Abstract
This paper studies China's population migration and its environmental implications taking domestic water use as an example. Firstly, mechanisms of population migration between provinces and between rural and urban areas are analyzed by regression models. Secondly, future scenarios integrating economic development, population migration and urbanization up until 2020 are developed. Finally, the implication of population migration for domestic water use is examined.
The major findings are as follows: a) income gap, migration stock and distance are main determinants of inter-provincial migration; b) In 2020, population migration will cause domestic water use increase by 7.2% in Eastern Region, and decrease by 5.5% and 4.9% in Middle and Western Regions respectively.
