Quantifying the heterogeneity of urban water resources utilization efficiency through meta-frontier super SBM model: Application in the yellow river Basin

This paper presents a comprehensive evaluation of urban water resource utilization efficiency (UWRUE) in relation to comprehensive water resource utilization capabilities (CWRUC) across 53 cities in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) of China from 2003 to 2020. This study uses an innovative hybrid approach that integrates the Meta-frontier Super-SBM model and the Tobit model to address both efficiency and the factors that contribute to regional disparities in UWRUE across different technological frontiers. Our research not only uncovers significant inefficiencies in UWRUE but also identifies critical regional differences rooted in CWRUC, and reveals the resource curse effect in the YRB. Additionally, the analysis highlights that scale efficiency plays a more pivotal role for improving UWRUE than pure technical efficiency. One of the key contributions of this paper is the identification of the U-shaped relationship between disposable income and UWRUE, alongside the negative marginal impact of population density. Importantly, this study differentiates between the U-shaped relationship between industrial development and UWRUE in the midstream and downstream regions and the inverted U-shaped relationship observed in the upstream region. This paper offers nuanced insights into the dynamics of water resource management in the YRB and contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable urban water governance. The findings offer practical policy recommendations and particularly emphasize the need to promote water conservation awareness, advance water-saving technologies, and enhance governance frameworks to address regional disparities.