Opportunities and challenges of interbasin water transfers: a literature review with bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Interbasin water transfers and diversions are among the most controversial water-resources-planning topics worldwide. They provide supply alternatives to receiving basins and potential challenges to the donor basins within a context of changing global water problems. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of global interbasin water transfer research between 1900 and 2014. The bibliometric analysis analyzes general characteristics of publications, the national, institutional, and personal research outputs, participating regions and their research activity, and global trends and hot issues in the field of water transfers. Our results show that the rate of annual publication of interbasin water transfer research grew steadily after 1972 and is rising quickly at present. The United States produced the largest number of single-country publications (37.4 %) and international collaborative publications (46.6 %). However, China had a high growth rate of publications after 2001, and surpassed the United States and ranked 1st in 2012, with the Chinese Academy of Sciences playing a leading role in the emergence of China's research output. The global geographic distribution of publication activity shows that an increasing number of countries, agencies, and scholars have become part of the research enterprise. There is ample opportunity for cooperation between them to be strengthened in the future. The results of keyword evolution generally indicate that the research on interbasin water transfers expanded from 1991 through 2014. The hydrological and eco-environmental impacts of the South-to-North Water Transfer/Diversion Project in China and the corresponding long-term monitoring and conservation strategy have become one of the top topics of attention.

Impacts of the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project emergency operation on flooding and drainage in water-receiving areas: an empirical case in China

“…2). The reason why we chose the NLB is that NL is an important storage node of the ER-SNWDP, as NL is the largest freshwater lake in northern China and has the largest water storage capacity among the lakes along the ER-SNWDP (Zhang, 2009). In addition, the NLB has a history of frequent flooding and waterlogging disasters due to the low drainage capacity in the geomorphic low-lying area around NL (i.e., lakeside area).…”

“…A large amount of water diversion has a significant impact on the hydrological situation of NL. The impacts have instigated several studies that aimed to understand the ER-SNWDP effect on the NLB, mainly focusing on environmental and water resource management (Ma et al, 2006;Wu et al, 2011;Zhang, 2009;Zhao et al, 2017). The lake level increased by the ER-SNWDP will decrease the drainage efficiency of pump stations, hinder the flood discharge of rivers in the lakeside area, and then influence the flood control and waterlogging drainage of the NLB.…”

“…Due to the uneven spatial distribution of water resources and regional socio-economic development, the demand for water in certain regions far exceeds the available water amount, thereby resulting in an increasingly serious imbalance be- tween water demand and supply (Cai and Ringler, 2007;Hu et al, 2010). As the most effective and direct method of resolving the water resource shortage problem, inter-basin water diversion projects have been widely applied in waterdeficient areas around the world (de Andrade et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). According to data released by the International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage (ICID) (2005), the total annual amount of water transferred by water diversion projects around the world is 540 billion m 3 , which accounts for approximately 14 % of the world's annual water withdrawals.…”

“…A full understanding of these impacts is key to the scientific management and long-term operation of inter-basin water diversion and represents the most popular global topic in water resource planning and management research (Aron et al, 1977;Davies et al, 1992;Khan et al, 1999;Liu and Zheng, 2002). Zhang et al (2015) summarized relevant studies on inter-basin water transfer from 1991 to 2014 and noted that the effects on the hydrological environment caused by China's SNWDP and the corresponding long-term monitoring and protection policy for this project represent the most important current issues. Current research on the hydrological effects caused by inter-basin water transfer mainly focuses on the following aspects.…”

Impact of Inter‐Basin Water Transfer Projects on Regional Ecological Security from a Telecoupling Perspective

“…Inter-basin water transfer projects (IBWTPs) offer an effective solution to the uneven distribution of water resources [1]. IBWTPs play a role not only in alleviation of water shortages (e.g., for industrial, agricultural, and domestic water difficulties), but also in supporting regional socio-economic development, and resident quality of life [2][3][4].…”