Spatial Mismatch Between Agricultural Water Withdrawal and Agricultural-Stage Value Added Attributed to Selected Household Demand in China

Household agri-food-related demand links consuming provinces to agricultural water withdrawal at distant production origins, but withdrawal and agricultural-stage value added may have different production geographies. Using China’s 2020 provincial multi-regional input–output table, we attributed both accounts to rural and urban household final demand for the Agriculture, Forestry, Animal Husbandry and Fishery and Food and Tobacco Processing sectors. This sector-based proxy does not cover all household food consumption. Value added was measured at the agricultural production stage; Aqueduct baseline water stress characterized production origins without entering the mismatch calculation. Thirteen of the 31 provinces had negative value-added-minus-water share differences, led by Xinjiang (−11.55 percentage points). High and Extremely High stress provinces accounted for 65.95% of the national negative-mismatch magnitude, largely driven by Xinjiang; negative differences also occurred in lower-stress provinces. Xinjiang retained the most negative difference in the withdrawal-allocation sensitivity test, although some provincial signs changed. The framework identifies producer–consumer links for closer assessment of production-origin water conditions while distinguishing spatial accounting differences from production inefficiency or inequitable exchange.