujiang Pond, and Weiyang Lake have become not
only famous scenic spots that are free and open but also one of the water
sources for local residents’ water use and daily life, increasing the urban
landscape water surface from 180,000 m2 to 362,000 m2. The decline in
the proportion of the water consumption in the daily life of residents
indicates that the public’s awareness of the importance of water con­
servation is gradually increasing. The proportion of imported and
exported virtual water has increased significantly, mainly due to
changes in the virtual water volume of imports and exports in Xi’an. Due
to the high degree of industrial agglomeration in the GUA, the cross-
regional management of water resources is the key to achieving
SDG6.5 in TUAs.

3.2. Changing characteristics of the sustainable use of water resources

Fig. 6. The dynamic changes in WPB, WF and water deficit of the GUA from
2007 to 2018.
The reduction in the WPB based on the EPC method reflects the level

Fig. 5. Comparison on the proportions of GUA’s WF accounts in 2007 and 2018.

6
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
Fig. 7. The water deficit of each region of the GUA from 2007 to 2018.
distributions of surface water and groundwater are unbalanced. The
total amount of water resources in Weinan is insufficient, which makes it
difficult to meet the needs of urban development. Xi’an had surpluses in
2007 and 2008 of 0.74 billion m3 and 0.09 billion m3, respectively.
However, the water deficit fluctuated from 2009 to 2015 and reached
the highest level of 0.94 billion m3 in 2015. Xi’an is the only national
central city in northwest China, where the per capita GDP reached
15,000 USD in 2020. Xi’an occupies only 25% of the land area of the
GUA, but its total population exceeds 40% of the total population of the
GUA, and its GDP exceeds 60% of that of the GUA. However, the per
capita water resources of Xi’an are only 260 m3, which is far lower than
the internationally recognized minimum threshold of 500 m3, which
indicates that it is a typical water shortage city. To become a national
water-saving city, Xi’an promoted its transition to a sponge city.
Through ecological projects such as river restoration, wetlands, and
moats, the existing wetland area has reached 40,000 ha, and degraded
ecological functions have been gradually restored. The types and
Fig. 8. The difference in the weight of the DPSIR subsystem that affects the ability of the GUA to achieve SDG6.
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Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
numbers of wild animal and plant resources have increased consider­
ably. The water quality and ecological environment of the wetlands have
been notably improved. Xi’an transformed its water deficit into a water
surplus from 2016 to 2018. In 2017, the utilization of water resources
was close to break even. Xi’an achieved a water surplus of 1.79 billion
m3 in 2018 and had an improvement in water use efficiency.
3.3. Spatio-temporal evolution of the sustainable use of water resources
3.3.1. Spatial dimension
The factors affecting the achievement of SDG6 in each city in a TUA
differ, showing unbalanced characteristics (Fig. 8). The pressure sub­
systems of Tongchuan, Xianyang and Weinan have the highest weights,
at 28.80%, 24.39% and 28.80%, respectively, indicating that the main
factor affecting the ability of these cities to achieve SDG6 is the pressure
of urban development. The weight of the urbanization rate and water
consumption per ten thousand RMB of the GDP is the highest in the
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
pressure subsystem.
The urbanization rates of Tongchuan, Xianyang and Weinan
increased by 13.84%, 33.86%, and 53.58% from 2007 to 2018,
respectively, indicating that urban expansion and population agglom­
eration put pressure on the water resources. The decline in water con­
sumption per ten thousand RMB of the GDP indicates that there is still
room for improvement in water resource utilization. The weights of the
response subsystems in Xi’an and Baoji are 33.79% and 25.84%,
respectively. The forest coverage rate and water saving irrigation rate of
Xi’an and Baoji have the highest weights in the response subsystem, with
Xi’an being 37.08% and 33.46%, respectively, and Baoji being 39.67%
and 18.63%, indicating that measures such as increasing forest coverage
and water-saving irrigation can alleviate the pressure on water re­
sources. In addition, in the driving subsystem of Xi’an, the change rate of
the permanent population and the total permanent population have the
highest intra-group weights, which are 33.25% and 29.92%, respec­
tively. Xi’an is the only national central city in the western region, and
its permanent population ranks first in the GUA. In 2018, the permanent
population of Xi’an was 10 million persons, which was an increase of
1.698 million persons over 2007. The relatively high and increasing
total population has caused serious pressure on the water resources in
Xi’an. Among the pressure subsystem of Baoji, industrial production
water consumption and the urbanization rate have the highest intra-
group weights, which are 25.12% and 19.56% respectively. It is neces­
sary to pay attention to the negative impact of industrial water
Fig. 9. The annual dynamic changes in the causal chain relationship and weight of each subsystem in the GUA from 2007 to 2018.
8
Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
consumption and accelerated urbanization on the sustainable develop­
ment of water resources. The weight of Yangling’s impact subsystem is
29.53%, indicating that the reduction in water resources and the decline
in water quality have a certain impact on reducing the sustainable level
of Yangling’s water resources. In the response subsystem, the forest
coverage rate and ecological environment water consumption have the
highest intra-group weights, which are 39.29% and 38.37%, respec­
tively. The intra-group weight of the change rate of the permanent
population in the driving subsystem is the highest, at 62.22%, indicating
that water resources in Yangling are available. These findings indicate
that the sustainable development of water resources in Yangling cannot
be separated from the increase in forest coverage and ecological envi­
ronment water consumption, and the impact of population growth on
water resources should also be prevented.
3.3.2. Temporal dimension
The causal chain relationship (Fig. 9) between socio-economic ac­
tivities and the water resource system differs, reflecting the differences
in the ability of each city to achieve SDG6. The causal chain relation­
ships in Xi’an and Baoji are “drive-pressure-state-impact-response-pressure-
drive” and “drive-pressure-state-impact-response-pressure”. The weight of
the response subsystem increased by 4.10% and 15.44%, respectively,
reflecting the effectiveness of water resource governance measures
taken in Xi’an and Baoji. Xi’an and Baoji have established themselves as
“National Forest Cities” by building forest parks, promoting natural
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
forest protection, returning farmland to forests, and creating key pro­
tected forests (Shaanxi Provincial People’s Government, 2018). The
forest coverage rate was above 30%, with outstanding results towards
achieving SDG6.3, SDG6.4, and SDG6.6 from 2007 to 2018. The
response subsystem of Xi’an has a positive impact on the drive subsys­
tem and the pressure subsystem. The weight of the drive subsystem
increased from 22.55% in 2007 to 39.66% in 2018, and the weight of the
pressure subsystem decreased by 19.87%, indicating that Xi’an’s
response measures not only promoted its ability to achieve SDG6 but
also relieved the pressure on water resources to a certain extent. The
weight of Baoji’s pressure subsystem dropped from 25.57% in 2007 to
22.38% in 2018. At the same time, the drive subsystem dropped from
21.15% to 16.93%. The response measures only eased the pressure on
water resources and did not play a driving role in the social economy. To
achieve SDG6.3, it has invested in comprehensive water environment
management projects in key river basins for sewage collection and
pipeline network construction, river treatment and wetland restoration
in Baoji. The water resource pollution control and comprehensive river
basin management capabilities have been greatly improved. However,
the distribution of surface water resources in Baoji is not balanced.
Governance measures have not fundamentally alleviated the contra­
diction between the spatial distribution of water resources and the
development layout of Baoji.
Both the Tongchuan and Yangling causality chain relationships are
characterized by a “drive-pressure-state-impact-response”. The weights of
the pressure subsystems in Tongchuan and Yangling were 30.28% and
11.19% in 2018, respectively. Compared with Tongchuan, Yangling’s
water resources are driven by population growth and development,
which generate less pressure than those in Tongchuan. The weight of
Yangling’s response subsystem increased from 4.44% in 2007 to 23.49%
in 2018, and the wastewater treatment rate increased by 60.45%. Ac­
cording to the Environmental Quality Bulletin of the Yangling Demonstra­
tion Zone in 2018, the improvement in urban water environment quality
in Yangling ranked first in the province in 2018 (Management Com­
mittee of Yangling Agricultural High-tech Industry Demonstration Zone,
2019). The weight of Tongchuan’s response subsystem first increased to
the highest level of 26.87% in 2015 and then dropped to 16.33%,
reflecting that the policies adopted by Tongchuan to help it achieve
SDG6 need to be improved. The causal chains of Weinan and Xianyang
are both “drive-pressure-state-impact”, and the weight of the response
subsystem decreased from 28.77% to 21.85% in 2007 to 7.65% and
6.96% in 2018, respectively. The response measures have had little ef­
fect on water environment governance. In terms of response measures,
Weinan has built 6 industrial sewage treatment plants and 13 urban
sewage treatment plants. The improvement in river water quality ranked
second of all cities in the province in 2018 (Weinan Ecological Envi­
ronment Bureau, 2019). The wastewater treatment rate in Xianyang has
continuously improved. The results have been remarkable in achieving
SDG6.3. Wastewater treatment plants and new technologies can elimi­
nate pollutants and specific pathogens in wastewater (Singh, 2021). For
example, the approach of nitrifying-enriched activated sludge can lower
fouling and enhance the nitrification efficiency. In this way, the oper­
ating efficiency of the membrane bioreactor is improved, so that the
water reuse applications can be applied to wastewater treatment
(Sepehri and Sarrafzadeh, 2018). This can facilitate the recycling and
reuse of water resources, ensure human health and the supply of water
resources (Chen et al., 2020c), and promote the realization of SDG6. The
water-saving irrigation rate in Xianyang increased from 55.49% in 2007
to 68.08% in 2018, and the city was listed as a “National Water-saving
Society Construction Demonstration Zone” (Xianyang People’s Gov­
ernment, 2015), which is in line with SDG6.4.
4. Discussion
The 17 SDGs provide a global strategic framework for pursuing social
prosperity without compromising environmental sustainability, which
9
Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
is characterized by systemic complexity (Fu et al., 2019). Water quality
assessment plays an important role in sustainable development research
and has become a hot spot in environmental study (Zhang, 2019). In
recent years, due to the dynamic complexity of the water resource sys­
tem in the TUAs affected by many factors, SDG6 has become an
important standard for comprehensively evaluating the degree of sus­
tainable utilization of water resources from the perspective of water
quality and water demand. Assessing urban water security is conducive
to protecting water resources and contributing to the realization of
SDG6 (Zhu and Chang, 2020), but the comparison of water security
levels between cities in urban agglomerations exceeds the current study
scope. It is possible to evaluate the impact of human activities on
regional water resources by constructing a resource and environmental
stress evaluation index system, but it is difficult to measure the sus­
tainable level of water resource utilization (Ma et al., 2016). Even if the
urban water resource utilization rate is evaluated (Ren et al., 2020), it
does not accurately reflect the specific value of water demand. Although
the assessment of the country’s process of achieving SDG6 has just begun
(Roy and Pramanick, 2019), the role played by regions below the na­
tional level cannot be ignored. Considering the context of the interna­
tional community’s response to the 17 SDGs, this study has carried out
an evaluation of the TUAs’ water resource utilization for the realization
of SDG6.
Firstly, the WF and the WPB were organically integrated as absolute
environmental sustainability indicators of the ability to achieve SDG6.
The footprint index can provide a reference for measuring the distance
to the PBs (Matuštík and Kočí, 2021), and the WF is no longer limited to
the assessment of water consumption (Vanham and Mekonnen, 2021).
Scholars agree that the method published by the Water Footprint
Network is appropriate for the evaluation of sustainable water resource
utilization (D’Ambrosio et al., 2020). However, the analysis of the
trade-off relationship between socio-economic and
resource-environmental carrying capacities (Fu et al., 2020) does not
take into account the spatial differences of regions, nor does it conduct
dynamic spatio-temporal analysis based on the level of carrying capac­
ity. This method has disadvantages such as its failure to consider the
influencing factors and driving mechanisms (Wang et al., 2020), and it
ignores the possible relationships with the bearing capacities of other
regions (Chen et al., 2020a), particularly the fact that virtual water trade
exists. When a city’s water resources are insufficient to support devel­
opment, it will consume other cities’ water. Specifically, water-poor
regions address water shortages by importing water-intensive products
from water-rich regions (Caro et al., 2021). Therefore, it is necessary to
re-examine the carrying capacity of natural capital. PBs set boundaries
based on the stability of the earth’s ecosystem and on a conservative
assessment of the effective prevention of ecological problems, providing
a new perspective for evaluating resource and environmental carrying
capacity (Chen et al., 2020a). This study employs the WF to measure the
amount of water resources used in urban agglomerations, employing the
WPB as the threshold. By narrowing the WPB to establish a framework
for water resource sustainability evaluation, the analysis shows the
extent to which the water resource system of the TUAs is disturbed by
human activities and determines the progress made in achieving SDG6.
Moreover, the WPB is narrowed by the EPC method such that it can
be applied to the sustainability assessment of water resources in urban
agglomerations. The PBs framework is applied for absolute environ­
mental sustainability assessment. The assessment of environmental
sustainability based on the share of water resources that can be safely
allocated forms the basis of this study (Ryberg et al., 2020). After the PBs
framework was proposed based on the perspective of the “Earth System
View”, the global impact of the chain reaction of environmental
degradation was not apparent. It has be considered perfecting or rede­
fining the PBs at a regional scale to improve their capacity to guide
environmental policies. This study proposes that water shortage in
urban agglomerations is a local problem. Global biophysical information
needs to be converted into information related to urban agglomerations’
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
activities. Narrowing global boundaries in space can reflect the differ­
ences in the availability of water resources.
Furthermore, the DPSIR framework is developed to analyse the
spatio-temporal differences in the ability of the TUAs to achieve SDG6.
The DPSIR framework evaluates the factors affecting the sustainability
of water resources and determines the causal relationship between
water resource systems and urban activities. The inequality in the
allocation of natural resources, including water resources, will affect the
level of sustainable use of resources. Discussions on the optimal allo­
cation of resources within the PBs are attracting attention (Pozo et al.,
2020), but the necessary premise is to conduct in-depth discussions on
the factors that drive inequality in resource allocation. Applying the
principle of fair quotas to sustainability assessment may lead to uncer­
tainty in the selection of socio-economic indicators (Chen et al., 2020b).
Therefore, it is necessary to use the DPSIR framework to assess the
complex dynamic relationship between socio-economic activities and
the sustainable use of water resources (Apostolaki et al., 2019). Existing
research has paid attention to the driving effect of resource utilization on
socio-economic development (Jing and Wang, 2020), reflecting the
socio-economic pressure brought by the decline in resource utilization
efficiency and environmental pollution. However, it cannot explain the
degree of change in resource utilization caused by social and economic
development. There are also studies using the PSR framework to assess
the sustainability of urban water resources (Wang et al., 2019). How­
ever, these studies ignore the differences in urban spaces and the con­
nections between cities and do not consider the impact of different levels
of sustainable water use on the coordinated development of urban ag­
glomerations. From the perspective of coordinating interest relations,
the sustainable use of water resources can be achieved by optimizing the
distribution policies of stakeholders such as the agricultural sector, in­
dustrial sector, and households (Cansino-Loeza and Ponce-Ortega,
2020). From the perspective of the attributes of public water re­
sources, the application of the DPSIR framework can reflect the level of
water resource utilization in different regions (Kapetas et al., 2019), but
it ignores the dynamic changes in the weight of each subsystem, which
often have unexpected consequences for water management policies.
This study develops a framework to assess the causal chain relationship
between water resource utilization and human activities in the river
basin towards the realization of SDG6 by using absolute environmental
sustainability indicators. The sustainable utilization level of water re­
sources is evaluated by describing the causal chain relationship of the
DPSIR subsystem and the spatio-temporal evolution of the weights. The
GUA in China is employed as the object in this case study, providing a
scientific basis for formulating water management policies for the TUAs.
5. Conclusions and suggestions
The population growth and industrial agglomeration effects of the
TUAs have put severe pressure on the water resource environment.
Achieving SDG6 within the safety operation boundary of water re­
sources and narrowing the gap in the ability of cities to achieve SDG6 are
the basis for the TUAs to meet the new water challenges. This study
proposes possible paths by which the TUAs can achieve SDG6. It
broadens the study and application fields of TUAs to achieve 17 SDGs
and provides a scientific basis for local governments to formulate rele­
vant policies. Based on the calculation of the WF of the GUA and each
city in 2007–2018, the EPC method is used to narrow the WPB, and the
dynamic change characteristics of the sustainability of the urban ag­
glomeration’s water resources are compared and analysed. The DPSIR
framework is used to construct a water resource sustainable develop­
ment assessment framework, and countermeasures and suggestions are
put forward with the goal of accelerating the sustainable use of water
resources in TUAs. The main conclusions of this study are summarized as
follows:
First, when the WF of TUAs is larger than the WPB, the water con­
sumption exceeds the safe range of the water resource system, leading to
10
Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
a water deficit. The GUA in China is the subject of this case study. The
results show that the total WF of the GUA from 2007 to 2018 showed the
characteristic of rising first and then falling, and the proportion of the
agricultural production WF was above 90%. The decrease in the pro­
portion of the industrial production WF and the increase in the pro­
portion of ecological water consumption indicate that the industrial
water-saving measures in the GUA have achieved remarkable results,
in line with SDG6.4. Weinan and Xianyang had the highest WF in 2018,
at 7.71 billion m3 and 7.62 billion m3, respectively. Second, the water
deficit of the GUA is within the interval of [6.00 billion m3, 23.00 billion
m3], and the sustainability of water resources is poor. However, the
water deficit dropped by 29.18% from 2017 to 2018, indicating that the
GUA has been somewhat successful in achieving SDG6.4.
Second, the “non-equilibrium” characteristics of the factors that affect
the ability of cities in TUAs to achieve SDG6 will create severe water
pressure in urban agglomerations and thus will trigger a new water
crisis. The results of the DPSIR subsystem weights show that the pressure
subsystems of Tongchuan, Xianyang, and Weinan have the highest
weights, at 28.80%, 24.39%, and 28.80%, respectively. These sub­
systems are affected by changes in the urbanization rates and water
consumption per ten thousand RMB of the GDP. The response sub­
systems of Xi’an and Baoji have the highest weights, at 33.79% and
25.84%, respectively. Forest coverage and the water-saving irrigation
rate have the highest weights in the response subsystem group. Yan­
gling’s impact subsystem weight is 38.06%, and water pollution has a
substantial impact on the ability to achieve SDG6.
Finally, the interaction paths between the socio-economic activities
and water resource systems of the cities in the GUA are obviously
different. The causal chain relationship between these two factors also
differs, resulting in different abilities of each city to achieve SDG6. The
causal chain relationship for Xi’an and Baoji is “drive-pressure-state-
impact-response-pressure-drive” and “drive-pressure-state- impact-response-
pressure”, respectively. Those of Tongchuan and Yangling are “drive-
pressure-state-impact-response”, and those of Weinan and Xianyang are
“drive-pressure-state-impact”. According to the connotation of SDG6, the
water consumption of the GUA exceeds the safety range of the local
water resource system. The utilization rate of water resources still needs
to be improved. The prevention and control of water pollution must be
further improved. To this end, the following suggestions are made:
First, the legal status of ecological water should be clarified. The
distribution of ecological water should be considered in the allocation of
water resources. Urban ecological restoration actions should be under­
taken. River and lake protection and supervision mechanisms should be
established, and an ecological water use scheduling pattern should be
developed. A market-oriented and diversified cross-regional water
resource compensation mechanism should be established. A profit dis­
tribution mechanism and rights-sharing mechanism that reflect the
value of water should be developed. The development of water resources
in specific water bodies should be strictly controlled through the issu­
ance of water rights certificates. A strict sewage discharge policy and a
strict water use system should be employed to enhance cross-regional
law enforcement. Administrative efficiency and the credibility of
water resource management should be strengthened.
Second, the response mechanism of water resource management
should be improved. Cities should be encouraged to take local action
and employ localized strategies based on local conditions. According to
the characteristics of urban development, substantive actions have been
taken to promote the construction of sponge cities, such as the diversion
and transformation of rain and sewage pipe networks, the ecological
restoration of urban wetlands, green spaces and river banks, and the
construction of green corridors in valley landscapes. Strictly controlling
the development and utilization of water resources is the preferred
localization strategy. Important water sources, wetlands, reservoirs and
canals around the city should be included in the red line of ecological
protection. Water resource utilization and disaster management can be
incorporated into the development plans of urban agglomerations, and
Y. Yang and Y. Cheng
special agencies can be set up to conduct information research and
judgment, emergency treatment, and command coordination of cross-
domain environmental pollution incidents in urban agglomerations.
An urban agglomeration water resource information exchange and
sharing platform for the public and enterprises should be established,
and the supervision mechanism for relevant stakeholders should be
improved. The multiple cooperation mechanism can be actively used to
formulate and implement unified ecological environmental protection
actions through multi-channel and multi-level exchanges, promoting
cross-border cooperation of urban water resources.
Third, water-saving actions in industry and agriculture while
focusing on increasing efficiency, reducing emissions and reducing los­
ses should be coordinated. There should be a better focus on the pro­
motion of water-saving technologies. The management and control of
slaughtering, food processing and other industries should be strength­
ened, and pollutants in the dry season should be addressed. The oper­
ation and maintenance of sewage treatment facilities should be
monitored. The price of recycled water should be reasonable to promote
the secondary use of recycled water.
This study also has certain limitations. First, the use of the EPC
method to determine the WPB of urban agglomerations is not based on
the characteristics of local water resources, which may affect judgments
about the sustainable state of water resources. Second, because it is
difficult to obtain input-output data for urban agglomerations, the vir­
tual water volume of the trade between the cities in the GUA is not
estimated in the calculation of the WF, which may affect the accuracy of
the results. Third, when establishing the DPSIR framework to assess the
spatio-temporal evolutionary characteristics of the sustainable use of
water resources, there are incomplete limitations in the selection of in­
dicators. Dynamic weather changes will have a direct impact on the
river runoff in the basin (Guiamel and Lee, 2020). Although this study
takes into account the use of the water production coefficient to indicate
the impact of precipitation on the total amount of water resources, it is
still necessary to add other meteorological indicators to better evaluate
the water resource situation. Therefore, improving the adaptability of
the measurement methods, improving the construction of evaluation
systems, and evaluating the fairness of urban agglomeration water
resource allocation and cross-regional water resource ecological
compensation are future study directions.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yi Yang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Writing –
original draft, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Project admin­
istration, Funding acquisition. Yi Cheng: Methodology, Software,
Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation,
Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Social Science Foundation
of China Western Project (15XJL009), the Natural Science Basic
Research Program of Shaanxi (2020JM-467), and Soft Science Research
Program of Shaanxi-Joint Project (2018KRLY07). We thank American
Journal Experts (AJE) for English language polishing.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128038.
11
Journal of Cleaner Production 314 (2021) 128038
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