Water Resource Utilization Efficiency (WRUE) for Prefecture-Level Cities of Jiangxi, China: A Three-Stage DEA and Bootstrap DEA Approach

In the present study, For China’s prefecture-level cities of Jiangxi, their respective Water Resource Utilization Efficiency (WRUE) from 2006 to 2015 was evaluated in this study, by applying a three-stage DEA and bootstrap DEA model. The results revealed that a comprehensive efficiency of water resources utilization in prefecture-level cities of Jiangxi remained at a relatively low level. The scale of investment in these prefecture-level cities is a key factor restricting their WRUE. However, we found that external environmental variables greatly influenced this efficiency. The spatial changes of DEA effective cities presented the evolution character of change from clear contiguous to complicated scattered. Moreover, our results suggest the bootstrap method can provide more accurate results for WRUE than those from a three-stage DEA. Finally, based on these results, corresponding policy recommendations are put forward in this study