Assessing integrated water reuse efficiency towards SDG6 and influencing factors

Improving water reuse efficiency from a recycling perspective is claimed to be a better way to alleviate global water scarcity and water pollution. This study opens the internal "black box" of China's water reuse system driven and decomposes water reuse system into water use, wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse stages, and selects input-output indicators based on SDG6. Then, it proposes a dynamic three-stage DEA model to assess the water reuse efficiency. A spatial Durbin model is constructed to explore the impact of extreme temperatures on water reuse efficiency. The findings reveal a slight increase trend of water reuse efficiency from 2011 to 2021, with the efficiency of the reclaimed water reuse stage outperforming that of the water use and wastewater treatment stage. Provinces located in the water-scarce and water-medium regions have better water use efficiency. The efficiency of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse stage generally continue to improve, and the degree of polarization decreases. Additionally, extreme high and average temperatures have significant influence on the water reuse efficiency, while, extreme low temperature has no effect on water reuse efficiency in the short term. Extreme high temperature has an significant spatial spillover effect. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the complex interlinkages within the water reuse system and highlights the importance of considering these relationships when improving the system efficiency.