Economic effects analysis of seawater desalination in China with input–output technology

Seawater desalination is an important way to alleviate the shortage of water resources in the coastal area. To provide reference for investment decisions on seawater desalination, this paper made the economic effects analysis of seawater desalination investment in China. The competitive partial closed input–output model was applied. The results showed that the seawater desalination sector had a large investment multiplier 2.49 (ranked 9th in 18 sectors). Its influence coefficient and sensitivity coefficient were 1.09 (ranked 8th) and 1.14 (ranked 6th) separately, which revealed that it had obvious demand pulling and supply pushing effects on the national economy. •The paper made seawater-desalination investment effects in China innovatively with input-output analysis.•The results showed the seawater desalination had a large investment multiplier 2.488.•It had obvious demand pulling and supply pushing effects on Chinese economy.