IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v314y2025ics0378377425002252.html

Water constraint mitigation and agricultural productivity: Evidence from the China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Zehui
  • Xie, Jianhui

Abstract

Water scarcity is a critical constraint on agricultural productivity, particularly in northern China. The South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) project, launched in 2014, aims to alleviate this constraint by reallocating water resources across regions. This study evaluates the long-term impact of the SNWD project on regional Agricultural Total Factor Productivity (ATFP) by employing a two-step approach based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and a Difference-in-Differences (DID) framework. First, we construct a comprehensive efficiency indicator based on DEA methodology to measure ATFP. Second, we exploit the opening of the middle route of the SNWD project as a quasi-natural experiment and estimate its impact on ATFP through a DID model. The results show that the SNWD project has increased the ATFP in the traversed counties by 0.412 (13.55 %). Moreover, the SNWD project has a stronger effect on enhancing ATFP in counties with lower precipitation and non-rice-producing counties, which indicates that the SNWD project can significantly improve ATFP by mitigating water scarcity. Additionally, the SNWD project has a more significant impact on improving ATFP in regions with a higher proportion of grain crops, revealing the crucial role of structural adjustments in enhancing agricultural productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Zehui & Xie, Jianhui, 2025. "Water constraint mitigation and agricultural productivity: Evidence from the China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 314(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:314:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425002252
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377425002252
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109511?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yang, Yanmin & Yang, Yonghui & Moiwo, Juana Paul & Hu, Yukun, 2010. "Estimation of irrigation requirement for sustainable water resources reallocation in North China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(11), pages 1711-1721, November.
    2. Susanne Scheierling & David O. Treguer & James F. Booker, 2016. "Water Productivity in Agriculture: Looking for Water in the Agricultural Productivity and Efficiency Literature," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 2(03), pages 1-33, September.
    3. Gong, Binlei, 2018. "Agricultural reforms and production in China: Changes in provincial production function and productivity in 1978–2015," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 18-31.
    4. Shi, Shanheng & Zhou, Shiwei & Lei, Yongdeng & Harrison, Matthew Tom & Liu, Ke & Chen, Fu & Yin, Xiaogang, 2024. "Burgeoning food demand outpaces sustainable water supply in China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    5. Wasi Ul Hassan Shah & Bo Wang & Rizwana Yasmeen, 2023. "Evaluating the role of banking efficiency, institutions and financial development for sustainable development: Implications for Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(10), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Chen, Shuzhang & Oxley, Les & Xu, Zheng & Wang, Yanqing & Ma, Hengyun, 2013. "The dynamic adjustment of factor inputs and its policy implications for major wheat producing areas in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 450-457.
    7. Sheng, Jichuan & Qiu, Wenge, 2023. "Inter-basin water transfer policies and water-use technical efficiency: China's South-North Water Transfer Project," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    8. Hu, Yue & Liu, Chang & Peng, Jiangang, 2021. "Financial inclusion and agricultural total factor productivity growth in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 68-82.
    9. Hashemi, Seyedeh-Zohreh & Darzi-Naftchali, Abdullah & Karandish, Fatemeh & Ritzema, Henk & Solaimani, Karim, 2024. "Enhancing agricultural sustainability with water and crop management strategies in modern irrigation and drainage networks," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    10. Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan & Hao, Gang & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Yan, Hong & Qi, Ye, 2024. "Impact of agricultural technological innovation on total-factor agricultural water usage efficiency: Evidence from 31 Chinese Provinces," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    11. Shen, Zhiyang & Wang, Songkai & Boussemart, Jean-Philippe & Hao, Yu, 2022. "Digital transition and green growth in Chinese agriculture," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    12. Bazzana, Davide & Zaitchik, Benjamin & Gilioli, Gianni, 2020. "Impact of water and energy infrastructure on local well-being: an agent-based analysis of the water-energy-food nexus," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 165-176.
    13. Emrouznejad, Ali & Yang, Guo-liang, 2018. "A survey and analysis of the first 40 years of scholarly literature in DEA: 1978–2016," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 4-8.
    14. Ashesh Rambachan & Jonathan Roth, 2023. "A More Credible Approach to Parallel Trends," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(5), pages 2555-2591.
    15. Andreas Olden & Jarle Møen, 2022. "The triple difference estimator [Semiparametric difference-in-differences estimators]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(3), pages 531-553.
    16. Timo Kuosmanen & Andrew L. Johnson, 2010. "Data Envelopment Analysis as Nonparametric Least-Squares Regression," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 149-160, February.
    17. Jinxia Wang & Yunyun Zhu & Tianhe Sun & Jikun Huang & Lijuan Zhang & Baozhu Guan & Qiuqiong Huang, 2020. "Forty years of irrigation development and reform in China," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 64(1), pages 126-149, January.
    18. Rajiv D. Banker & Ram Natarajan, 2008. "Evaluating Contextual Variables Affecting Productivity Using Data Envelopment Analysis," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 48-58, February.
    19. Timothy J. Coelli & D.S. Prasada Rao & Christopher J. O’Donnell & George E. Battese, 2005. "An Introduction to Efficiency and Productivity Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, edition 0, number 978-0-387-25895-9, January.
    20. Richard Hornbeck & Pinar Keskin, 2014. "The Historically Evolving Impact of the Ogallala Aquifer: Agricultural Adaptation to Groundwater and Drought," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 190-219, January.
    21. McDonald, John, 2009. "Using least squares and tobit in second stage DEA efficiency analyses," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(2), pages 792-798, September.
    22. Chen, Ya & Pan, Yongbin & Liu, Haoxiang & Wu, Huaqing & Deng, Guangwei, 2023. "Efficiency analysis of Chinese universities with shared inputs: An aggregated two-stage network DEA approach," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    23. Shen, Zhiyang & Baležentis, Tomas & Chen, Xueli & Valdmanis, Vivian, 2018. "Green growth and structural change in Chinese agricultural sector during 1997–2014," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 83-96.
    24. R. D. Banker & A. Charnes & W. W. Cooper, 1984. "Some Models for Estimating Technical and Scale Inefficiencies in Data Envelopment Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 30(9), pages 1078-1092, September.
    25. Jiani Liu & Kim Jungyin & Shim Jaewoo & Lee Heechul & Wasi Ul Hassan Shah, 2024. "Evaluating the efficiency, productivity change, and technology gaps of China’s provincial higher education systems: A comprehensive analytical framework," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(1), pages 1-25, January.
    26. Ting Ma & Siao Sun & Guangtao Fu & Jim W. Hall & Yong Ni & Lihuan He & Jiawei Yi & Na Zhao & Yunyan Du & Tao Pei & Weiming Cheng & Ci Song & Chuanglin Fang & Chenghu Zhou, 2020. "Pollution exacerbates China’s water scarcity and its regional inequality," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    27. Sugimoto, Kota, 2021. "Ownership versus legal unbundling of electricity transmission network: Evidence from renewable energy investment in Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    28. Varian, Hal R, 1984. "The Nonparametric Approach to Production Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 579-597, May.
    29. Charnes, A. & Cooper, W. W. & Rhodes, E., 1978. "Measuring the efficiency of decision making units," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 2(6), pages 429-444, November.
    30. Chen, Shuai & Gong, Binlei, 2021. "Response and adaptation of agriculture to climate change: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    31. Huang, Qiuqiong & Wang, Jinxia & Li, Yumin, 2017. "Do water saving technologies save water? Empirical evidence from North China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1-16.
    32. Wang, Huixiao & Zhang, Lu & Dawes, W. R. & Liu, Changming, 2001. "Improving water use efficiency of irrigated crops in the North China Plain -- measurements and modelling," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 151-167, June.
    33. Alejandro Plastina & Sergio H Lence, 2018. "A Parametric Estimation of Total Factor Productivity and Its Components in U.S. Agriculture," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1091-1119.
    34. Simar, Leopold & Wilson, Paul W., 2007. "Estimation and inference in two-stage, semi-parametric models of production processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 31-64, January.
    35. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    36. Tone, Kaoru, 2001. "A slacks-based measure of efficiency in data envelopment analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 498-509, May.
    37. Robert G. Chambers & Simone Pieralli, 2020. "The Sources of Measured US Agricultural Productivity Growth: Weather, Technological Change, and Adaptation," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(4), pages 1198-1226, August.
    38. Oliver T. Coomes & Bradford L. Barham & Graham K. MacDonald & Navin Ramankutty & Jean-Paul Chavas, 2019. "Leveraging total factor productivity growth for sustainable and resilient farming," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 22-28, January.
    39. Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan & Hao, Gang & Yan, Hong & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Padda, Ihtsham Ul Haq & Ullah, Assad, 2022. "The impact of trade, financial development and government integrity on energy efficiency: An analysis from G7-Countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    40. Di Long & Wenting Yang & Bridget R. Scanlon & Jianshi Zhao & Dagen Liu & Peter Burek & Yun Pan & Liangzhi You & Yoshihide Wada, 2020. "South-to-North Water Diversion stabilizing Beijing’s groundwater levels," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    41. Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan & Hao, Gang & Yan, Hong & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Xu, Xiaowei, 2024. "Natural resources utilization efficiency evaluation, determinant of productivity change, and production technology heterogeneity across developed and developing G20 economies," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    42. Elfarra, Barakat & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan, 2024. "The impact of energy security, energy mix, technological advancement, trade openness, and political stability on energy efficiency: Evidence from Arab countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    43. Sokol, Ondřej & Frýd, Lukáš, 2023. "DEA efficiency in agriculture: Measurement unit issues," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wenxin Che & Changhai Qin & Yong Zhao & Fan He & Junlin Qu & Ziyu Guan, 2025. "Analyzing the Multifactor Driving Mechanism and Patterns of Economic Development in China from a Water Resource Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(20), pages 1-18, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shah, Wasi Ul Hassan & Hao, Gang & Yasmeen, Rizwana & Yan, Hong & Shen, Jintao & Lu, Yuting, 2023. "Role of China's agricultural water policy reforms and production technology heterogeneity on agriculture water usage efficiency and total factor productivity change," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 287(C).
    2. Mergoni, Anna & Emrouznejad, Ali & De Witte, Kristof, 2025. "Fifty years of Data Envelopment Analysis," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 326(3), pages 389-412.
    3. Veronese da Silva, Aline & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Lopes-Ahn, Ana Lúcia, 2022. "Accounting multiple environmental variables in DEA energy transmission benchmarking modelling: The 2019 Brazilian case," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    4. Ricardo F. Díaz & Blanca Sanchez-Robles, 2020. "Non-Parametric Analysis of Efficiency: An Application to the Pharmaceutical Industry," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-27, September.
    5. Ioannis E. Tsolas, 2020. "Financial Performance Assessment of Construction Firms by Means of RAM-Based Composite Indicators," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-16, August.
    6. Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & da Silva, Aline Veronese & Mineti, Leandro Brioschi, 2025. "Geographical Bayesian second stage analysis for operating efficiency of Brazilian electricity distribution system operators," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. da Silva, Aline Veronese & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Lopes, Ana Lúcia Miranda & do Carmo, Gabriela Miranda, 2019. "A close look at second stage data envelopment analysis using compound error models and the Tobit model," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 111-126.
    8. Liu, John S. & Lu, Louis Y.Y. & Lu, Wen-Min, 2016. "Research fronts in data envelopment analysis," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 33-45.
    9. Ali Emrouznejad & Victor Podinovski & Vincent Charles & Chixiao Lu & Amir Moradi-Motlagh, 2025. "Rajiv Banker’s lasting impact on data envelopment analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 351(2), pages 1225-1264, August.
    10. Yu, Ming-Miin & Chiang, Yi-Hsuan, 2025. "Evaluating efficiency determinants of rural bus routes in northern Taiwan: A network DEA with temporal data aggregation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    11. da Silva, Aline Veronese & Costa, Marcelo Azevedo & Ahn, Heinz & Lopes, Ana Lúcia Miranda, 2019. "Performance benchmarking models for electricity transmission regulation: Caveats concerning the Brazilian case," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1-1.
    12. Weekx, Simon & Buyle, Sven, 2023. "The effect of airline dominance on airport performance: Empirical evidence from medium-sized European airports," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    13. Junlong Li & Chuangneng Cai & Feng Zhang, 2020. "Assessment of Ecological Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability of the Minjiang-Source in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-15, June.
    14. Yang, Guo-liang & Fukuyama, Hirofumi & Chen, Kun, 2019. "Investigating the regional sustainable performance of the Chinese real estate industry: A slack-based DEA approach," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 141-159.
    15. Lucio Cecchini & Francesco Romagnoli & Massimo Chiorri & Biancamaria Torquati, 2023. "Eco-Efficiency and Its Determinants: The Case of the Italian Beef Cattle Sector," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-18, May.
    16. Salas-Velasco, Manuel, 2018. "Production efficiency measurement and its determinants across OECD countries: The role of business sophistication and innovation," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 60-73.
    17. Alexandre de Cássio Rodrigues & Carlos Alberto Gonçalves & Tiago Silveira Gontijo, 2019. "A two-stage DEA model to evaluate the efficiency of countries at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(2), pages 1538-1545.
    18. Berger, Michael & Sommersguter-Reichmann, Margit & Czypionka, Thomas, 2020. "Determinants of soft budget constraints: how public debt affects hospital performance in Austria," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116865, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Dorota Ciołek & Anna Golejewska, 2022. "Efficiency Determinants of Regional Innovation Systems in Polish Subregions," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 24-45.
    20. Cao, Ting & Cook, Wade D. & Kristal, M. Murat, 2022. "Has the technological investment been worth it? Assessing the aggregate efficiency of non-homogeneous bank holding companies in the digital age," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:314:y:2025:i:c:s0378377425002252. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.