Can regional economy influence China's water use intensity?: based on refined LMDI method

China experienced a decline of water use intensity in the 11th Five Year Plan, but the water use intensity actually increased in 2009. To the best of our knowledge, the index decomposition analysis method was rarely used to analyze changes in water use, and no decomposition analysis has investigated the role of regional economy in the decline of water use intensity. In this paper, we use logarithmic mean Divisia index (LMDI) techniques to decompose the change of water use intensity in the period 2006-2010. We find that the change of industrial water use intensity is confirmed as the dominant contributor to the decline in the overall water use intensity; the regional structure effect and the industrial structure effect is positive to the decline of overall water use intensity; the decline of China's water use intensity is mainly attributed to the effect of developed eastern provinces; meanwhile, the effect of central and undeveloped western is also positive to the decline of overall water use intensity; at least one out of three effects is positive to the decline of water use intensity in the different provinces; the intensity effect is positive and the industrial structure effect is positive to the declines of China's water use intensity based on chaining approach except the period 2008-2009, individually; and the deviation of regional structure effect and industrial structure effect between with regional economy and without regional economy in LMDI is 0.9 and 2.3 m3/104 RMB, respectively.