Ecological compensation is an effective means to solve the conflict of interests among trans-boundary river basin countries. How to determine the ecological compensation standard is the core of ecological compensation. On the basis of the emergy synthesis method, we developed an emergy-water resources ecological footprint model for trans-boundary river basin countries. Based on the calculation of ecosystem service value and consumption ecological value of trans-boundary river basin countries, the ecological spillover value of each basin country is obtained. From the perspective of supply and consumption, the ecological compensation standard in basin countries is determined by judging the supply and consumption status of ecological services and combining with the willingness to pay for ecological compensation. Taking the Lancang–Mekong River Basin as an example, the results show that (1) the ecosystem service value of the Lancang–Mekong River Basin countries from high to low is Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Vietnam, and Myanmar; (2) in terms of ecosystem service value consumption, the order from high to low is Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Laos, and Myanmar; and (3) Thailand and Vietnam, located in the lower reaches of the basin, belong to the consumers of ecological services, and based on the actual willingness to pay, they need to pay $46.913 billion and $1.699 billion, respectively.

Using the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 1998 to 2017, we adopt a time-varying difference-in-differences (time-varying DID) model to estimate the impact of water rights trading scheme on regional water consumption. The results show that water rights trading can significantly promote water conservation in the pilot regions by 3.1% compared to that in the non-pilot regions, and a series of robustness tests show consistent results. Policy effects are mainly driven by improving water-use efficiency and adjusting water structure; that is, by transferring water resources from the agricultural sector to the other sectors, agricultural water efficiency is improved and water conflict among sectors is alleviated; thus, water saving is achieved. In addition, by constructing two indexes of regional water pressure and tradable water resources, our heterogeneity analysis shows that water rights trading performs better in areas with high water pressure and large tradable water resources. Under the high pressure of large water use and low water endowment, water rights trading will evidently reduce water consumption more so than in the low-pressure regions, and with water rights trading, it is hard to achieve a policy effect in regions without sufficient tradable water resources. This paper provides important policy implications for China for further promoting the water rights trading scheme in the field of resource conservation.

The River Chief Policy (RCP) is an innovative water resource management system in China aimed at managing water pollution and improving water quality. Though the RCP has been piloted in some river basins of China, few scholars have studied the effects of the policy. We built a differential game model under random interference factors to compare the water pollution in Chaohu Lake under the RCP and without the RCP, and we explored the conditions to ensure the effectiveness of the RCP. The results showed that: (1) The average effect of water pollution control under the RCP was greater than under non-RCP; (2) the higher the rewarding excellence and punishing inferiority coefficient ( $\theta$ ) was, the better the water pollution control effect under the RCP; (3) the greater the random interference coefficient ( $\sigma$ ) and rewarding excellence and punishing inferiority coefficient ( $\theta$ ) were, the bigger the fluctuation of the water pollution control effect was; (4) when using the stochastic differential game, when $\sigma \le 0.0403$ , $\theta \ge 0.0063$ , or $\sigma >0.0403$ , $\theta \ge 0.268$ , the RCP must be effective for water pollution control. Therefore, we can theoretically adjust the rewarding excellence and punishing inferiority coefficient ( $\theta$ ) and the random interference coefficient ( $\sigma$ ) to ensure the effective implementation of the RCP and achieve the purpose of water pollution control.

Clarification of initial water rights is the basis and prerequisite for a water rights trade-off market and also an effective solution to the problem of water scarcity and water conflicts. According to the new requirements for the most stringent water resources management in China, an initial provincial water rights allocation model is proposed. Firstly, based on analysis of multiple principles for initial provincial water rights allocation including total water use, water use efficiency, water quality of water function zones, regional coordination and sharing, an index system of initial provincial water rights allocation is designed. Secondly, according to dynamic projection pursuit technique, an initial provincial water rights allocation model with the total water use control is set up. Moreover, the self-adaptive chaotic optimization algorithm is applied to tackle the model. Finally, a case study of Taihu Basin is adopted. Considering the multiple scenarios of three different water frequencies (50%, 75% and 90%) and planning year 2030, the empirical results show Jiangsu Province always obtains the most initial water rights. When the developing situation of provinces are given more consideration, Shanghai should acquire more initial water rights than Zhejiang Province; but when the dynamic increment evolving trend of provinces is taken more into account, Shanghai should obtain less initial water rights than Zhejiang Province. The case about Taihu Lake further verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and provides a multiple-scenarios decision making support for entitling the initial water rights with the most stringent water resources management constrains in Taihu Basin.

As the modern economy develops rapidly, environmental pollution and human health have also been threatened. In recent years, relevant research has focused on subjects such as energy and economic, environmental pollution and health issues. Yet this has not considered the use of water resources and the impact of wastewater pollutant emissions on the economy and health. This article has combined the following factors like water consumption with wastewater discharge, pollutant concentration in sewage and local medical care expenditure and put them into the model of water resources, energy and health measurement, and a two-stage dynamic data envelopment analysis (DEA) model considering undesirable outputs is applied to 30 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities) to calculate the total efficiency, production efficiency and health efficiency in 2014–2017.The results show that the total efficiency values of most provinces are between 0.2 and 0.4, providing large room for improvement. Production efficiency and health efficiency have increased in recent years, but the health efficiency values of most provinces are still so low that they have dragged back the overall efficiency. The key impact indicators of different provinces are different, and each province should formulate different policies according to its own specific conditions so as to purposefully to deepen the energy, economic and medical reforms in each province, and also to promote sustainable economic development while improving health efficiency.