China’s Inequality in Urban and Rural Residential Water Consumption—A New Multi-Analysis System

This paper presents a multivariate analysis of urban and rural residential water consumption from 2010 to 2020 using an input–output model considering consumption and income. We employed structural decomposition analysis (SDA) and structural path analysis (SPA) to identify the main drivers and pathways. The Water-Gini (W-Gini) coefficient was used to quantify inequalities in water consumption. The results showed that rural water consumption exceeded urban consumption starting in 2012, reaching 1.8 times the urban level by 2020, with Agriculture (S1) being the largest contributor. SDA indicated that the decrease in urban consumption was primarily due to the intensity effect. In SPA, the first-order path accounted for over 70% of total consumption, with urban contributions linked to “residential income → S2-Health care and medical services (M7)”. For rural areas, “residential income → F1-Food (M1)” contributed to 40% of water consumption in the first-order path, reflecting increased consumption in the middle sector. The W-Gini coefficient rose to 0.4 in 2020, driven by the income side, particularly in Agriculture (S1), which had a W-Gini of 0.61. These variations in water consumption highlight the need for policy considerations, especially regarding rural income.