Water economy, as an emerging economic form in the new era that underpins high-quality development and the construction of ecological civilization, faces effectiveness challenges in achieving system-wide coordination, notably between security and development and between government and market. These constraints have thus far limited its capacity to fully mobilize effective investment and to respond to the strategic imperative of expanding domestic demand. Drawing on the historical evolution of water development and utilization, water conservation and intensive use, and the realization of water-related value, this study develops an effectiveness-oriented conceptualization of a livelihood-oriented water economy for the new era, in which the “Two Mountains” theory serves as the value guide, waterbody space provides the spatial carrier, and new quality productive forces act as a key enabling driver. On the basis of a systematic review of relevant industrial classifications and current development conditions, effectiveness is defined as a dynamic capacity for maintaining balance across the coupled natural, social, and economic system. The study elucidates the theoretical foundations of high-quality development in water economy and effectiveness-coupling logic, and proposes a people-centeredphilosophy with holistic security and value creation as its two supporting wings, together with core propositions and policy recommendations for watereconomy development in the new era. By embedding effectiveness throughout the entire process of operationalizing the “Two Mountains” transformation within water economy in the new era, the theoretical system and research conclusions provide a theoretical foundation for advancing the high-quality development of China's water economy.

With the transformation of water resources management from an“extensive” to a “refined” approach, the traditional administrative-led water conservation model is no longer able to meet the practical needs of efficient use of water resources. Therefore, it is urgent to explore new market-oriented water conservation mechanisms.Contract-based water conservation, as one of the important measures to solve the micro dilemma of traditional water conservation by using the “hand of the market”, can significantly improve the efficiency of water resource utilization by introducing professional services and social capital. Due to the late start of contract water conservation practice in China and the exploration stage, its large-scale promotion still faces problems such as low willingness of water users to participate, weak technological innovation capabilities of water-saving service enterprises, and insufficient coordination of government policies. To solve the dilemma of promoting contract-based water conservation, from the perspective of value co-creation, this paper uses grounded theory to conduct a comparative analysisof typical contract-based water conservation cases, deconstructs the evolution mechanism of its value co-creation behavior logic, and then forms a feasiblepromotion path for contract-based water conservation.The results show that from the perspective of water-saving valueco-creation, the endogenous driving force of the market should be stimulated in the new era from three aspects: integration of policy traction and demand, multi-subject collaborative linkage, and an innovative contract-based conservation model, thus promoting the implementation of contract-based waterconservation projectsand realizing the construction of a water-saving society.

Focusing on the elements and core issues to be solved in realizing the value of water ecological products, based on clarifying the connotation of the concept of water ecological products, the study adopts the grounded theory to systematically analyse the 12 typical cases of realizing the value of water ecological products announced by Office of the Ministry of Natural Resources in China. The study extracts 52 initial concepts, 18 basic categories and three main categories through a three-stage coding process, and constructs a theoretical model to explain the operation mechanism and path of the value realisation of water ecological products. The results show that the realisation of the value of water ecological products is a systematic project, which include “strengthening the supply capacity of water ecological products” through resource restoration, mapping and integration to establish resource advantages,“ creating water ecological products industry chain” by means of supplementing, extending and strengthening the chain to open up the channels for value realisation, and “building a diversified linkage system” to ensure institutional empowerment and the formation of synergies to release energy for the transformation of values.