# Dynamic Evaluation and Internal Driving Factors of Water Resources Green Efficiency in China
## 4 Result and Discussion
### Dynamic Trend of Water Resources Green Efficiency
#### 4.1.1 Time Variation Characteristics of Water Resources Green Efficiency Improvement  
The software MaxDEA 7.0 (www.dea.com) (Beijing Realworld Software Company Ltd., Beijing, China, 2018) was used to measure China's water resources green efficiency in the period 2000-2016 (Table 2). Due to space limitations, only six annual efficiency values from the survey period are presented and discussed here. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline
**Province** & **2000–2001** & **2003–2004** & **2006–2007** & **2009–2010** & **2013–2014** & **2015–2016** & **Mean** \\ \hline Beijing & 1.033 & 1.007 & 1.042 & 0.935 & 0.990 & 1.013 & 1.024 \\ Tianjin & 1.000 & 1.162 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.001 \\ Hebei & 0.995 & 0.993 & 1.021 & 1.012 & 1.008 & 1.046 & 1.011 \\ Shanxi & 1.040 & 0.830 & 1.000 & 0.975 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.028 \\ Inner Mongolia & 1.038 & 1.022 & 1.045 & 0.932 & 0.994 & 1.069 & 1.022 \\ Liaoming & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.008 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 \\ Jilin & 1.027 & 1.005 & 1.004 & 0.997 & 0.998 & 1.151 & 1.015 \\ Heilongjiang & 1.016 & 1.025 & 1.055 & 1.019 & 1.012 & 1.052 & 1.017 \\ Shanghai & 1.000 & 1.200 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.000 & 1.004 \\ Jiangsu & 1.040 & 0.988 & 1.026 & 1.004 & 1.031 & 1.063 & 1.021 \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Water resources green efficiency for selected periods based on Hybrid Directional Distance Function-Global Malmquist-Luenberger (HDDF-GML) model. 1. Time-varying characteristics at the national level  
As shown in Figure 1, China's water resources green efficiency index value during the study period was less than 1 in 2001-2002, 2003-2004 and 2007-2008, that is, the water resources green efficiency deteriorated in these years. In other years, the efficiency index value exceeded 1, meaning that the water resources green efficiency improved. Overall from 2000 to 2016, China's water resources green efficiency improved (by 1.1%) during the study period. This may have occurred because China's economy was rapidly growing in the early 21 st century. Furthermore, the awareness of protecting the water environment at the beginning of the study period was weak, resulting in years of deteriorating water resources green efficiency. In China's \"Eleventh Five-Year Plan\" formulated in 2005, the national government implemented a series of protection policies for environmental protection and medical care, which reversed the deterioration of water resources green efficiency for two years. However, in 2007, due to the global financial crisis, the government subsequently introduced many industrial stimulus policies, resulting in the deterioration of China's water resources green efficiency in 2007-2008. Since 2008, the water resources green efficiency index in China has always exceeded 1, indicating that the water resources green efficiency has been continuously improving. This continuous improvement can be attributed to the formulation and implementation of environmental protection policies. For example, after the concept of building an ecological civilization was proposed in 2007, the construction of an ecological civilization has been pursued and was promoted to the national strategic level in 2012.