The impact of new urbanization and industrial structural changes on regional water stress based on water footprints

New urbanization and industrial structural changes have created new pressures on regional water resources. This study takes 31 Chinese provinces as the research objects and innovatively calculates their water stress from the perspective of water footprints. On this basis, the spatial Durbin model is used to explore the spatial effects of new urbanization, industrial structural changes and their interaction on water stress. Additionally, the panel threshold model is used to dig deeper into the threshold effects of the relationship between new urbanization and industrial structural changes on water stress, enriching the regional research on water stress. We find that water stress is the highest in central and eastern China, and water stress and new urbanization are spatially autocorrelated. Furthermore, new urbanization can increase water stress in the surrounding areas, but its interaction with industrial structural changes can alleviate water stress in the surrounding areas and the mitigation effect of the interaction is stronger than that produced solely industrial structural change. Lastly, regarding new urbanization and industrial structural change, both of them may be able to alleviate water stress before the other crosses the threshold value.