Bottleneck Analysis and Countermeasures for Green Finance Empowering the Conservation and Intensive Utilization of Water Resources in the Poyang Lake Basin

Abstract

Under rigid water resource constraints, green finance is a key market-based tool to promote the conservation and intensive utilization of water resources. This paper constructs a theoretical analytical framework of “signal transmission—incentive compatibility—risk sharing” to explain the transmission mechanism of green finance driving water conservation, and uses it as a diagnostic tool to systematically examine the practical situation in the Poyang Lake Basin. The analysis shows that typical practices represented by Suichuan’s “Water-Saving Loan” and Ji’an’s “Two Mountains” transformation have achieved initial results, but the basin faces three bottlenecks: supply mismatch, maturity mismatch, and institutional mismatch. Green credit is surging in total volume, but special financing for water conservation is limited; short-term financial products are difficult to match the long-term return cycle of water infrastructure; and water ecological value accounting standards are inconsistent, while the trading market is thin, mutually constraining each other. Accordingly, this paper proposes breakthrough paths such as improving the management of water-related project libraries and special statistical systems, building a “Water-Saving Loan+” product portfolio and fiscal interest subsidy coordination mechanism, promoting the standardization of water-related rights pledge financing, and deepening the inclusive integration of water-related green notes in revolutionary old areas, in order to provide theoretical reference and policy reference for green finance empowering the implementation of the “Four Water Determinations”.