Identi ﬁ cation and behavioral characteristics of stakeholders of Water Diversion Project – based on ‘ sustainable supply chain theory ’

The South-to-North Water Diversion project, as one of China ’ s strategic projects, plays an important role in China ’ s development. It ’ s been 68 years since the project was conceived, in 2014, the central route project began to supply water. Users along the route are both bene ﬁ ciaries and project in ﬂ uencers. Their behavior characteristics in the project operation, have become a topic worthy of study. In this paper, based on questionnaire conducted among government departments, enterprises and residents and stakeholder theory, under the theory model of Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC), around the Triple Bottom Line(TBL) including society, economy and environment, the ecological compensation, sewage treatment and reservoir operation management in Xichuan county were investigated and studied. A total of 289 answers were recovered. Through the survey, it is found that: Stakeholders include 15 township governments in Xichuan County, water conservancy project supporting facilities construction companies, ecological industry companies, water supply companies and other enterprises, as well as agricultural growers, rural farmers and non-agricultural residents in Xichuan County. Government stakeholders pursue the development of the overall operation of the project, while enterprises and residents pursue the development of individual economy. Finally, this paper lists the relevant indexes, which provides conditions for behavior evolution analysis and sustainable research of the project.


INTRODUCTION
This paper takes the water source of the Central Route Project of South-to-North Water Diversion in China as the research object. In terms of benefits, the project has the public goods attribute, since the beginning of water supply on December 12, 2014, 34.8 billion cubic meters of water has been transferred to Henan, Hebei, Tianjin and Beijing, the water supplied has become the main water source in the water receiving area, which directly benefits 120 million people.
Due to the water price of water diversion project is relatively low, the comprehensive water price of each entrance such as Nanyang section in Henan Province, south section of the Yellow River in Henan Province (except Nanyang), north section of the Yellow River in Henan Province, Hebei Province, Tianjin City and Beijing City, is 0.18 yuan, 0.34 yuan, 0.58 yuan, 0.97 yuan, 2.16 yuan and 2.33 yuan per cubic meter respectively, the cost base is small, and the growth rate will be relatively small, which has indirect benefits to society, economy and environment, but there is no direct economic benefits, so it is not suitable for techno-economic analysis. In terms of operations, Xichuan County of Nanyang City, the water source, has thousands of ecological forest protection staff, 10,000 mu of savings forest, township ecological economic forest, township sewage treatment plant and National Wetland Park as operation guarantee. The water conveyance channel of the project is 1,432 km long, it flows through many areas and covers a large area of benefit (The editorial department of our journal ). Especially, the length of the channel in Nanyang section accounts for the largest proportion of the total length of the main channel, and its benefit area for a single city is the widest. Therefore, this makes the benefit relationship network of the project complex, with more types and quantities of stakeholders (the relevant design is shown in the Figure 1), and the difficulty of benefit coordination is relatively difficult (Gao et al. ). In addition, the problem of water pollution still exists in Xichuan County, and the quarrying behavior of residents also occurs intermittently. The difficulty coefficient of sewage treatment in industrial enterprises is high, and the pressure of water quality assurance is high. The utilization of wasteland has certain technical difficulties for the local government and residents.
The stakeholders, as the main body of the project operation, their behavior characteristics have a great impact on the operation of the project. Therefore, the behavior characteristics of stakeholders are studied to ensure that the water source area and the water receiving area along the line have rich water quantity and have high standard water quality, and provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable operation

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The above examples provide a feasible path for stakeholders in the field of water diversion project. As the Central Line Project of South-to-North Water Diversion has the public goods attribute, it needs to coordinate the sustainable development of economy, society and environment while meeting the allocation of water resources, which is fully consistent with the Triple Bottom Line(TBL) principle of 'economy, society and environment' of sustainable supply chain(SSC) theory. Therefore, this paper will adopt the theory of SSC with TBL principle to explore the behavior characteristics of stakeholders based on the three-dimensional bottom line, and provide reference for the next research plan, that is, to analyze the behavior evolution law of stakeholders. It can enrich the theory system of SSC of water diversion project, and provide a new and reliable theoretical basis for the operation and management of water diversion project. To sum up, the introduction describes the following points: (1) The background and characteristics in terms of Southto-North Project.
(2) The purpose and significance of my research.
(3) Other people's research and my innovation.
In addition, the second part of this paper consists of SSC theory and stakeholder theory, including questionnaire design, distribution, recovery test, and the combination of theory and questionnaire development. The third part is about the identification of stakeholders and behavior characteristics analysis. The fourth part is a summary of this paper, including the summary of innovation and research deficiencies. This paper studies the behavior evolution characteristics of stakeholders in Xichuan County. Combined with the TBL theory of SSC, this paper discusses the interest demands of local stakeholders from the perspectives of ecological compensation, water pollution control and reservoir operation management, and analyzes their behavior characteristics based on the theory of SSC.

RESEARCH THEORIES AND METHOD
Based on the questionnaire method and stakeholder theory, this paper preliminarily identifies and classifies the stakeholders in the SSC of the project, analyzes the behavior characteristics of various types of stakeholders, and obtains the corresponding indicators, which lays the foundation for the follow-up research on the behavior evolution.

Concept of SSC
With the continuous development of the global economy, all walks of life put forward higher and higher requirements for the response speed and service quality of the supply chain, leading to the negative impact of production activities on society, economy and environment. In response to the call of the national 'five-in-one' overall layout, green supply chain and SSC have gradually emerged. SSC theory originates from green supply chain. In 1994, Drumwright proposed that green organization activities such as purchasing, processing and production of enterprises are closely related to the economic and social benefits of enterprises (Drumwright ). In 1997, Elkington proposed that the TBL of sustainable development of enterprises is the natural environment, the collective benefits of society and the economic goals of enterprises (Elkington ). After a comparative study, Zhang et al. () found that the SSC theory is an extension of green supply chain theory, which is reflected in the dimension from environmental dimension to social economy dimension (Zhang et al. ). In conclusion, SSC theory is the development of green supply chain theory, which focuses on social responsibility consciousness, sustainable economic development and natural environment protection.
The implementation of social sustainable development is to meet the requirements of harmonious coexistence between human and nature. Economic sustainable development is the common core goal of the world. Environment is the carrier of resources, and the sustainable development of environment is the basis of sustainable development of economy. Therefore, the comprehensive benefits of society, economy and environment should be taken as the basic standard to test the sustainability of development.

Characteristics of SSC
SSC is an extension of green supply chain from a macro perspective, including the embodiment of environmental protection and social responsibility consciousness in supply chain management. The SSC pays more attention to the sustainable development of the environment, and takes it as the prerequisite, and takes the sustainable development of economy as the basis, so as to achieve the goal of social sustainable development. It is produced under the conditions of low utilization efficiency and irregular distribution of natural resources. Under the restriction of the TBL, it pursues the ultimate goal of optimal economic continuity, coordination between nature and environment, and social harmony, so as to achieve the comprehensive optimization of the above three and the sustainable development of nature and society.

Classification of stakeholders
Identification and classification of stakeholders is based on Mitchell's attribute classification. It includes power, legitimacy and urgency. Power refers to the ability of stakeholders to influence relevant decision-making factors.
Legitimacy means that stakeholders have the characteristics of being recognized by laws, regulations and the public, they have certain decision-making power, and can give advice, and the decision-making behavior means that the behavior of stakeholders is effective and persuasive. Urgency means that the suggestions of stakeholders can be considered or adopted by decision makers. Stakeholders with all three attributes are classified as definite type, those with one of the three attributes are classified as potential type, and those with two of the three attributes are classified as expected type (Wang ).

Definition of stakeholder attributes
Based on the Mitchell attribute classification method (Feng et al. ), combined with the specific engineering environment of the Central Route Project of South-to-North Water Diversion, the power, legality and urgency of stakeholders are redefined, so as to identify the core stakeholders of Xichuan County, the water source area of the project.
(1) Power: Also known as influence, which refers to the ability of an individual or organization to influence the relevant factors of decision-making. For example, the enterprises and residents related to the water diversion project, have the ability and power to influence the management and decision-making in the operation of the project.
(2) Legitimacy: It can also be understood as decisionmaking power, or power owner. It means that an individual or organization has the ability to be recognized by laws, regulations and the public, has certain decision-making power, can put forward suggestions, and has effective and convincing decision-making behavior. For example, the government or institution related to the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has the right to calculate the water price or determine the relevant management business during the operation of the project.
(3) Urgency: It can be understood as the degree of concern, which refers to the degree of adoption of proposals or opinions by decision makers. Such as residents, enterprises and other stakeholders, their suggestions or opinions will be valued by the relevant decisionmakers of the diversion project.

Questionnaire design
In order to understand the internal professional problems of water diversion project and make the research more in line with the reality, the water source area of the central route project, namely Xichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan  Table 1.

Questionnaire distribution
The preliminary prediction questionnaire was distributed to relevant experts with suggestions received, and the questionnaire was improved to avoid low-level errors.
The formal questionnaire was distributed through wenjuanxing (a questionnaire APP)and field survey. With the help of students from the townships of Nanyang City and Xichuan County, the online questionnaire was forwarded to the local respondents in line with this study. The field
(2) Which town do you live in?
(1) Basic information of respondents

FirstIndustry
(1) Before the water diversion project is put into operation, what is your monthly income range by planting crops or aquaculture? (2) What is the impact of the water diversion project on your crops or aquaculture?
(1) Reflect the government's guarantee for the life quality of local residents and reflect the economic dimension of triple bottom route (TBL) (2) Reflect the level of local economic development

Secondary and
Tertiary Industries (1) Before the water diversion project is put into operation, what is your monthly income range? (2) After the water diversion project is put into operation, what is your monthly income range?
(1) Reflect the level of local economic development Subsidy Policy (1) How well do you know about the subsidy policy after the water diversion project in your hometown is put into operation? (2) How much is the annual 'farmland productivity protection subsidy' fund in your hometown? (3) How much is the 'agricultural machinery purchase subsidy' fund in your hometown? (4) How satisfied are you with the subsidy fund policy in your hometown?
(1) Reflect the cultivated land area and water soil conservation of local farmers (2) Reflect the level of agricultural modernization and economic development Life Impact (1) Before the water diversion project is put into operation, what is the range of your monthly water fee? (2) After the water diversion project is put into operation, what is the range of your monthly water fee? (3) After the water diversion project is put into operation, how much will it improve your life quality?
(1) Reflect the improvement of life quality

Engineering Measures
(1) What do you think is the main cause of local water pollution? (2) What is the annual reduction range of chemical fertilizer and pesticide consumption compared with that before the project operation? (3) How about the operation of sewage treatment facilities in your hometown? (4) How about the construction of warning signs for water source protection in your hometown? (5) How about the operation and management of drinking water safety facilities in your hometown? (6) How satisfied are you with the overall situation of small-scale water conservancy projects in your hometown?
(1) Reflect the improvement of rural environment and farmers' attention (2) Residents' satisfaction with the improvement of water pollution (3) Reflect the government's attention to water source protection (4) Reflect the government's attention to local water conservancy and its contribution to the construction of small-scale agricultural water conservancy projects

Non Engineering Measures
(1) What is the coverage of sewage network layout in your hometown? (2) How often do the relevant government departments in your hometown organize river cleaning? (3) The frequency of activities endangering the safe operation of small reservoirs in your hometown? (4) How often do the managers of small reservoirs in your hometown inspect the operation and management of dams? (5) How often do the managers of small reservoirs in your hometown maintain the reservoir projects? (6) How satisfied are you with the performance of your hometown government in flood control?
(1) Explain the degree of residents' cooperation with the construction of pipe network (2) Reflect the residents' response to the local government (3) Indirectly reflect the water pollution degree and environmental awareness of residents (4) Indirectly reflect the effectiveness of the government's management and punishment of these acts (5) Reflecting the government's sense of responsibility for reservoir protection and operation (6) It shows that the government departments pay attention to the timeliness and effectiveness of flood control work, and pay attention to reservoir operation and people's property safety

Opinions and Suggestions
(1) What economic benefits do you expect from the water diversion project? (2) What environmental benefits do you expect from the water diversion project? (3) What social benefits do you expect from the water diversion project? (4) What other conveniences do you expect from the water diversion project? (5) What inconvenience does water diversion project bring to you?  which reflects the government's attention to the water quality and environment in their hometown. Therefore, the above-mentioned workers have a high emergency attribute.
To sum up, the identification table of water source stakeholders is shown in Table 4.  breeding. The government's maintenance of the local resource allocation related to the project, including the hardware configuration of the pipeline network and system for flood control, and the software configuration for information network security, has a positive effect on the sustainable development of the local economy, and can bring positive benefits to the society and the natural environment. If the cost is less than the benefit, the government will take actions related to the water quality protection. When the cost overweighs the benefit, if the corresponding measures are not taken, the water quality will be damaged, which will result in failure of achieving the TBL of SSC.
The government is a stakeholder based on the triple bottom line principle. If the government chooses to protect water quality, it can obtain benefits by collecting sewage treatment fees from enterprises. Through the issuance of relevant subsidies, the construction of pipe network, sewage treatment system and ecological industry, a small amount of costs will be generated, and indirect benefits will also be obtained in terms of economic sustainable development benefits and natural environment benefits. If the government does not choose to do so, the sewage treatment fee collected will be reduced, and the cost generated through related construction will be higher, and there will be no invisible benefits. intangible benefits can be obtained in terms of social responsibility, sustainable economic development and natural environmental protection, which meets the TBL benefits of SSC. Otherwise, the benefits and costs of all aspects of the enterprise need to be re-measured.

Residents
As the major beneficiaries of the project in the water source area, farmers have the right and obligation to supervise the project operation. They can give suggestions for the smooth implementation of the project. They are definite stakeholder with high power, moderate emergency and low legitimacy.
The water in the project is widely used by residents, in addition to being used for crop cultivation, it is also used for livestock drinking, garden maintenance, fishery and animal husbandry development.
Most of the farmers' work at the water resource area has the nature of providing eco-environmental compensation services, that is, sacrificing the opportunity and time to go out for development and putting their energy and cost into eco-environmental compensation. Therefore, farmers are an important part of the compensation subject. For the farmers who meet the requirements of low-carbon operation, the government will give corresponding subsidies for farmland productivity protection. Among the respondents, 83.3% of the farmers will receive subsidies of less than 800 yuan per year, and 76.2% of the farmers have a positive attitude towards the subsidy policy. This is conducive to the formation of a virtuous circle of low cost and high income under the concept of low-carbon production of farmers. If farmers properly treat the sewage generated in the process of production and operation, the water quality can be protected and the cost of sewage treatment borne by relevant governments and enterprises will be reduced, more funds can be used for project maintenance, and finally the water price will be reduced accordingly, so farmers will get some benefits in terms of reduced water price. 88% of farmers reduced the use of fertilizers and pesticides by 50%. The behavior of farmers reducing the use of chemical fertilizers can be compensated by the society and the natural environment.
Farmers are stakeholders based on the principle of economic bottom line. If farmers choose to protect water quality, they will obtain higher benefits from government subsidies, the cost of water consumption will be reduced, and TBL benefits will be met. Otherwise, the benefits of all aspects will be reduced, the cost of water consumption will be increased, and the TBL benefits of SSC will be broken.
To sum up, the behavior characteristics of the government, enterprises and residents are shown in Table 5.

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the theory of SSC, this paper improves the research of water diversion project based on the TBL of benefits, and investigates the behavior of stakeholders from the perspective of the operation and management of water diversion project by using methods such as questionnaire, expert interview, etc., so as to understand the behavioral tendency and behavioral logic of the respondents. On the basis of the forecast version, the formal version of the questionnaire is given. The questionnaire design is more rigorous and reasonable. A questionnaire with County, water conservancy project supporting facilities construction companies, ecological industry companies and water supply companies, agricultural growers, farmers and non-farmers. The government stakeholders pursue the development of the overall operation of the water diversion project, while the enterprise and resident stakeholders pursue the development of the individual economy.
Based on the above main conclusions, this paper draws the following enlightenment: (1) The main income of the government comes from the tax revenue of sewage treatment of enterprises, and the income is applied to the infrastructure construction of the overall development of urban and rural areas. Compared with the quantitative tangible assets, the indirect benefits brought by the government's positive cooperation behavior, that is, the actual actions to protect water quality, may have a lower promoting effect on the government.
(2) The main income of enterprises comes from water price, and the formulation of water price is subject to the government. Due to the limited income of enterprises, the probability of protecting water quality may be reduced.
It is necessary to formulate relevant mechanisms, such as mandatory protection mechanism or reputation evaluation mechanism, so as to improve the quantity of water that has been protected.
(3) The main income of farmers comes from financial subsidies, and their cost is water charges. Their income has a great correlation with the government, and their cost has a direct correlation with enterprises. If the government gives higher subsidies for water use, the residents' enthusiasm to use water correctly will be improved, and the enterprise's revenue will be relatively increased. The government's income mainly comes from the enterprise's income tax, and the relatively increased revenue will be used for infrastructure construction.
Therefore, increasing water subsidy is a potential switch to achieve a virtuous circle.
Through questionnaire survey and expert interview, the theory of SSC and stakeholder theory are penetrated through the entire paper, which provides a theoretical basis for the operation and management of water diversion project. In this paper, the identified stakeholders of SSC of water diversion project can be further supplemented and classified. The analysis of behavior characteristics is limited to the questionnaire survey, and there is still room for further excavation.

FUND PROJECT
National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 71974056) and Science and technology innovation talent support plan of colleges and universities in Henan Province (grant numbers: 2021-CX-005).

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
All relevant data are included in the paper or its Supplementary Information.