Evaluation of Water Resources Carrying Capacity and Its Obstruction Factor Analysis: A Case Study of Hubei Province, China

Abstract

The carrying capacity of water resources can provide a reference index for regional economic construction and development. Hubei produces 13.2% of China’s hydroelectric energy and 4% of China’s water resources, highlighting that the reservoir group in Hubei province is relatively developed. In the current research on water resources carrying capacity, only the amount of water resources was considered; the benign mutual feeding effect of regional reservoirs on regional water resources carrying capacity was not reflected upon. In order to guide social and economic activities better, this paper proposes the addition of reservoir water storage to the calculation of water resources carrying capacity as a separate indicator. In this paper, the cloud model method was used to calculate the water resources carrying capacity of Hubei province and the Dematel method was used to determine the degree of importance of reservoir water storage. Finally, the degree of obstacles was also considered to discuss the main factors affecting the water resources carrying capacity of Hubei province. In the system discussed in this paper, the degree of influence and the affected degree of reservoir water storage were found to be 1.2915 and 0.5759, respectively. The calculation results showed that Hubei province’s water resources carrying capacity has been increasing every year and the amount of water resources per unit area was the main restricting factor, with the obstacle degree reaching 19.24% of the average annual level.