Evaluation for water resource system efficiency and influencing factors in western China: A two-stage network DEA-Tobit model

Improving the efficiency of water resource systems is an important way to promote the high-quality development of water resources. The current study developed an improved two-stage network data envelopment analysis (DEA) model under the assumption of variable returns to scale (VRS) in terms of both weights and solution methods, which determined the weights of each stage with the proportion of input resources to all input resources and considered the problem that the optimal solution of the model was not unique in the solution process. In particular, we measured the overall efficiency of water resource systems, water use (WU) efficiency and wastewater treatment (WT) efficiency of 11 provinces in western China during 2008–2017. A panel Tobit regression model was used to further analyze the influencing factors of the overall efficiency, WU efficiency and WT efficiency. The empirical results were as follows: (1) The overall efficiency of water resource systems in western China was unevenly distributed, while the distribution became more even in the research period. (2) The WU efficiency in western China was generally higher than the WT efficiency. The average value of WU efficiency was 0.865, while the average value of WT efficiency was 0.807. (3) The influencing factors had different impacts on the two stages of water resource systems. Economic development had a significant positive impact on WU efficiency, while WT efficiency was positively influenced by urbanization and technological innovation. The current study has a certain significance for improving the sustainable development of the water resource system in western China.