Industrial water consumption index: A new bridge between water consumption and socioeconomic development

Regional water consumption is closely linked to socioeconomic development trends; however, studies that analyze and evaluate socioeconomic development trends based on water consumption data are lacking. This study established a new general index, the industrial water consumption index (IWCI), using several variables from water consumption data through the entropy weight method and tested the index in Jiaxing City, China. The results showed that the relationship between water consumption and socioeconomic development varied depending on different industrial divisions. The IWCI, established based on water consumption data was highly sensitive to changes in socioeconomic development, especially rapid changes. Compared to the raw water consumption data, the IWCI presented a better performance in evaluation indicators for the selected several divisions, with a Pearson correlation coefficient ranging from 0.70 to 0.85 and a normalized mutual information ranging from 0.31 to 0.45. Overall, the IWCI provides an effective way to evaluate socioeconomic development trends by relying solely on water consumption data, particularly for industrial divisions where water plays an important role in production. The index allows managers to quickly assess and analyze socioeconomic development trends and develop corresponding response measures.