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Understanding the mechanism of energy poverty affecting irrigation efficiency: evidence from rural China

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Abstract

Lower irrigation efficiency and energy poverty cast a pall on the prospects for sustainable development. However, their relationship is poorly understood, particularly in rural China. Using the China Family Panel Studies 2014–2018 waves, this study examines the impact of energy poverty (EP) on irrigation water efficiency (IWE). Result show that EP reduced IWE by 28.3 ~ 42.4%. These results are robust to a variety of estimation methods. The underlying mechanisms, as revealed by structural equation modeling, are that health and non-agricultural employment act as mediators of the EP-IWE relationship. Non-agricultural employment has a positive and statistically significant mediating effect, indicating that efforts to alleviate energy poverty are partially transmitted to IWE.

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Data availability

All relevant data will be available on request from the corresponding author or available from online: http://www.isss.pku.edu.cn/cfps/download.

Code availability

The software code used in this research will be available on request from the corresponding author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China

    Shi Hongxu, Wei Gao & Hao Xu

  2. Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100081, China

    Ming Chang

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  1. Shi Hongxu
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  2. Wei Gao
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  3. Hao Xu
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  4. Ming Chang
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Hongxu Shi; data curation: Hongxu Shi, Wei Gao, Hao Xu, and Ming Chang; formal analysis: Hongxu Shi, Wei Gao, and Hao Xu; methodology: Hongxu Shi, Hao Xu, and Ming Chang; software: Hongxu Shi, Hao Xu, and Ming Chang; writing—original draft: Hongxu Shi; writing—review and editing: Hongxu Shi, Wei Gao, Hao Xu, and Ming Chang.

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Correspondence to Ming Chang.

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Shi, H., Gao, W., Xu, H. et al. Understanding the mechanism of energy poverty affecting irrigation efficiency: evidence from rural China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 70963–70975 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20874-y

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