Water Footprint Assessment of China’s Beef Cattle Industry: Spatiotemporal Patterns, Scale Effects, and Spatial Drivers

As a major beef cattle producing country, China’s beef industry is expanding and undergoing structural transformation. A systematic assessment of the spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors of its water footprint is of great significance for the green and sustainable development of the beef cattle industry, and also provides a reference for understanding the current status of beef cattle water footprint, formulating environmental policies, and supporting the sustainable development of other livestock and poultry species. Based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) method, quantified the green, blue, and grey water footprints of China’s beef cattle industry “from cradle to farm gate” across 31 provinces from 2002 to 2022, covering three farming scales (small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale) classified according to the proportion of beef cattle slaughter numbers (1–49 head, 50–500 head, and >500 head), and encompassing four stages: feed crop cultivation, beef cattle farming, manure leaching, and transportation and processing, covering three farming scales (small-scale, medium-scale, and large-scale) classified according to the proportion of beef cattle slaughter numbers (1–49 head, 50–500 head, and >500 head), and encompassing four stages: feed crop cultivation, beef cattle farming, manure leaching, and transportation and processing. Furthermore, kernel density estimation and standard deviational ellipse methods were employed to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, and a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) was constructed to identify the driving factors. The findings indicate that the total water footprint of China’s beef cattle industry first decreased and then increased, reaching 918.70 km3 in 2022. The grey water footprint accounted for an average of 90.85% annually, and the manure leaching stage contributed the largest share (averaging 62.24% annually), suggesting that this stage warrants priority attention from the perspective of this indicator. Large-scale farming exhibited the lowest water footprint per unit of beef (averaging 29.39 m3/kg), while small-scale farming had the highest (54.65 m3/kg). The spatial pattern showed a trend of “high in the west and low in the east, rising in the west and declining in the east.” The spatial model results revealed that the water footprint per unit of beef exhibited significant spatial agglomeration and spatial spillover effects.