- Email: [email protected]
Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind
Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao J.S. Li a , G.Q. Chen a,b,∗ a b
Laboratory of Systems Ecology, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China NAAM Group, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 4 November 2013 Received in revised form 21 January 2014 Accepted 21 January 2014 Keywords: Water footprint Economic sector Gaming industry Macao
a b s t r a c t Although numerous studies have been carried out to investigate the water footprint of different economies at global, national and regional scales, the research on water footprint of individual economic sector, which is the elementary part of each economy, is still lacking. To fill the gap, this paper for the first time employs a hybrid method to evaluate the water footprint of gaming industry in water scarce Macao, based on the latest statistics and most exhaustive embodied water intensity databases. The results show that direct water use only accounts for extremely small fraction of the gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that the exchange of water embodied in product and service between different sectors is also a useful mean to satisfy individual sector’s demand for water resources. As Macao’s demand for water is growing, integrated plans including economic instruments and measures like reducing the scale of commission input and promoting efficiency would ease Macao’s water pressure. Water footprint assessment in this study brings along new perspectives on gaming industry’s water management and encourages wise use of goods, materials and services in a sustainable way. © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction Water footprint is defined as the total volume of water needed to produce the goods or services consumed by a country, region, business or an individual person (Hoekstra, 2009). This concept is closely related to the concept of virtual water, or the more general one of embodied water (Chen et al., 2012), referring to the total amount of water (including direct and indirect water input) embodied in a product or service (Allan, 1998). Despite these “young” academic concepts, they have become the hot spots in the research fields and lots of works have been carried out to analyze water footprint and virtual water issues at different scales. Global water footprint has been estimated and moreover, international virtual water flows between nations have been calculated based on the trade statistics (Carr et al., 2013; Chen and Chen, 2013; Dalin et al., 2012; Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012; Lenzen et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2012). These global scale water footprint analyses point out that some countries have significantly externalized their impacts on water resources in other countries via importing water-intensive goods. At the national scale, water footprint of some key countries, such as China (Chen and Chen, 2010; Guan and Hubacek, 2007; Zhao et al., 2009), France (Ercin et al., 2013),
∗ Corresponding author at: Laboratory of Systems Ecology, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Tel.: +86 010 62767167. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.Q. Chen).
Spain (Cazcarro et al., 2011) and UK (Yu et al., 2010), have been explored. Most of the national water accounting studies first find out the target nation is a “net importer” or “net exporter” of virtual water and then help decision-makers develop well-informed national water policy. At the regional scale, the analysis has been focused toward the topic that how virtual water transfers between regions affect each region’s water footprint (Mubako et al., 2013; Lenzen, 2009). Recently, the water footprint of sub-national regions like river basins (Feng et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2010), provinces (Dong et al., 2013) and cities (Wang et al., 2009, 2013; Zhang et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2010) raise more and more concerns with the purpose to support local governments to develop appropriate regional water strategies. Besides, to help determine optimal production, water issues receive interests from plants, factories and business leaders (Ene et al., 2013; Meng et al., 2013; Shao and Chen, 2013). All these previous studies on virtual water of economies at different scales have provided with much insight into water issues formulating water policies. For each economy, the sustainable consumption of water will depend on the amount of products and services its economic sectors consumes. In fact, the definitions of water footprint and virtual water become more relevant if it links to the exchange of commodities and services since the water virtually transfers between sectors in various regions (Velázquez, 2007). For instance, agriculture produces food such as rice and meat, whose production process consumes large quantity of physical water. Service sectors need to purchase large amount of food to satisfy its demand.
1470-160X/$ – see front matter © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Therefore, when service sector consumes food from agricultural sector, virtual water starts to flow from agricultural sectors to service sectors and consequently has effect on service sector’s water footprint. That means a certain proportion of direct water used by agricultural sectors is induced by the demand of service sectors. However, the statistic figures just focus on the ‘on-site’ or ‘direct’ water used by service sectors. According to previous study (Wiedmann et al., 2013), environmental impacts are allocated to the immediate producers and the influence of final consumers is not reflected. Even though some studies have evaluated consumerfocused water use by global, national and regional economies as aforementioned, there is an important omission that no study has ever been carried out to exploit individual economic sector’s water use driven by its consumption. As a matter of fact, the total water footprint of economies can be considered as the sum of the water footprint of each economic sector, as they constitute the whole economy. Moreover, the water footprint assessment of economic sector can provide more comprehensive information to guide appropriate water management practices, which will contribute to helping the economy to use water resources in a more sustainable way. Given these reasons, this study chooses a typical service sector—Macao’s gaming industry as a case to evaluate its water footprint. Gaming industry has been existed in Macao since the 16th century. With over 400 years’ development, Macao’s gaming industry has made striking progress in its scale and profit. As the pillar industry, gaming industry contributed to three fourths of Macao’s GDP in 2011 (DSEC, 2011) and moreover, making Macao one of the richest regions in Asia (Wang, 2010). However, price has to be paid; Macao inevitably suffers from various problems, such as inequality, pollution caused by gaming industry (Tang and Sheng, 2009). Especially, Macao is an extremely water-starving region; more than 95% of Macao’s freshwater is imported from mainland China. Moreover, its freshwater resources are subject to increasing pressure, due to the growing residents as well as large number of tourists attracted by gaming industry (MSAG, 2013). Inevitably, the resource-intensive gaming industry has brought about great pressure to extreme resource-scarce Macao (Wan and Li, 2013). In the recognition of these problems, concerns on Macao’s sustainable development arise, striving for a better society and environment. A series of studies have made efforts to evaluate Macao’s consumption’s impact on socioeconomic issues such as energy use and greenhouse gases emissions (e.g., Li and Chen, 2013; Li et al., 2013; To et al., 2011). More specifically, gaming industry has been the focus in some recent academic studies, due to its vital role in Macao’s entire economy (e.g. Lei et al., 2010; Sheng and Tsui, 2009). All of the efforts have contributed greatly to tackle the challenge of the sustainable development of Macao’s gaming industry. Despite these previous studies, it should be pointed out that the key element water has been absent in the studies on Macao’s gaming industry. As Macao’s pillar industry, no doubt gaming industry has significant influence on Macao’s water footprint and water management. As a consequence, appreciating the detailed information on gaming industry’s water use can be of prime importance for solving some of Macao’s most urgent water shortage problems. This paper attempts to for the first time provide an explicit accounting procedure to assess the water footprint of a special service sector—gaming industry. Our object is to find out how much direct and indirect water is needed to sustain Macao’s gaming industry in the period of 2005–2011 during which the data are available, by the means of water footprint calculation and more importantly, to figure out water reduction potential and possible solutions to save water, based on the detailed findings of this study.
2. Methodology and data 2.1. The hybrid method Generally, there are two widely adopted methods for water footprint accounting: one is bottom-up approach and the other is top-down approach. The bottom-up can collect dispersive process information through the research target’s whole lifecycle and then aggregate all the information into the target’s whole virtual water profile. Providing intuitively detailed information is bottomup approach’s most attractive merit, while at the same time; it is also this approach’s disadvantage. As Macao’s gaming industry has various products and service inputs, striving for such details is time-consuming and inevitably suffers from truncation errors, due to the difficulty in covering each input in a unified base (Chen et al., 2011; Chen and Chen, 2013). On the contrary, the top-down approach, usually presented as input–output analysis, can not only avoid the truncation error but also cover different activities in the whole economic network, as the input–output table is a high level aggregation of all economic sectors. However, just because of the aggregation of data, the results obtained by the most prevalent top-down approach are doomed to be too rough to analyze specific products or services inputs in individual economic sectors. And more importantly, it should be noted that no Macao economic input–output table exists currently, making it impossible to employ input–output analysis on Macao’s gaming industry. Under this circumstance, a method attempting to incorporate the merits of methods outlined above and at the meantime reducing their disadvantages is needed in the current study. A hybrid method which describes procedures for combining input–output analysis with process analysis is firstly proposed by Bullard et al. (1978) to calculate energy required directly and indirectly to produce goods and services. On the basis of the averaged macroeconomy data supported by the input–output analysis with the process analysis, the hybrid method has been successfully applied to evaluate ecological endowments consumed by different systems, such as embodied energy of building materials (Alcorn and Baird, 1996; Han et al., 2013), embodied greenhouse gas emission of renewable resources (Li et al., 2012), virtual water of constructed wetlands (Chen et al., 2011), embodied energy and water footprint of wastewater treatment plant (Shao and Chen, 2013). Moreover, as for Macao’s gaming industry, this hybrid method was also successfully employed to investigate its embodied energy consumption as well as greenhouse gas emission (Li et al., 2014). In light of the previous hybrid method based studies, water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry can be calculated by the following steps. First, as the hybrid method begins with the readily input data, this study classifies the various inputs required by Macao’s gaming industry into four major categories, namely, operating inputs, labor, commission and goods purchased, then compiles a detailed input inventory. It should be noted that the amount of direct water input into gaming industry can be calculated in this step. Based on the monetary cost of water input and the water price, the amount of direct water input is obtained. Second, choose suitable embodied water intensity databases. Embodied water intensity for an economic sector refers to the average amount of water consumed in the supply chain to produce one monetary unit of goods or services based on the current technology. According to Macao’s trade statistics, the majority of goods and services consumed by gaming industry are imported from different countries/regions. For instance, energy products like electricity and diesel are imported from mainland China, while the electrical machines are mainly purchased from Germany. As a result, choosing comprehensive databases cover embodied water intensities of various sectors in different countries/regions has the fundamental meaning for water footprint calculation.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model
ARTICLE IN PRESS
ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
As illustrated in the second step, the commodities and services spatially explicit, then the third step is to match the goods or services to their corresponding embodied water intensities by origins. For instance, electricity imported from mainland China is the product of Sector 92, so the corresponding embodied water intensity of electricity should be identified as the intensity of Sector 92 in China’s input–output table. In the fourth step, virtual water embodied in each input (VWi ) is calculated by multiplying the its monetary cost (MCi ) with its corresponding intensity (VWIi ) and finally, the total water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry (VW) is obtained by summing up the virtual water embodied in each input as follows: VW =
n
VWi =
i=1
n
(VWIi × MCi )
i=1
2.2. Data sources To calculate the water footprint Macao’s gaming industry in a time series requires estimation using a hybrid method and different types of data. To do this, a data set has been collected from various data sources. The economic data needed in this study are classified into four types, namely operating inputs, labor, commission and goods purchased, derived from recently issued official statistical yearbooks, such as Yearbook of Statistics Macao (DSEC, 2005–2011). Moreover, price data on direct water input are extracted from the report on Macao’s water resources published by Macao Special Administration government (MSAG, 2013). The embodied water intensities of the various items are collected from these already existing databases (Chen and Chen, 2010, 2013), which are obtained based on the input–output analysis. 3. Results and discussion
3
regions, suggesting that the direct water consumed in other regions to produce those inputs has been a substantial component to meet the final consumption of Macao’s gaming industry. Among all the operating inputs, food and beverage individually contributes the most to the total water footprint of operating inputs, with its quantity increasing from 2.52E+07 m3 to 4.31E+07 m3 and making up 37.81% of the total in the year of 2011. The result mainly attributes to two reasons, one is that food and beverage is the basic need of both tourists and working employees, the other is that the embodied water intensity of food and beverage is comparatively high. Followed is the input hotel rooms, ferry and air tickets, the virtual water embodied in which has more than tripled in the same period, increasing from 4.62E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.90E+07 m3 . The growth mainly attributes to tourists’ heavy demand for the services such as hotel rooms, water and air transportation. Most of the gaming companies, especially the casinos, stay open for 24 h, 7 days per week (WSU, 2007). So a lot of electricity is required as electricity is gaming industry’s major energy input for lightening, powering gaming machines and air conditioning. In 2011, the electricity consumed by Macao’s gaming industry amounts to 1419 million kWh, accounting for about 40% of Macao’s total electricity consumption (DSEC, 2011). Thus, it contributes considerable proportions of the total water footprint of operating inputs. And along with the rapid growth of electricity input, the water footprint of electricity consumption sharply grows from 4.26E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.33E+07 m3 in 2011 and representing for more than 10% of the total water footprint of operating inputs. It should be noted that the fresh water input is also one of the necessary inputs for gaming industry. Based on the money spent on water input and the water prices, the quantities of direct water input are obtained. Like most of the operating inputs, the direct water input is also in an upward trend, increasing from 3.41E+06 m3 to 5.93E+06 m3 . Likewise, its water footprint grows from 4.01E+06 m3 to 6.97E+06 m3 in the same period.
3.1. Operating inputs
3.2. Labor
The operating inputs collectively refer to the total products and services provided by other sectors. Table 1 summarizes the quantities of the total and specific inputs’ water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry. The total water footprint in 2005 is derived as 5.18E+07 m3 , and the quantity in 2011 is 1.14E+08 m3 . That means the quantity of operating inputs’ water footprint doubled in such short period. According to Yearbook Statistics (DSEC, 2005–2011), the majority of the operating inputs are imported from other
As for gaming industry, a certain number of staff members are required to work in different positions such as running casinos, operating gaming machines and offering services to clients. Therefore, the fast-growing gaming industry offers many job vacancies for residents in Macao and other places. In 2011, the gaming industry absorbed 50,198 labors, which are almost twice as that in 2005 and accounting for about 15% of the total employed population. Consequently, the fast-growing labor number results
Table 1 Water footprint of operating inputs (unit: m3 ). Operating inputs
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Materials acquired Electricity Fuels Maintenance and repairs Rent of establishment Rent of machinery and equipment Premiums on non-labor insurance Bank charges Communications Marketing and publicity Business travels Computer and information Rent of vehicles Uniform Food and beverages Hotel rooms, ferry and air tickets Other contract services Other operating expenses Total
2.81E+06 4.26E+06 0.00E+00 3.25E+05 1.20E+06 3.53E+05 5.04E+04 6.24E+04 1.28E+05 4.33E+06 2.04E+05 5.18E+04 0.00E+00 1.34E+06 2.52E+07 4.62E+06 4.21E+05 2.42E+06 4.78E+07
3.34E+06 7.81E+06 0.00E+00 4.67E+05 1.73E+06 3.32E+05 5.08E+04 7.74E+04 1.40E+05 5.75E+06 3.16E+05 7.70E+04 0.00E+00 1.49E+06 2.78E+07 5.53E+06 1.31E+06 2.12E+06 5.84E+07
5.59E+06 8.35E+06 5.49E+04 4.76E+05 2.20E+06 2.97E+05 8.64E+04 2.63E+05 1.64E+05 6.88E+06 2.62E+05 1.26E+05 3.54E+05 2.18E+06 3.21E+07 7.94E+06 2.21E+06 3.37E+06 7.28E+07
6.47E+06 9.97E+06 3.15E+05 6.00E+05 2.33E+06 3.97E+05 1.32E+05 2.13E+05 1.87E+05 3.64E+06 3.46E+05 9.84E+04 5.68E+05 2.04E+06 3.38E+07 1.12E+07 1.86E+06 5.01E+06 7.92E+07
6.71E+06 1.02E+07 1.45E+05 6.40E+05 2.91E+06 3.17E+05 1.10E+05 1.64E+05 1.79E+05 4.33E+06 2.82E+05 9.92E+04 6.49E+05 1.83E+06 2.77E+07 1.26E+07 1.58E+06 4.86E+06 7.53E+07
7.72E+06 1.25E+07 1.62E+05 7.56E+05 3.15E+06 1.23E+05 1.05E+05 1.87E+05 1.69E+05 5.92E+06 3.56E+05 1.38E+05 7.99E+05 1.27E+06 3.28E+07 1.50E+07 1.84E+06 4.85E+06 8.79E+07
8.44E+06 1.33E+07 1.93E+05 9.19E+05 3.22E+06 1.93E+05 9.17E+04 1.52E+05 1.65E+05 6.55E+06 7.25E+05 1.63E+05 8.83E+05 1.31E+06 4.31E+07 1.90E+07 1.74E+06 6.62E+06 1.07E+08
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
4
Fig. 3. Water footprint of goods purchased input. Fig. 1. Water footprint of labor input.
in the growth of virtual water consumption. In general, the water footprint induced by Macao’s gaming industry experienced growth in the period concerned, though fluctuation can be witnessed (Fig. 1). First, the amount of labor water footprint increased from 4.65E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.61E+07 m3 in 2008. However, influenced by the world financial crisis happened in 2008; the gaming industry also suffered economic trouble and had to reduce the number of employees to lower the cost. Therefore, the quantity of water footprint decreased compared to that of 2007. But eventually, the quantity of water footprint grew to 1.84E+07 m3 in 2011, due to the increase of labors. 3.3. Commission Commission is a distinctive tradition of Macao’s gaming industry, compared to other gaming industries all around the world. It roots in the unique business model called VIP room, which is the major source of Macao’s gaming industry’s revenue, contributing more than 60% of the gaming industry’s income (Shen, 2008). As a result, commission is recognized as a type of service input that offered to tourists with large amount of cash called VIPs (Wang, 2009). This business model cannot work without customer representatives who work as intermediate agent, i.e., each casino sends their customer representatives out and the customer representatives’ job it to look for VIP customers and bring them to VIP rooms. Then the casinos give the customer representatives money as their payment, which casinos called commission paid. As shown in Fig. 2, the amount of commission water footprint experienced remarkable growth in the period concerned, increasing from 1.40E+07 m3 in 2005 to 8.51E+07 m3 in 2011, with a growth rate of more than 500%. The reason behind the growth is the termination of monopoly in 2002, which empowered each gaming company with the exclusive rights to run gaming business while at the same time started the fierce competition for VIP customers between different gaming companies. To attract as many
Fig. 2. Water footprint of commission input.
VIP customers as possible, each gaming company strenuously adds its number of customer representatives. According to Wang (2009), commission is not as necessary as other inputs for Macao’s gaming industry and now the fast growing commission becomes more and more troublesome. First, a lot of money should be paid to commission representatives, which remarkably increases the economic pressure for Macao’s gaming industry. Second, the disorderly competition of commission has become a threat to gaming industry’s sustainable development. Being confronted with these problems, the government and stakeholders is aware of that now it is time to strictly regulate commission through measures like reducing the number of representatives and eliminating many unnecessary commission activities. Thus, water footprint of commission can be predicted to decrease in the near future. 3.4. Goods purchased The goods purchased refer to the products gaming industry purchases from other sectors, as gaming industry does not manufacture products itself. They are usually sold to satisfy the customers’ needs for commodities such as gaming related souvenirs because for many customers, gambling is not their only purpose. Along with the increasing gaming related customer number, the amount of water footprint of goods purchased experienced obvious increase. Presented in Fig. 3 is the amount of water footprint of goods purchased in 2005–2011. It can be seen that in 2005 the quantity of water footprint is 2.10E+07 m3 , and 6 years later, it soars to 1.28E+08 m3 . 3.5. Total and intensity The overall water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry is obtained by aggregating all the detailed water embodied in all the inputs. As shown in Fig. 4, the water footprint increased by about 2.8 times, after 6 consecutive years’ growth. Direct water
Fig. 4. Total water footprint and its structure.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
input accounts for less than 2% every year in the period concerned; and its proportion decreases annually. The indirect water plays a completely dominant role in Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that massive water consumption is induced elsewhere by Macao gaming industry. These results are reasonable as the gaming is a very typical service sector, which is supported by the products and services from other regions. The findings can also enrich people’s knowledge on water consumption by service sectors like gaming industry in Macao. The visible water input is only responsible for a tiny part of gaming industry’s water consumption. It is the invisible water embodied in imports transferred via global economic network silently contributes the majority of Macao gaming industry’s virtual water consumption. The findings reveal water resource challenge for Macao. In 2011, only about 1% of Macao’s total direct water input (7.87E+05 m3 ) comes from local sources (DSEC, 2011), while water footprint of gaming industry is 3.45 E+08 m3 in the same year. The huge gap between these two numbers indicates that Macao’s extremely limited local fresh water resources, which are far from enough to satisfy Macao’s water demand. It can be predicated the gap will be widened, owing to the still growing gaming industry as well as the whole Macao’s need for water in the foreseeable future. Under this circumstance, Macao should seek closer trade ties with other regions for more import of fresh water as well as products. It is worth noticing that the virtual water structure varies annually in this period (also shown in Fig. 4). Although operating inputs maintain its position as the biggest contributor to the gaming industry’s virtual water consumption most of the time, its proportion becomes smaller and smaller. On the contrary, goods purchased account for a bigger and bigger share of the total virtual consumption. Finally in the year of 2011, goods purchased take operating inputs’ position as the leading contributor. Similar to goods purchased, the proportion of virtual water embodied in commission experiences obvious increase, while virtual water embodied in labor, which takes the smallest share, plays a less and less important role in the overall picture as time goes by. The virtual water intensities of Macao’s gaming industry between 2005 and 2011 are in the range of 1.02E+04 m3 /million USD ∼ 1.53E+04 m3 /million USD and the embodied water intensity in 2005 is the highest while that of 2011 is the lowest. That means in contrast to the growing total virtual water consumption by gaming industry, its embodied water intensity shows an obvious down trend in the period concerned because the water footprint grows at a slower speed than that of the total revenue of gaming industry (Fig. 5). Compared to China’s 135 economic sectors in Chen and Chen (2010), gaming industry in Macao has the lowest embodied water intensity in the same year. According to Duchin (2005), the comparison for Macao’s gaming industry and China’s
Fig. 5. Gaming revenue and embodied water intensity.
5
economic sectors is to illustrate gaming industry’s production efficiency in terms of water cost for one unit of economic output. This embodied water intensity is comparable to those of Real estate and Banking, security, other financial activities. Compared to the agricultural and most of the secondary industries all around the world (Chen and Chen, 2013), Macao’s gaming industry consumes a comparatively small amounts of water resources to meet its demand and has relatively low embodied water intensity. As for water-starving Macao, to develop the gaming industry should be still considered as the direction of the future economic plan. The results show that the amount of indirect water is dozens of times larger than that of direct water. That’s because gaming industry’s water demand is primarily satisfied by the consumption of virtual water embodied in products, which are basically imported from other regions as most of the primary and secondary industries have vanished in Macao. The virtual water trade should be incorporated into the water strategy. 4. Concluding remarks From the perspective of direct accounting, unlike the agricultural sectors, service sectors like gaming industry are considered to be comparatively smaller water consumers. However, the current study does not support the opinion derived from the perspective on direct water input. Results in this study imply that gaming industry is not that low water consuming as previously thought. Take the year of 2011 as an example; the direct water use by Macao’s gaming industry is 3.04E+06 m3 , while the calculated water footprint amounts to 3.45E+08 m3 . That is to say, direct water accounts for less than 1% of Macao gaming industry’s real water demand. It verifies that water footprint is a much more comprehensive indicator to reflect the overall picture of gaming industry’s water use, compared with simple indicator of direct water use. The results also reveal that although embodied water intensity shows an opposite trend as the growth speed of revenue gained by gaming industry is faster than that of the water footprint, the total water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry is unprecedented with the booming scale of gaming industry. Indirect water plays a decisive role in gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that service sectors like gaming industry are not able to satisfy their true water needs with direct water inputs. Service sectors heavily depend on goods and services to sustain their development, thus allocating their water burden to other sectors. As the economic interdependence holds gaming industry and other economic sectors as integrity, substantial volumes of water are being redistributed as a result of water intensive commodity and service exchanges. For all the imported goods, like each bottle of beverage gaming industry consumes, every liter of fuel is uses, their production processes, transportation are associated with water consumption. It is the net-exporting sector who incurs the environmental impact associated with direct water use. As the biggest economic industry in water-scarce Macao, gaming industry has the obligation to take into very activity which impacts the water resources. Therefore, gaming industry in Macao should take ultimate consumer responsibility. The results provide knowledge for more comprehensive understanding on gaming industry’s water concerns. In formulating water policies, nowadays Macao governments and decision makers still traditionally confine their ideas under the framework of direct water input. The government is striving for reducing direct water input from gaming industry, household and other economic sectors (MSAG, 2010). These current policies are still limited in the framework of direct water accounting and ignore the indirect water transfer which induced by the import of water-intensive products between various sectors in different regions. As water used by gaming industry in Macao is dominated by indirect water embodied
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7 6
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
in imported goods and services, just looking at direct water used only the government may get wrong information; thus misleading the water saving strategies. Emphasis on regulating direct water supply has limited effectiveness of water resource management, particularly in service sectors in water scare regions. For overall management of gaming industry’s impact on water resources, appropriate strategies to manage its commodities and services as well as the water resource consumption in a more sustainable way are urgently needed. Tackling Macao’s water shortage requires significant reductions in the amount of water both directly and indirectly used by its economic sectors, however, it is impractical to reduce Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint to a large extent. That is because on one hand, it cannot survive without the commodities and services provided by other sectors owing to its sectoral inheritance; on the other hand, its scale is still expected to grow in the near future. It seems that Macao’s gaming industry is nowhere close to moving quickly in the direction of greatly reducing water footprint: the scale of gaming industry is still growing. That means larger number of employees will be needed to operate the casinos, more products and services will be consumed by the growing tourists, etc. These factors do not militate in favor of a reduction of the water footprint, which will put more pressure on Macao. Nevertheless, that does not mean there is no chance for the gaming industry to control or even reduce its water footprint. The reduction potential for Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint can also be found. According to the statistics (DSEC, 2011), gaming industry consumes over 1/3 of Macao’s overall electricity, which is mainly imported from Mainland China, which has comparatively high embodied water intensity. The results show that the virtual water embodied in electricity consumed by Macao’s gaming industry has more than doubled in the period concerned. Thus, the governments and stakeholders should focus on measures that reduce the consumption of virtual water embodied in electricity. For instance, energy-efficient products such as energy-saving lamps can be promoted to reduce gaming industry’s electricity consumption. It also should be noted that strictly controlling commission is also a practical way to reduce Macao’s gaming industry’s impact on water resources, as discussion in the previous context. Moreover, operating inputs are also responsible for large proportion of Macao gaming industry’s water footprint, thus, the rational use of various products and services would also help to reduce its impact on water resources. These suggestions of sustainable practices contribute not only to water conservation, but also to energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In a word, Macao should make every effort to improve gaming industry’s performance, and efficiency to control or even reduce its water footprint. To further alleviate gaming industry’s water concerns, more integrated policies need to be formulated. As the current study provides evidence that indirect water embodied in goods and services is mainly responsible for the total water footprint, rational use of all the goods and services which are directly or indirectly linked to water consumption should be promoted. To achieve better water footprint balance, the sectoral planners can import some products that produced by more water efficient technology. Economic instruments can also be employed to encourage water saving. Water tax, which has been proven to be powerful tool to control regional water use (Geng and Yi, 2006), can be introduced in Macao to reduce its sectoral water use. As the gaming industry is a hugely lucrative sector, a financial subsidy scheme can be adopted to seek water efficient equipment and technologies and encourage those who contribute to prevention of water losses as well as efficient water and resources use. Based on the above, these initiatives which can effectively reduce water demand and ease water pressure should be made as gaming industry in water scarce Macao faces significant water challenges.
Acknowledgement This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11272012).
References Alcorn, J.A., Baird, G., 1996. Use of a hybrid energy analysis method for evaluating the embodied energy of building materials. Renewable Energy 8, 319–322. Allan, J.A., 1998. Virtual water: a strategic resource global solutions to regional deficits. Ground Water 36, 545–546. Bullard, C.W., Penner, P.S., Pilati, D.A., 1978. Net energy analysis: handbook for combining process and input–output analysis. Resources and Energy 1, 267–313. Carr, J.A., D’Odorico, P., Laio, F., Ridolfi, L., 2013. Recent history and geography of virtual water trade. PLOS ONE 8, e55825. Cazcarro, I., Duarte, R., Choliz, J.S., Sarasa, C., 2011. Water rates and the responsibilities of direct, indirect and end-users in Spain. Economic Systems Research 23, 409–430. Chen, G.Q., Chen, Z.M., 2010. Carbon emissions and resources use by Chinese economy 2007: a 135-sector inventory and input–output embodiment. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation 15, 3647–3732. Chen, Z.-M., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Virtual water accounting for the globalized world economy: national water footprint and international virtual water trade. Ecological Indicators 28, 142–149. Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Chen, Z.M., Li, Z., Zhang, B., Chen, H., Wu, Z., 2011. Low-carbon assessment for ecological wastewater treatment by a constructed wetland in Beijing. Ecological Engineering 37, 622–628. Chen, Z.M., Chen, G.Q., Xia, X.H., Xu, S.Y., 2012. Global network of embodied water flow by systems input–output simulation. Frontiers of Earth Science 6, 331–344. Dalin, C., Konar, M., Hanasaki, N., Rinaldo, A., Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., 2012. Evolution of the global virtual water trade network. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, 5989–5994. Dong, H., Geng, Y., Sarkis, J., Fujita, T., Okadera, T., Xue, B., 2013. Regional water footprint evaluation in China: a case of Liaoning. Science of the Total Environment 442, 215–224. DSEC, 2005. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2006. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2007. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2008. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2009. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2010. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2011. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. Duchin, F., 2005. A world trade model based on comparative advantage with m regions, n goods, and k factors. Economic Systems Research 17, 141–162. Ene, S.A., Teodosiu, C., Robu, B., Volf, I., 2013. Water footprint assessment in the winemaking industry: a case study for a Romanian medium size production plant. Journal of Cleaner Production 43, 122–135. Ercin, A.E., Mekonnen, M.M., Hoekstra, A.Y., 2013. Sustainability of national consumption from a water resources perspective: the case study for France. Ecological Economics 88, 133–147. Feng, K., Siu, Y.L., Guan, D., Hubacek, K., 2012. Assessing regional virtual water flows and water footprints in the Yellow River Basin, China: a consumption based approach. Applied Geography 32, 691–701. Geng, Y., Yi, J., 2006. Integrated water resources planning and management at the industrial park level: a case of TEDA. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 13, 37–51. Guan, D., Hubacek, K., 2007. Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in China. Ecological Economics 61, 159–170. Han, M.Y., Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Li, J.S., Alsaedi, A., Ahmad, B., Guo, S., Jiang, M.M., Ji, X., 2013. Embodied energy consumption of building construction engineering: case study in E-town, Beijing. Energy and Buildings 64, 62–72. Hoekstra, A.Y., 2009. Human appropriation of natural capital: a comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis. Ecological Economics 68, 1963–1974. Hoekstra, A.Y., Mekonnen, M.M., 2012. The water footprint of humanity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, 3232–3237. Lei, K., Zhou, S., Hu, D., Yu, Y., 2010. Ecological energy accounting for the gambling sector: a case study in Macao. Ecological Complexity 7, 149–155. Lenzen, M., 2009. Understanding virtual water flows: a multiregion input–output case study of Victoria. Water Resources Research 45, W09416. Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Bhaduri, A., Kanemoto, K., Bekchanov, M., Geschke, A., Foran, B., 2013. International trade of scarce water. Ecological Economics 94, 78–85. Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Energy and greenhouse gas emissions review for Macao. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 22, 23–32. Li, J.S., Duan, N., Guo, S., Shao, L., Lin, C., Wang, J.H., Hou, J., Hou, Y., Meng, J., Han, M.Y., 2012. Renewable resource for agricultural ecosystem in China: ecological benefit for biogas by-product for planting. Ecological Informatics 12, 101–110. Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Lai, T.M., Ahmad, B., Chen, Z.M., Shao, L., Ji, X., 2013. Embodied greenhouse gas emission by Macao. Energy Policy 59, 819–833. Li, J.S., Alsaed, A., Hayat, T., Chen, G.Q., 2014. Energy and carbon emission review for Macao’s gaming industry. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 29, 744–753.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Meng, J., Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Li, J.S., Tang, H.S., Hayat, T., Alsaedi, A., Alsaadi, F., 2013. Virtual water accounting for building: case study for E-town, Beijing. Journal of Cleaner Production, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.045 (in press). MSAG, 2010. Water Conservation Outline 2010. Macao Special Administrative Government, Macao. MSAG, 2013. Macao Water Resource Report 2011/2012. Macao Special Administrative Government: Working Group on Promoting the Construction of Water-Saving Society, Macao. Mubako, S., Lahiri, S., Lant, C., 2013. Input–output analysis of virtual water transfers: case study of California and Illinois. Ecological Economics 93, 230–238. Shao, L., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Water footprint assessment for wastewater treatment: method indicator, and application. Environmental Science & Technology 47, 7787–7794. Shen, Z.D., 2008. The economic effect of Macao VIP gambling room. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. Sheng, L., Tsui, Y., 2009. Casino boom and local politics: the city of Macao. Cities 26, 67–73. Tang, U.W., Sheng, N., 2009. Macao. Cities 26, 220–231. To, W.M., Lai, T.M., Chung, W.L., 2011. Fuel life cycle emissions for electricity consumption in the world’s gaming center – Macao SAR, China. Energy 36, 5162–5168. Velázquez, E., 2007. Water trade in Andalusia. Virtual water: an alternative way to manage water use. Ecological Economics 63, 201–208. Wan, Y.K.P., Li, X., 2013. Sustainability of tourism development in Macao, China. International Journal of Tourism Research 15, 52–65. Wang, W.Y., 2009. The commission War and Lounges fate of the contract system. Studies on Hong Kong and Macao 1, 82–91.
7
Wang, Y., 2010. The Impact of Labor Migration on the Economic Development of Macao. Jilin University, Changchun (in Chinese). Wang, Y., Xiao, H.L., Lu, M.F., 2009. Analysis of water consumption using a regional input–output model: model development and application to Zhangye City, Northwestern China. Journal of Arid Environments 73, 894–900. Wang, Z., Huang, K., Yang, S., Yu, Y., 2013. An input–output approach to evaluate the water footprint and virtual water trade of Beijing, China. Journal of Cleaner Production 42, 172–179. Wiedmann, T.O., Schandl, H., Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Suh, S., West, J., Kanemoto, K., 2013. The material footprint of nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1220362110. Washington State University (WSU), 2007. Energy Management Increases Tribal Casinos’ Profitability. Yang, Z., Mao, X., Zhao, X., Chen, B., 2012. Ecological network analysis on global virtual water trade. Environmental Science & Technology 46, 1796–1803. Yu, Y., Hubacek, K., Feng, K., Guan, D., 2010. Assessing regional and global water footprints for the UK. Ecological Economics 69, 1140–1147. Zhang, Z., Yang, H., Shi, M., 2011. Analyses of water footprint of Beijing in an interregional input–output framework. Ecological Economics 70, 2494–2502. Zhao, X., Chen, B., Yang, Z.F., 2009. National water footprint in an input–output framework—a case study of China 2002. Ecological Modelling 220, 245–253. Zhao, X., Yang, H., Yang, Z., Chen, B., Qin, Y., 2010. Applying the input–output method to account for water footprint and virtual water trade in the Haihe River Basin in China. Environmental Science & Technology 44, 9150–9156. Zhou, S.Y., Chen, H., Li, S.C., 2010. Resources use and greenhouse gas emissions in urban economy: ecological input–output modeling for Beijing 2002. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation 15 (10), 3201–3231.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
ARTICLE IN PRESS Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Ecological Indicators journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind
Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao J.S. Li a , G.Q. Chen a,b,∗ a b
Laboratory of Systems Ecology, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China NAAM Group, Faculty of Science, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 4 November 2013 Received in revised form 21 January 2014 Accepted 21 January 2014 Keywords: Water footprint Economic sector Gaming industry Macao
a b s t r a c t Although numerous studies have been carried out to investigate the water footprint of different economies at global, national and regional scales, the research on water footprint of individual economic sector, which is the elementary part of each economy, is still lacking. To fill the gap, this paper for the first time employs a hybrid method to evaluate the water footprint of gaming industry in water scarce Macao, based on the latest statistics and most exhaustive embodied water intensity databases. The results show that direct water use only accounts for extremely small fraction of the gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that the exchange of water embodied in product and service between different sectors is also a useful mean to satisfy individual sector’s demand for water resources. As Macao’s demand for water is growing, integrated plans including economic instruments and measures like reducing the scale of commission input and promoting efficiency would ease Macao’s water pressure. Water footprint assessment in this study brings along new perspectives on gaming industry’s water management and encourages wise use of goods, materials and services in a sustainable way. © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction Water footprint is defined as the total volume of water needed to produce the goods or services consumed by a country, region, business or an individual person (Hoekstra, 2009). This concept is closely related to the concept of virtual water, or the more general one of embodied water (Chen et al., 2012), referring to the total amount of water (including direct and indirect water input) embodied in a product or service (Allan, 1998). Despite these “young” academic concepts, they have become the hot spots in the research fields and lots of works have been carried out to analyze water footprint and virtual water issues at different scales. Global water footprint has been estimated and moreover, international virtual water flows between nations have been calculated based on the trade statistics (Carr et al., 2013; Chen and Chen, 2013; Dalin et al., 2012; Hoekstra and Mekonnen, 2012; Lenzen et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2012). These global scale water footprint analyses point out that some countries have significantly externalized their impacts on water resources in other countries via importing water-intensive goods. At the national scale, water footprint of some key countries, such as China (Chen and Chen, 2010; Guan and Hubacek, 2007; Zhao et al., 2009), France (Ercin et al., 2013),
∗ Corresponding author at: Laboratory of Systems Ecology, College of Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. Tel.: +86 010 62767167. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.Q. Chen).
Spain (Cazcarro et al., 2011) and UK (Yu et al., 2010), have been explored. Most of the national water accounting studies first find out the target nation is a “net importer” or “net exporter” of virtual water and then help decision-makers develop well-informed national water policy. At the regional scale, the analysis has been focused toward the topic that how virtual water transfers between regions affect each region’s water footprint (Mubako et al., 2013; Lenzen, 2009). Recently, the water footprint of sub-national regions like river basins (Feng et al., 2012; Zhao et al., 2010), provinces (Dong et al., 2013) and cities (Wang et al., 2009, 2013; Zhang et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2010) raise more and more concerns with the purpose to support local governments to develop appropriate regional water strategies. Besides, to help determine optimal production, water issues receive interests from plants, factories and business leaders (Ene et al., 2013; Meng et al., 2013; Shao and Chen, 2013). All these previous studies on virtual water of economies at different scales have provided with much insight into water issues formulating water policies. For each economy, the sustainable consumption of water will depend on the amount of products and services its economic sectors consumes. In fact, the definitions of water footprint and virtual water become more relevant if it links to the exchange of commodities and services since the water virtually transfers between sectors in various regions (Velázquez, 2007). For instance, agriculture produces food such as rice and meat, whose production process consumes large quantity of physical water. Service sectors need to purchase large amount of food to satisfy its demand.
1470-160X/$ – see front matter © 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Therefore, when service sector consumes food from agricultural sector, virtual water starts to flow from agricultural sectors to service sectors and consequently has effect on service sector’s water footprint. That means a certain proportion of direct water used by agricultural sectors is induced by the demand of service sectors. However, the statistic figures just focus on the ‘on-site’ or ‘direct’ water used by service sectors. According to previous study (Wiedmann et al., 2013), environmental impacts are allocated to the immediate producers and the influence of final consumers is not reflected. Even though some studies have evaluated consumerfocused water use by global, national and regional economies as aforementioned, there is an important omission that no study has ever been carried out to exploit individual economic sector’s water use driven by its consumption. As a matter of fact, the total water footprint of economies can be considered as the sum of the water footprint of each economic sector, as they constitute the whole economy. Moreover, the water footprint assessment of economic sector can provide more comprehensive information to guide appropriate water management practices, which will contribute to helping the economy to use water resources in a more sustainable way. Given these reasons, this study chooses a typical service sector—Macao’s gaming industry as a case to evaluate its water footprint. Gaming industry has been existed in Macao since the 16th century. With over 400 years’ development, Macao’s gaming industry has made striking progress in its scale and profit. As the pillar industry, gaming industry contributed to three fourths of Macao’s GDP in 2011 (DSEC, 2011) and moreover, making Macao one of the richest regions in Asia (Wang, 2010). However, price has to be paid; Macao inevitably suffers from various problems, such as inequality, pollution caused by gaming industry (Tang and Sheng, 2009). Especially, Macao is an extremely water-starving region; more than 95% of Macao’s freshwater is imported from mainland China. Moreover, its freshwater resources are subject to increasing pressure, due to the growing residents as well as large number of tourists attracted by gaming industry (MSAG, 2013). Inevitably, the resource-intensive gaming industry has brought about great pressure to extreme resource-scarce Macao (Wan and Li, 2013). In the recognition of these problems, concerns on Macao’s sustainable development arise, striving for a better society and environment. A series of studies have made efforts to evaluate Macao’s consumption’s impact on socioeconomic issues such as energy use and greenhouse gases emissions (e.g., Li and Chen, 2013; Li et al., 2013; To et al., 2011). More specifically, gaming industry has been the focus in some recent academic studies, due to its vital role in Macao’s entire economy (e.g. Lei et al., 2010; Sheng and Tsui, 2009). All of the efforts have contributed greatly to tackle the challenge of the sustainable development of Macao’s gaming industry. Despite these previous studies, it should be pointed out that the key element water has been absent in the studies on Macao’s gaming industry. As Macao’s pillar industry, no doubt gaming industry has significant influence on Macao’s water footprint and water management. As a consequence, appreciating the detailed information on gaming industry’s water use can be of prime importance for solving some of Macao’s most urgent water shortage problems. This paper attempts to for the first time provide an explicit accounting procedure to assess the water footprint of a special service sector—gaming industry. Our object is to find out how much direct and indirect water is needed to sustain Macao’s gaming industry in the period of 2005–2011 during which the data are available, by the means of water footprint calculation and more importantly, to figure out water reduction potential and possible solutions to save water, based on the detailed findings of this study.
2. Methodology and data 2.1. The hybrid method Generally, there are two widely adopted methods for water footprint accounting: one is bottom-up approach and the other is top-down approach. The bottom-up can collect dispersive process information through the research target’s whole lifecycle and then aggregate all the information into the target’s whole virtual water profile. Providing intuitively detailed information is bottomup approach’s most attractive merit, while at the same time; it is also this approach’s disadvantage. As Macao’s gaming industry has various products and service inputs, striving for such details is time-consuming and inevitably suffers from truncation errors, due to the difficulty in covering each input in a unified base (Chen et al., 2011; Chen and Chen, 2013). On the contrary, the top-down approach, usually presented as input–output analysis, can not only avoid the truncation error but also cover different activities in the whole economic network, as the input–output table is a high level aggregation of all economic sectors. However, just because of the aggregation of data, the results obtained by the most prevalent top-down approach are doomed to be too rough to analyze specific products or services inputs in individual economic sectors. And more importantly, it should be noted that no Macao economic input–output table exists currently, making it impossible to employ input–output analysis on Macao’s gaming industry. Under this circumstance, a method attempting to incorporate the merits of methods outlined above and at the meantime reducing their disadvantages is needed in the current study. A hybrid method which describes procedures for combining input–output analysis with process analysis is firstly proposed by Bullard et al. (1978) to calculate energy required directly and indirectly to produce goods and services. On the basis of the averaged macroeconomy data supported by the input–output analysis with the process analysis, the hybrid method has been successfully applied to evaluate ecological endowments consumed by different systems, such as embodied energy of building materials (Alcorn and Baird, 1996; Han et al., 2013), embodied greenhouse gas emission of renewable resources (Li et al., 2012), virtual water of constructed wetlands (Chen et al., 2011), embodied energy and water footprint of wastewater treatment plant (Shao and Chen, 2013). Moreover, as for Macao’s gaming industry, this hybrid method was also successfully employed to investigate its embodied energy consumption as well as greenhouse gas emission (Li et al., 2014). In light of the previous hybrid method based studies, water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry can be calculated by the following steps. First, as the hybrid method begins with the readily input data, this study classifies the various inputs required by Macao’s gaming industry into four major categories, namely, operating inputs, labor, commission and goods purchased, then compiles a detailed input inventory. It should be noted that the amount of direct water input into gaming industry can be calculated in this step. Based on the monetary cost of water input and the water price, the amount of direct water input is obtained. Second, choose suitable embodied water intensity databases. Embodied water intensity for an economic sector refers to the average amount of water consumed in the supply chain to produce one monetary unit of goods or services based on the current technology. According to Macao’s trade statistics, the majority of goods and services consumed by gaming industry are imported from different countries/regions. For instance, energy products like electricity and diesel are imported from mainland China, while the electrical machines are mainly purchased from Germany. As a result, choosing comprehensive databases cover embodied water intensities of various sectors in different countries/regions has the fundamental meaning for water footprint calculation.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model
ARTICLE IN PRESS
ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
As illustrated in the second step, the commodities and services spatially explicit, then the third step is to match the goods or services to their corresponding embodied water intensities by origins. For instance, electricity imported from mainland China is the product of Sector 92, so the corresponding embodied water intensity of electricity should be identified as the intensity of Sector 92 in China’s input–output table. In the fourth step, virtual water embodied in each input (VWi ) is calculated by multiplying the its monetary cost (MCi ) with its corresponding intensity (VWIi ) and finally, the total water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry (VW) is obtained by summing up the virtual water embodied in each input as follows: VW =
n
VWi =
i=1
n
(VWIi × MCi )
i=1
2.2. Data sources To calculate the water footprint Macao’s gaming industry in a time series requires estimation using a hybrid method and different types of data. To do this, a data set has been collected from various data sources. The economic data needed in this study are classified into four types, namely operating inputs, labor, commission and goods purchased, derived from recently issued official statistical yearbooks, such as Yearbook of Statistics Macao (DSEC, 2005–2011). Moreover, price data on direct water input are extracted from the report on Macao’s water resources published by Macao Special Administration government (MSAG, 2013). The embodied water intensities of the various items are collected from these already existing databases (Chen and Chen, 2010, 2013), which are obtained based on the input–output analysis. 3. Results and discussion
3
regions, suggesting that the direct water consumed in other regions to produce those inputs has been a substantial component to meet the final consumption of Macao’s gaming industry. Among all the operating inputs, food and beverage individually contributes the most to the total water footprint of operating inputs, with its quantity increasing from 2.52E+07 m3 to 4.31E+07 m3 and making up 37.81% of the total in the year of 2011. The result mainly attributes to two reasons, one is that food and beverage is the basic need of both tourists and working employees, the other is that the embodied water intensity of food and beverage is comparatively high. Followed is the input hotel rooms, ferry and air tickets, the virtual water embodied in which has more than tripled in the same period, increasing from 4.62E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.90E+07 m3 . The growth mainly attributes to tourists’ heavy demand for the services such as hotel rooms, water and air transportation. Most of the gaming companies, especially the casinos, stay open for 24 h, 7 days per week (WSU, 2007). So a lot of electricity is required as electricity is gaming industry’s major energy input for lightening, powering gaming machines and air conditioning. In 2011, the electricity consumed by Macao’s gaming industry amounts to 1419 million kWh, accounting for about 40% of Macao’s total electricity consumption (DSEC, 2011). Thus, it contributes considerable proportions of the total water footprint of operating inputs. And along with the rapid growth of electricity input, the water footprint of electricity consumption sharply grows from 4.26E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.33E+07 m3 in 2011 and representing for more than 10% of the total water footprint of operating inputs. It should be noted that the fresh water input is also one of the necessary inputs for gaming industry. Based on the money spent on water input and the water prices, the quantities of direct water input are obtained. Like most of the operating inputs, the direct water input is also in an upward trend, increasing from 3.41E+06 m3 to 5.93E+06 m3 . Likewise, its water footprint grows from 4.01E+06 m3 to 6.97E+06 m3 in the same period.
3.1. Operating inputs
3.2. Labor
The operating inputs collectively refer to the total products and services provided by other sectors. Table 1 summarizes the quantities of the total and specific inputs’ water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry. The total water footprint in 2005 is derived as 5.18E+07 m3 , and the quantity in 2011 is 1.14E+08 m3 . That means the quantity of operating inputs’ water footprint doubled in such short period. According to Yearbook Statistics (DSEC, 2005–2011), the majority of the operating inputs are imported from other
As for gaming industry, a certain number of staff members are required to work in different positions such as running casinos, operating gaming machines and offering services to clients. Therefore, the fast-growing gaming industry offers many job vacancies for residents in Macao and other places. In 2011, the gaming industry absorbed 50,198 labors, which are almost twice as that in 2005 and accounting for about 15% of the total employed population. Consequently, the fast-growing labor number results
Table 1 Water footprint of operating inputs (unit: m3 ). Operating inputs
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
Materials acquired Electricity Fuels Maintenance and repairs Rent of establishment Rent of machinery and equipment Premiums on non-labor insurance Bank charges Communications Marketing and publicity Business travels Computer and information Rent of vehicles Uniform Food and beverages Hotel rooms, ferry and air tickets Other contract services Other operating expenses Total
2.81E+06 4.26E+06 0.00E+00 3.25E+05 1.20E+06 3.53E+05 5.04E+04 6.24E+04 1.28E+05 4.33E+06 2.04E+05 5.18E+04 0.00E+00 1.34E+06 2.52E+07 4.62E+06 4.21E+05 2.42E+06 4.78E+07
3.34E+06 7.81E+06 0.00E+00 4.67E+05 1.73E+06 3.32E+05 5.08E+04 7.74E+04 1.40E+05 5.75E+06 3.16E+05 7.70E+04 0.00E+00 1.49E+06 2.78E+07 5.53E+06 1.31E+06 2.12E+06 5.84E+07
5.59E+06 8.35E+06 5.49E+04 4.76E+05 2.20E+06 2.97E+05 8.64E+04 2.63E+05 1.64E+05 6.88E+06 2.62E+05 1.26E+05 3.54E+05 2.18E+06 3.21E+07 7.94E+06 2.21E+06 3.37E+06 7.28E+07
6.47E+06 9.97E+06 3.15E+05 6.00E+05 2.33E+06 3.97E+05 1.32E+05 2.13E+05 1.87E+05 3.64E+06 3.46E+05 9.84E+04 5.68E+05 2.04E+06 3.38E+07 1.12E+07 1.86E+06 5.01E+06 7.92E+07
6.71E+06 1.02E+07 1.45E+05 6.40E+05 2.91E+06 3.17E+05 1.10E+05 1.64E+05 1.79E+05 4.33E+06 2.82E+05 9.92E+04 6.49E+05 1.83E+06 2.77E+07 1.26E+07 1.58E+06 4.86E+06 7.53E+07
7.72E+06 1.25E+07 1.62E+05 7.56E+05 3.15E+06 1.23E+05 1.05E+05 1.87E+05 1.69E+05 5.92E+06 3.56E+05 1.38E+05 7.99E+05 1.27E+06 3.28E+07 1.50E+07 1.84E+06 4.85E+06 8.79E+07
8.44E+06 1.33E+07 1.93E+05 9.19E+05 3.22E+06 1.93E+05 9.17E+04 1.52E+05 1.65E+05 6.55E+06 7.25E+05 1.63E+05 8.83E+05 1.31E+06 4.31E+07 1.90E+07 1.74E+06 6.62E+06 1.07E+08
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
4
Fig. 3. Water footprint of goods purchased input. Fig. 1. Water footprint of labor input.
in the growth of virtual water consumption. In general, the water footprint induced by Macao’s gaming industry experienced growth in the period concerned, though fluctuation can be witnessed (Fig. 1). First, the amount of labor water footprint increased from 4.65E+06 m3 in 2005 to 1.61E+07 m3 in 2008. However, influenced by the world financial crisis happened in 2008; the gaming industry also suffered economic trouble and had to reduce the number of employees to lower the cost. Therefore, the quantity of water footprint decreased compared to that of 2007. But eventually, the quantity of water footprint grew to 1.84E+07 m3 in 2011, due to the increase of labors. 3.3. Commission Commission is a distinctive tradition of Macao’s gaming industry, compared to other gaming industries all around the world. It roots in the unique business model called VIP room, which is the major source of Macao’s gaming industry’s revenue, contributing more than 60% of the gaming industry’s income (Shen, 2008). As a result, commission is recognized as a type of service input that offered to tourists with large amount of cash called VIPs (Wang, 2009). This business model cannot work without customer representatives who work as intermediate agent, i.e., each casino sends their customer representatives out and the customer representatives’ job it to look for VIP customers and bring them to VIP rooms. Then the casinos give the customer representatives money as their payment, which casinos called commission paid. As shown in Fig. 2, the amount of commission water footprint experienced remarkable growth in the period concerned, increasing from 1.40E+07 m3 in 2005 to 8.51E+07 m3 in 2011, with a growth rate of more than 500%. The reason behind the growth is the termination of monopoly in 2002, which empowered each gaming company with the exclusive rights to run gaming business while at the same time started the fierce competition for VIP customers between different gaming companies. To attract as many
Fig. 2. Water footprint of commission input.
VIP customers as possible, each gaming company strenuously adds its number of customer representatives. According to Wang (2009), commission is not as necessary as other inputs for Macao’s gaming industry and now the fast growing commission becomes more and more troublesome. First, a lot of money should be paid to commission representatives, which remarkably increases the economic pressure for Macao’s gaming industry. Second, the disorderly competition of commission has become a threat to gaming industry’s sustainable development. Being confronted with these problems, the government and stakeholders is aware of that now it is time to strictly regulate commission through measures like reducing the number of representatives and eliminating many unnecessary commission activities. Thus, water footprint of commission can be predicted to decrease in the near future. 3.4. Goods purchased The goods purchased refer to the products gaming industry purchases from other sectors, as gaming industry does not manufacture products itself. They are usually sold to satisfy the customers’ needs for commodities such as gaming related souvenirs because for many customers, gambling is not their only purpose. Along with the increasing gaming related customer number, the amount of water footprint of goods purchased experienced obvious increase. Presented in Fig. 3 is the amount of water footprint of goods purchased in 2005–2011. It can be seen that in 2005 the quantity of water footprint is 2.10E+07 m3 , and 6 years later, it soars to 1.28E+08 m3 . 3.5. Total and intensity The overall water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry is obtained by aggregating all the detailed water embodied in all the inputs. As shown in Fig. 4, the water footprint increased by about 2.8 times, after 6 consecutive years’ growth. Direct water
Fig. 4. Total water footprint and its structure.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
input accounts for less than 2% every year in the period concerned; and its proportion decreases annually. The indirect water plays a completely dominant role in Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that massive water consumption is induced elsewhere by Macao gaming industry. These results are reasonable as the gaming is a very typical service sector, which is supported by the products and services from other regions. The findings can also enrich people’s knowledge on water consumption by service sectors like gaming industry in Macao. The visible water input is only responsible for a tiny part of gaming industry’s water consumption. It is the invisible water embodied in imports transferred via global economic network silently contributes the majority of Macao gaming industry’s virtual water consumption. The findings reveal water resource challenge for Macao. In 2011, only about 1% of Macao’s total direct water input (7.87E+05 m3 ) comes from local sources (DSEC, 2011), while water footprint of gaming industry is 3.45 E+08 m3 in the same year. The huge gap between these two numbers indicates that Macao’s extremely limited local fresh water resources, which are far from enough to satisfy Macao’s water demand. It can be predicated the gap will be widened, owing to the still growing gaming industry as well as the whole Macao’s need for water in the foreseeable future. Under this circumstance, Macao should seek closer trade ties with other regions for more import of fresh water as well as products. It is worth noticing that the virtual water structure varies annually in this period (also shown in Fig. 4). Although operating inputs maintain its position as the biggest contributor to the gaming industry’s virtual water consumption most of the time, its proportion becomes smaller and smaller. On the contrary, goods purchased account for a bigger and bigger share of the total virtual consumption. Finally in the year of 2011, goods purchased take operating inputs’ position as the leading contributor. Similar to goods purchased, the proportion of virtual water embodied in commission experiences obvious increase, while virtual water embodied in labor, which takes the smallest share, plays a less and less important role in the overall picture as time goes by. The virtual water intensities of Macao’s gaming industry between 2005 and 2011 are in the range of 1.02E+04 m3 /million USD ∼ 1.53E+04 m3 /million USD and the embodied water intensity in 2005 is the highest while that of 2011 is the lowest. That means in contrast to the growing total virtual water consumption by gaming industry, its embodied water intensity shows an obvious down trend in the period concerned because the water footprint grows at a slower speed than that of the total revenue of gaming industry (Fig. 5). Compared to China’s 135 economic sectors in Chen and Chen (2010), gaming industry in Macao has the lowest embodied water intensity in the same year. According to Duchin (2005), the comparison for Macao’s gaming industry and China’s
Fig. 5. Gaming revenue and embodied water intensity.
5
economic sectors is to illustrate gaming industry’s production efficiency in terms of water cost for one unit of economic output. This embodied water intensity is comparable to those of Real estate and Banking, security, other financial activities. Compared to the agricultural and most of the secondary industries all around the world (Chen and Chen, 2013), Macao’s gaming industry consumes a comparatively small amounts of water resources to meet its demand and has relatively low embodied water intensity. As for water-starving Macao, to develop the gaming industry should be still considered as the direction of the future economic plan. The results show that the amount of indirect water is dozens of times larger than that of direct water. That’s because gaming industry’s water demand is primarily satisfied by the consumption of virtual water embodied in products, which are basically imported from other regions as most of the primary and secondary industries have vanished in Macao. The virtual water trade should be incorporated into the water strategy. 4. Concluding remarks From the perspective of direct accounting, unlike the agricultural sectors, service sectors like gaming industry are considered to be comparatively smaller water consumers. However, the current study does not support the opinion derived from the perspective on direct water input. Results in this study imply that gaming industry is not that low water consuming as previously thought. Take the year of 2011 as an example; the direct water use by Macao’s gaming industry is 3.04E+06 m3 , while the calculated water footprint amounts to 3.45E+08 m3 . That is to say, direct water accounts for less than 1% of Macao gaming industry’s real water demand. It verifies that water footprint is a much more comprehensive indicator to reflect the overall picture of gaming industry’s water use, compared with simple indicator of direct water use. The results also reveal that although embodied water intensity shows an opposite trend as the growth speed of revenue gained by gaming industry is faster than that of the water footprint, the total water footprint of Macao’s gaming industry is unprecedented with the booming scale of gaming industry. Indirect water plays a decisive role in gaming industry’s water footprint, indicating that service sectors like gaming industry are not able to satisfy their true water needs with direct water inputs. Service sectors heavily depend on goods and services to sustain their development, thus allocating their water burden to other sectors. As the economic interdependence holds gaming industry and other economic sectors as integrity, substantial volumes of water are being redistributed as a result of water intensive commodity and service exchanges. For all the imported goods, like each bottle of beverage gaming industry consumes, every liter of fuel is uses, their production processes, transportation are associated with water consumption. It is the net-exporting sector who incurs the environmental impact associated with direct water use. As the biggest economic industry in water-scarce Macao, gaming industry has the obligation to take into very activity which impacts the water resources. Therefore, gaming industry in Macao should take ultimate consumer responsibility. The results provide knowledge for more comprehensive understanding on gaming industry’s water concerns. In formulating water policies, nowadays Macao governments and decision makers still traditionally confine their ideas under the framework of direct water input. The government is striving for reducing direct water input from gaming industry, household and other economic sectors (MSAG, 2010). These current policies are still limited in the framework of direct water accounting and ignore the indirect water transfer which induced by the import of water-intensive products between various sectors in different regions. As water used by gaming industry in Macao is dominated by indirect water embodied
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7 6
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
in imported goods and services, just looking at direct water used only the government may get wrong information; thus misleading the water saving strategies. Emphasis on regulating direct water supply has limited effectiveness of water resource management, particularly in service sectors in water scare regions. For overall management of gaming industry’s impact on water resources, appropriate strategies to manage its commodities and services as well as the water resource consumption in a more sustainable way are urgently needed. Tackling Macao’s water shortage requires significant reductions in the amount of water both directly and indirectly used by its economic sectors, however, it is impractical to reduce Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint to a large extent. That is because on one hand, it cannot survive without the commodities and services provided by other sectors owing to its sectoral inheritance; on the other hand, its scale is still expected to grow in the near future. It seems that Macao’s gaming industry is nowhere close to moving quickly in the direction of greatly reducing water footprint: the scale of gaming industry is still growing. That means larger number of employees will be needed to operate the casinos, more products and services will be consumed by the growing tourists, etc. These factors do not militate in favor of a reduction of the water footprint, which will put more pressure on Macao. Nevertheless, that does not mean there is no chance for the gaming industry to control or even reduce its water footprint. The reduction potential for Macao’s gaming industry’s water footprint can also be found. According to the statistics (DSEC, 2011), gaming industry consumes over 1/3 of Macao’s overall electricity, which is mainly imported from Mainland China, which has comparatively high embodied water intensity. The results show that the virtual water embodied in electricity consumed by Macao’s gaming industry has more than doubled in the period concerned. Thus, the governments and stakeholders should focus on measures that reduce the consumption of virtual water embodied in electricity. For instance, energy-efficient products such as energy-saving lamps can be promoted to reduce gaming industry’s electricity consumption. It also should be noted that strictly controlling commission is also a practical way to reduce Macao’s gaming industry’s impact on water resources, as discussion in the previous context. Moreover, operating inputs are also responsible for large proportion of Macao gaming industry’s water footprint, thus, the rational use of various products and services would also help to reduce its impact on water resources. These suggestions of sustainable practices contribute not only to water conservation, but also to energy saving and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. In a word, Macao should make every effort to improve gaming industry’s performance, and efficiency to control or even reduce its water footprint. To further alleviate gaming industry’s water concerns, more integrated policies need to be formulated. As the current study provides evidence that indirect water embodied in goods and services is mainly responsible for the total water footprint, rational use of all the goods and services which are directly or indirectly linked to water consumption should be promoted. To achieve better water footprint balance, the sectoral planners can import some products that produced by more water efficient technology. Economic instruments can also be employed to encourage water saving. Water tax, which has been proven to be powerful tool to control regional water use (Geng and Yi, 2006), can be introduced in Macao to reduce its sectoral water use. As the gaming industry is a hugely lucrative sector, a financial subsidy scheme can be adopted to seek water efficient equipment and technologies and encourage those who contribute to prevention of water losses as well as efficient water and resources use. Based on the above, these initiatives which can effectively reduce water demand and ease water pressure should be made as gaming industry in water scarce Macao faces significant water challenges.
Acknowledgement This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11272012).
References Alcorn, J.A., Baird, G., 1996. Use of a hybrid energy analysis method for evaluating the embodied energy of building materials. Renewable Energy 8, 319–322. Allan, J.A., 1998. Virtual water: a strategic resource global solutions to regional deficits. Ground Water 36, 545–546. Bullard, C.W., Penner, P.S., Pilati, D.A., 1978. Net energy analysis: handbook for combining process and input–output analysis. Resources and Energy 1, 267–313. Carr, J.A., D’Odorico, P., Laio, F., Ridolfi, L., 2013. Recent history and geography of virtual water trade. PLOS ONE 8, e55825. Cazcarro, I., Duarte, R., Choliz, J.S., Sarasa, C., 2011. Water rates and the responsibilities of direct, indirect and end-users in Spain. Economic Systems Research 23, 409–430. Chen, G.Q., Chen, Z.M., 2010. Carbon emissions and resources use by Chinese economy 2007: a 135-sector inventory and input–output embodiment. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation 15, 3647–3732. Chen, Z.-M., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Virtual water accounting for the globalized world economy: national water footprint and international virtual water trade. Ecological Indicators 28, 142–149. Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Chen, Z.M., Li, Z., Zhang, B., Chen, H., Wu, Z., 2011. Low-carbon assessment for ecological wastewater treatment by a constructed wetland in Beijing. Ecological Engineering 37, 622–628. Chen, Z.M., Chen, G.Q., Xia, X.H., Xu, S.Y., 2012. Global network of embodied water flow by systems input–output simulation. Frontiers of Earth Science 6, 331–344. Dalin, C., Konar, M., Hanasaki, N., Rinaldo, A., Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., 2012. Evolution of the global virtual water trade network. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, 5989–5994. Dong, H., Geng, Y., Sarkis, J., Fujita, T., Okadera, T., Xue, B., 2013. Regional water footprint evaluation in China: a case of Liaoning. Science of the Total Environment 442, 215–224. DSEC, 2005. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2006. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2007. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2008. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2009. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2010. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. DSEC, 2011. Yearbook of Statistics. Statistics and Census Service of Macao, Macao. Duchin, F., 2005. A world trade model based on comparative advantage with m regions, n goods, and k factors. Economic Systems Research 17, 141–162. Ene, S.A., Teodosiu, C., Robu, B., Volf, I., 2013. Water footprint assessment in the winemaking industry: a case study for a Romanian medium size production plant. Journal of Cleaner Production 43, 122–135. Ercin, A.E., Mekonnen, M.M., Hoekstra, A.Y., 2013. Sustainability of national consumption from a water resources perspective: the case study for France. Ecological Economics 88, 133–147. Feng, K., Siu, Y.L., Guan, D., Hubacek, K., 2012. Assessing regional virtual water flows and water footprints in the Yellow River Basin, China: a consumption based approach. Applied Geography 32, 691–701. Geng, Y., Yi, J., 2006. Integrated water resources planning and management at the industrial park level: a case of TEDA. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology 13, 37–51. Guan, D., Hubacek, K., 2007. Assessment of regional trade and virtual water flows in China. Ecological Economics 61, 159–170. Han, M.Y., Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Li, J.S., Alsaedi, A., Ahmad, B., Guo, S., Jiang, M.M., Ji, X., 2013. Embodied energy consumption of building construction engineering: case study in E-town, Beijing. Energy and Buildings 64, 62–72. Hoekstra, A.Y., 2009. Human appropriation of natural capital: a comparison of ecological footprint and water footprint analysis. Ecological Economics 68, 1963–1974. Hoekstra, A.Y., Mekonnen, M.M., 2012. The water footprint of humanity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109, 3232–3237. Lei, K., Zhou, S., Hu, D., Yu, Y., 2010. Ecological energy accounting for the gambling sector: a case study in Macao. Ecological Complexity 7, 149–155. Lenzen, M., 2009. Understanding virtual water flows: a multiregion input–output case study of Victoria. Water Resources Research 45, W09416. Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Bhaduri, A., Kanemoto, K., Bekchanov, M., Geschke, A., Foran, B., 2013. International trade of scarce water. Ecological Economics 94, 78–85. Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Energy and greenhouse gas emissions review for Macao. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 22, 23–32. Li, J.S., Duan, N., Guo, S., Shao, L., Lin, C., Wang, J.H., Hou, J., Hou, Y., Meng, J., Han, M.Y., 2012. Renewable resource for agricultural ecosystem in China: ecological benefit for biogas by-product for planting. Ecological Informatics 12, 101–110. Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Lai, T.M., Ahmad, B., Chen, Z.M., Shao, L., Ji, X., 2013. Embodied greenhouse gas emission by Macao. Energy Policy 59, 819–833. Li, J.S., Alsaed, A., Hayat, T., Chen, G.Q., 2014. Energy and carbon emission review for Macao’s gaming industry. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 29, 744–753.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034
G Model ECOIND-1815; No. of Pages 7
ARTICLE IN PRESS J.S. Li, G.Q. Chen / Ecological Indicators xxx (2014) xxx–xxx
Meng, J., Chen, G.Q., Shao, L., Li, J.S., Tang, H.S., Hayat, T., Alsaedi, A., Alsaadi, F., 2013. Virtual water accounting for building: case study for E-town, Beijing. Journal of Cleaner Production, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.12.045 (in press). MSAG, 2010. Water Conservation Outline 2010. Macao Special Administrative Government, Macao. MSAG, 2013. Macao Water Resource Report 2011/2012. Macao Special Administrative Government: Working Group on Promoting the Construction of Water-Saving Society, Macao. Mubako, S., Lahiri, S., Lant, C., 2013. Input–output analysis of virtual water transfers: case study of California and Illinois. Ecological Economics 93, 230–238. Shao, L., Chen, G.Q., 2013. Water footprint assessment for wastewater treatment: method indicator, and application. Environmental Science & Technology 47, 7787–7794. Shen, Z.D., 2008. The economic effect of Macao VIP gambling room. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. Sheng, L., Tsui, Y., 2009. Casino boom and local politics: the city of Macao. Cities 26, 67–73. Tang, U.W., Sheng, N., 2009. Macao. Cities 26, 220–231. To, W.M., Lai, T.M., Chung, W.L., 2011. Fuel life cycle emissions for electricity consumption in the world’s gaming center – Macao SAR, China. Energy 36, 5162–5168. Velázquez, E., 2007. Water trade in Andalusia. Virtual water: an alternative way to manage water use. Ecological Economics 63, 201–208. Wan, Y.K.P., Li, X., 2013. Sustainability of tourism development in Macao, China. International Journal of Tourism Research 15, 52–65. Wang, W.Y., 2009. The commission War and Lounges fate of the contract system. Studies on Hong Kong and Macao 1, 82–91.
7
Wang, Y., 2010. The Impact of Labor Migration on the Economic Development of Macao. Jilin University, Changchun (in Chinese). Wang, Y., Xiao, H.L., Lu, M.F., 2009. Analysis of water consumption using a regional input–output model: model development and application to Zhangye City, Northwestern China. Journal of Arid Environments 73, 894–900. Wang, Z., Huang, K., Yang, S., Yu, Y., 2013. An input–output approach to evaluate the water footprint and virtual water trade of Beijing, China. Journal of Cleaner Production 42, 172–179. Wiedmann, T.O., Schandl, H., Lenzen, M., Moran, D., Suh, S., West, J., Kanemoto, K., 2013. The material footprint of nations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1220362110. Washington State University (WSU), 2007. Energy Management Increases Tribal Casinos’ Profitability. Yang, Z., Mao, X., Zhao, X., Chen, B., 2012. Ecological network analysis on global virtual water trade. Environmental Science & Technology 46, 1796–1803. Yu, Y., Hubacek, K., Feng, K., Guan, D., 2010. Assessing regional and global water footprints for the UK. Ecological Economics 69, 1140–1147. Zhang, Z., Yang, H., Shi, M., 2011. Analyses of water footprint of Beijing in an interregional input–output framework. Ecological Economics 70, 2494–2502. Zhao, X., Chen, B., Yang, Z.F., 2009. National water footprint in an input–output framework—a case study of China 2002. Ecological Modelling 220, 245–253. Zhao, X., Yang, H., Yang, Z., Chen, B., Qin, Y., 2010. Applying the input–output method to account for water footprint and virtual water trade in the Haihe River Basin in China. Environmental Science & Technology 44, 9150–9156. Zhou, S.Y., Chen, H., Li, S.C., 2010. Resources use and greenhouse gas emissions in urban economy: ecological input–output modeling for Beijing 2002. Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation 15 (10), 3201–3231.
Please cite this article in press as: Li, J.S., Chen, G.Q., Water footprint assessment for service sector: A case study of gaming industry in water scarce Macao. Ecol. Indicat. (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.01.034