Water Resources Management in the People's Republic of China

Abstract

Rapid economic growth in China has presented great challenges to its water resource managers due to a scarcity of water resources, severe water pollution, growing domestic and industrial water demands, and requirements for food security. This paper provides an overview of water resources in China and its management. It describes the key water issues faced by China, as well as the institutional, legal and regulatory arrangements in place to address these challenges. This includes approaches to water resources allocation and management, pollution control, and water use efficiency. The paper concludes with a discussion of the priorities and challenges for the water sector, the progress that has been made to date and the improvements that will be required to ensure the long-term sustainable use of China's water resources.

Improving China’s water resources management for better adaptation to climate change

“…The country's scale and complex topography have resulted in diverse river and climatic systems, including tropical, subtropical, semi-arid, arid, inland and coastal if the height is between 5 to 15 m, and over 45,000 such large dams exist around the globe. China has almost half of these dams with more than 22,000, followed by the United States (6,600), India (4,300), Japan (2,700), and Spain (1,200) (Silk et al 2005 (Liu and Speed 2009;Speed 2009a). Figure 2a shows the distribution of China's major watersheds.…”

“…There are more than 1,500 rivers draining areas over 1,000 km 2 , and more than 50,000 rivers with catchment areas greater than 100 km 2 . The majority of these rivers are located in the eastern parts where the monsoonal climate produces abundant rainfall (Liu and Speed 2009). Most of the rivers flow eastward or southeastward into the Pacific Ocean in accordance with the topography.…”

Water pollution during China's industrial transition

“…Even though the local offices are under the leadership of the central authorities, they are also politically and financially dependent on the local government (Cheng and Hu, 2012). Such complex and interdependent institutional arrangements, together with the bureaucratic processes, pose significant barriers for effective water resources management and water pollution control (Liu and Speed, 2009;Winalski, 2009). Furthermore, despite of the presence of a relatively well established legal system on environmental protection, relevant laws and regulations are often poorly enforced.…”

“…Water resources in China also bear large inter-and intra-annual variability, which makes effective utilization of the surface water resources quite challenging. The marked continental monsoon climate causes 60-70%, even up to 80% in the north, of the precipitation to occur during summer, while the precipitation in the wettest years can be up to eight times higher than that in the drier ones (Cheng et al, 2009;Liu and Speed, 2009).…”

Forecasting domestic water demand in the Haihe river basin under changing environment

“…This has made the basin one of the most water stressed region of China. However, water security in the basin has extreme importance in China's economic development and societal safety (Liu and Speed, 2009;Wang et al, 2015). Therefore, forecasting residential water demand is very important for the basin.…”