Factors and Mechanisms Influencing Reclaimed Water Prices in China

Under the new water control philosophy, reclaimed water utilization is an important strategic measure to increase water supply and reduce water environmental pollution. This has important implications for addressing the water crisis in urban development. The scientific and reasonable price of reclaimed water has a positive effect on promoting the utilization of reclaimed water and improving the utilization rate of urban reclaimed water. Therefore, this study extracted the influencing factors of reclaimed water price through grounded theory and used the ISM method to elucidate the logical hierarchy and investigate their influencing mechanisms. The results indicate that the structural system of factors affecting the price of reclaimed water was composed of 16 factors, which could be divided into four hierarchical levels. Among them, the external value of reclaimed water utilization, the technical level of reclaimed water processes, the regional economic development level, and the quality differences between reclaimed water and conventional water were the deep-rooted factors that affect the price of reclaimed water. In the end, the policy implications regarding the management of reclaimed water prices were proposed from the perspectives of surface-level direct factors, middle-level indirect factors, and deep-rooted factors.