City-level water withdrawal and scarcity accounts of China

In the context of freshwater crisis, high-resolution data are critical for sustainable water management and economic development. Yet there is a dearth of water withdrawal and scarcity data, no matter for total or subsector amounts of prefectural cities. In administrative and territorial scope, we accounted for water withdrawal of all 63 economic-socio-environmental sectors for all 343 prefectural cities, i.e., 21,609 sub-sectors in China, under a general framework based on 2015 data. Spatial and economic-sector resolution is improved compared with previous studies, by partitioning general sectors into 11,152 industrial and 1,715 agricultural sub-sectors. Construction of these datasets was based on selection of 16 driving forces. We connected a size indicator with corresponding water-withdrawal efficiency. We further accounted for total blue-water withdrawal, and quantitative water scarcity status. Then we compared different scopes and methods of official accounts and statistics from various water datasets. These disaggregated and complete data could be used in input-output models for municipal design and governmental plan, to help gain in-depth insights into subsector water-saving priorities from local economic activities.