Climate change has renewed interest in the production capacity of agriculture. Few researchers paid attention to price policy and heteroscedasticity in yield model. We incorporate rice price policy into the yield model at the expected price using a Tobit procedure and take Kalman filter theory to explore useful information, and then estimate the rice yield response to climate and rice price using a spatial autoregressive combined model in high-latitude regions of China from 1992 to 2018. Meanwhile, we apply two different Breusch-Pagan tests to examine heteroscedasticity. Our results suggest that spatial correlation of the error term is a more critical source of heteroscedasticity and cannot be completely solved by only allowing spatially autocorrelated errors due to possible technology diffusion effects. The results also show that rice price support policy is useful for constructing rice expected prices, and the price elasticities of rice and corn on rice yield are 0.194 and -0.097, respectively. Among climate variables, the total growing degree days in the growing season has positive effects, and monthly accumulated growing degree days also matter, especially in June. Precipitation in July and August has a significant effect with an inverse U shape. Projections of future climate change suggest that rice yield will mainly increase, ranging from 0.095% to 1.769%, but the rate of increase in yield will slow down in the higher-rate global warming. This study shows how price policy could be incorporated into yield response model and highlights the importance of climate factors and crop price policy for rice yield.

The sustainable and efficient use of water resources has gained wide social concern, and the key point is to investigate the virtual water trade of the water-scarcity region and optimize water resources allocation. In this paper, we apply a multi-regional input-output model to analyze patterns and the spillover risks of the interprovincial virtual water trade in the Yellow River Economic Belt, China. The results show that: (1) The agriculture and supply sector as well as electricity and hot water production own the largest total water use coefficient, being high-risk water use sectors in the Yellow River Economic Belt. These two sectors also play a major role in the inflow and outflow of virtual water; (2) The overall situation of the Yellow River Economic Belt is virtual water inflow, but the pattern of virtual water trade between eastern and western provinces is quite different. Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, and Inner Mongolia belong to the virtual water net inflow area, while the virtual water net outflow regions are concentrated in Shanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang, Ningxia, and Qinghai; (3) Due to higher water resource stress, Shandong and Shanxi suffer a higher cumulative risk through virtual water trade. Also, Shandong, Henan, and Inner Mongolia have a higher spillover risk to other provinces in the Yellow River Economic Belt.

Virtual water trade is widely considered as a potential method to solve local water shortage and unequal distribution. However, limited research investigated water-saving efficiency and water inequality of inter-provincial virtual water trade. In this study, we sought to explore this issue within China based on the 2015 input-output data. A multi-regional input-output model and a modified input-output model were used to estimate the virtual water trade and its impact on water-saving and water inequality. Our results suggest that: (1) The total virtual water flow across the country is 200.03 × 10⁹ m³, which accounts for 32.77% of water withdrawal. The agriculture sector contributes the highest proportion (73.99%) to virtual water flow. (2) Virtual water trade could decrease water withdrawal by 446.08 × 10⁹ m³ compared with withdrawal under no-trade situation at a national level, and 22 provinces could gain benefits through inter-provincial trade with a positive water-saving efficiency index. (3) Virtual water trade also causes water inequality, which exacerbates water scarcity of exported provinces, especially in northwest provinces. (4) There is a conflict between water conservation and water inequality, but different provinces show significant heterogeneity.

In this study, we investigated the impact of three different perceived risk and environmental attitude on the fertilizer reduction behavior in vegetable production and the interplay between perceived risk and environmental attitude. We found that perceived economic risk can exert a significant and negative effect on farmers’ fertilizer reduction behavior (−0.39) and perceived social and psychological risks has a relatively weak negative impact with coefficients of −0.25 and −0.23, respectively. A more friendly environmental attitude can significantly and positively affect farmers’ fertilizer reduction behavior. Furthermore, environmental attitude has a moderating effect on the association between perceived risk and farmer’s fertilizer reduction behavior, but just significant for economic and social risk. In other words, a better environmental attitude could reduce the negative effect of perceived risk. This study promoted our new understanding of the risk perception’s impact on farmers’ behavior.