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Arguments - Intervention Possibilities |
| Water |
| China's water situation is
especially serious for two reasons. First, the distribution of people and arable land does
not match the distribution of water resources. Whereas some 44% of the population and some
58% of the cultivated land are in Northern and Northeastern China, only 14.4% of the total
water resources (surface runoff and groundwater) can be found in those regions (see Table
1). Second, water use efficiency is very low in all sectors, but particularly in
irrigation. Experts have estimated that up to 60% of irrigation water is wasted through
the traditional methods of flooding irrigation. There are also significant water losses
due to outdated water supply infrastructure, particularly the large network of open
irrigation canals. Maintenance of the water infrastructure and water management practices
could also be improved. |
Table 1
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Water conservation
and resource management
Obvious possibilities for improving China's water supply are the introduction of
better technology, better management, stronger economic incentives to save water, and a
more efficient resource development and distribution policy. China has water legislation
concerning development, utilization, protection, management, and flood control, and there
are also legal acts to deal with the prevention and control of water pollution. However,
these measures so far have failed to significantly improve the situation, primarily due to
inconsistent implementation, corruption, and weak enforcement. China could also introduce
more powerful economic measures to promote rational use of water. Currently, a water
resource fee is collected by some 16 provinces. In 1994 the collected fees amounted to
some 450 million Yuan, a small fraction of the real value of the resource. There are many
exceptions: farmers, for instance, do usually not have to pay a fee for irrigation water. |
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Inter-basin water
transfer
While water conservation and better management of water rescues should have priority -
because they can improve the situation in the short run - a water transfer from the south
to the north is the only realistic solution for the scarcity of water resources
in northern China. Large-scale projects have already been designed for this inter-basin
water transfer, such as a canal between the Yangtze and the Yellow river. For China's
economic development a sufficient and stable water supply to the major population and
industrial centers in the north is absolutely essential. There are numerous examples from
around the world - from California to the Persian Gulf states - which show that a well
developed water supply infrastructure, often including long-distance water pipelines, is
essential for economic development. |
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Spatial development
plans
In the long run, it also makes sense to concentrate (water-intensive) industries and urban
development projects in the south. The population density in China's southern and
south-central provinces is significantly lower than in the northern provinces. As people
move from the agricultural to the industrial and service sectors, they no longer have to
live in areas with arable land. They could migrate to urban-industrial conglomerates in
south China, where water availability is not a problem. |
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Flood mitigation
Sometimes certain regions in China do not have a deficit, but a serious excess of water. A
lot can be done to reduce this flooding risk. Basically two strategies are available: |
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| (a) |
One can use natural flood plains, lakes
or specifically designated lowland areas to take up excess water. These areas, such as the
Jingjiang-Polder in Shashi, which was build in 1992, can be flooded intentionally
as a preventive measure to protect cities, towns and valuable cropland downstream. |
| (b) |
The other strategy is to contain the
flooded rivers in their beds by dams, which are continuously improved and defended in case
of flooding. |
Obviously, both strategies
can be used simultaneously. However, in recent years China has increasingly applied the
second strategy, because many polders and flood plains have been used for crop cultivation
and settlements. With the increase in rural population density it will become more and
more difficult for the authorities to devastate the fields and property of people in some
rural areas by intentional flooding, just to protect wealthy cities downstream. Especially
during the great flood of 1998 farmers strongly protested against the mitigation measure
of large-scale flooding.
Some observers have argued that land reclamation - most seriously around the Dongting and
Poyang lakes - have reduced the buffer capacity of lakes and flood plains and thus increased
the risk of floods in China. However, numbers indicate, that dam-based flood mitigation
can be at least as successful as the traditional use of polders and flood plains: In 1931
a flood killed some 145,000 people in China; 142,000 people drowned in 1935; and the death
toll of a flood in 1954 was 33,000. However, the largest flood in recent years - the
massive flooding of 1998 at the middle reaches of the Yangtze and along the Songhua in
north-eastern China - "only" killed 3,000 people (Kron, W. 1998). |
| Conclusion |
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China's water
shortage is not only a resource problem, but also a technical, economic, and political
problem that could be solved (or at least greatly ameliorated) by adequate economic,
administrative, and political measures. However, it is clear that these measures would
require not only strong political initiatives, but also large amounts of investment
capital.
Another problem is that some of these measures (such as more efficient pollution control)
work against other development objectives, such as the industrial development. If China
really wants to prevent its rivers and lakes from becoming waste dumps, clear political
priorities have to be defined and a more active environmental policy and more powerful
control agencies are necessary.
China has organized water supply and wastewater treatment tasks on the principle of
communal self-reliance. Villages, towns, and cities are responsible for developing their
own drinking water supply and sewage systems. The technical, administrative, and financial
skills of the local administrations are not always sufficient to plan and implement
large-scale systems. Typically, various branches of local administrations are involved,
sometimes fighting against one another. It might help to give responsibility and planning
authority for water resource development and wastewater treatment projects to specialized
agencies at the prefecture or even at provincial level. |
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| Related Arguments |
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Water Resources: Trends
Impact Data Quality Prediction Error Intervention Possibilities
Intervention Costs
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Revision 2.0 (First revision published in 1999)
- Copyright © 2011 by Gerhard K. Heilig. All rights reserved. (First revision: Copyright © 1999 by IIASA.) |
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