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Sustainability: Transfer project cannot meet China's water needs
Abstract
Better local water management is the way to keep pace with escalating demands, not pumping water across the country, warn Jon Barnett and colleagues.
... The reliance on groundwater has caused seawater intrusion in Tianjin [4]. Implementation of an extensive Chinese South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) began in 2002, intending to achieve the goal of clean water proposed by the United Nations and effectively alleviated the water shortage in northern China [5][6][7][8][9][10]. The SNWD includes west, middle, and east routes and will be able to transfer 44.8 billion m 3 of freshwater each year to northern China if fully implemented by 2050 [11,12]. ...
... As a result, the groundwater level in Beijing rose from 25.7 m in 2014 to 22.7 m in 2019 [13]. By 2020 the SNWD had transported more than 25.8 billion m 3 of water resources to northern China, accounting for more than 70% of all drinking water for the four provinces of Hebei, Henan, Beijing, and Tianjin through which it runs [8,14,15]. ...
... It was reported that the beneficiaries were the organizations or individuals associated with the SNWD (e.g., China South-to-North Water Diversion Corporation Limited and water sectors in each province) [8,13,48]. Although there have been ecological compensations for SNWD, a gap has existed in the corresponding subsequent subsidy and policy for ecological migrants [15,39,[49][50][51][52][53]. ...
The South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) provides significant benefits in facilitating water security and improving ecology in northern China. However, few studies have estimated the water value of the SNWD and the corresponding subsequent subsidies of the ecological migrants in Xichuan County displaced by the project. Based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE), this study analyzed the water ecosystem changes in Xichuan County in 2000–2020 and valued the water transfer of the SNWD. We calculated the water cost, the water value of the trunk line project, and the four provinces (Hebei, Henan, Beijing, and Tianjin) of CNY 4.04, 39.64, and 120.93 billion, respectively, and the proportion of the three was 1:10:30 during 2014–2020. The water ecosystem area showed a rapid increase when the SNWD became operational since the end of 2014. The subsequent annual subsidy gap of ecological migrants was CNY 0.84 billion, which only accounted for 4.31% of the gross profit of SNWD. Our results imply that relevant water sectors have sufficient profits to support corresponding subsequent subsidies for ecological migrants. Ecological migrants are a major challenge for water transfer projects. Overall, this study fills a gap of interactions between subsequent policies and ecological migrants and provides a typical case for managing the migration problem caused by sustainable water management worldwide.
... As the biggest inter-basin transfer scheme in the world, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD) has the capacity to deliver 25 billion m3/a from the Yangtze to the semi-arid North China ( Office of the SNWDP Construction Committee, 2016 ). The project connects four major river basins, three megacities, six provinces, and hundreds of millions of water users ( Barnett et al., 2015 ). The water quality both in the donor basin and in the receiving waters are of great concern ( Stone and Jia, 2006 ;Barnett et al., 2015 ). ...
... The project connects four major river basins, three megacities, six provinces, and hundreds of millions of water users ( Barnett et al., 2015 ). The water quality both in the donor basin and in the receiving waters are of great concern ( Stone and Jia, 2006 ;Barnett et al., 2015 ). ...
As the biggest inter-basin water transfer scheme in the world, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD) was designed to alleviate the water crisis in North China. The main channel of the middle route of the SNWD is of great concern in terms of the drinking water quality. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that the dissolved organic matter (DOM) derived from the planktonic algae causes the rising levels of CODMn along the middle route by monitoring data on water quality (2015-2019, monthly resolution). The results showed that algal density in the main channel increased along the channel and was significantly correlated with CODMn (p < 0.01). Five fluorescent components of DOM, including tyrosine-like (14.85%), tryptophan-like (22.48%), microbial byproduct-like (26.34%), fulvic acid-like (11.41%), and humic acid-like (24.92%) components, were detected. The level of tyrosine-like components increased along the channel and was significantly correlated with algal density (p＜0.01), indicating that algae significantly changed the level of DOM in the channel. Algal decomposition and metabolism were found to be the main mechanisms that drive the changes in CODMn. Therefore, controlling algal density would be an important measure to prevent further increase in CODMn and for the guarantee of excellent water quality.
... Since the UHRB was chosen as the source water areas of the middle route of the SNWDP, whether the basin has the capacity to supply enough water to the project is one of the most debated issues about the project (Barnett et al., 2015;Stone, 2006;Zhang et al., 2020). According to a report from the Chinese government (Wang and Yang, 2005), the perennial mean water available for diversion from the UHRB is 12-14 km 3 yr -1 and 6.2 km 3 yr -1 in dry years. ...
... According to a report from the Chinese government (Wang and Yang, 2005), the perennial mean water available for diversion from the UHRB is 12-14 km 3 yr -1 and 6.2 km 3 yr -1 in dry years. However, severe droughts were not included (Barnett et al., 2015), and increasing drought events will challenge the feasibility of the project (Liu et al., 2015). 335 ...
Recent global climate change and vegetation greening have important implications to Earth’s global biogeochemical cycles and climate, raising concern about the water supply of water diversion projects. To quantify how such a greening trend impacts local water balance and the capacity of water supply, we built a hybrid model based on the Coupled Carbon and Water (CCW) and Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) models. We conducted a case study using the Upper Han River basin (UHRB) in southern China that serves as the water source area to the middle route of the South-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP). Significant vegetation greening occurred in the UHRB during 2001–2018, with the normalized difference vegetation index increasing at a rate of 0.5 % yr−1 (p
... This SNWT project has also raised great controversy because of its huge investment and cost for maintenance/operation every year and the environmental impact to the downstream (Barnett et al. 2015). Moreover, studies also pointed out that even with the supplementary water from SNWT project, the groundwater table level would not stop declining in Shijiazhuang city in North China (Shu et al. 2012). ...
... Adaptations, such as improving agricultural water-use efficiency and reducing crop irrigation, increasing urban water supply from rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling, should play a more important role for the water sustainability in those regions (Barnett et al. 2015). ...
... China's rapid growth has caused increasingly severe water scarcity in the past forty years (Jiang, 2015). In the most water-deficient North China region, annual water availability per capita is only half of the international water scarcity threshold (Barnett et al., 2015). In order to save water, the government first proposed to construct a water-saving society in the Water Law (National People's Congress, 2002), and has since formulated a national water-saving action plan (National Development and Reform Commission & Ministry of Water Resources, 2019). ...
China has implemented a series of water-saving policies in response to the growing threat of water shortages. However, it remains unclear whether these water-saving policies, which aim to reduce water-use intensity, will actually improve water-use technical efficiency. This study scrutinizes water-use technical efficiency within an extended human-environment framework by using the case of China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). An improved estimation method for water-use technical efficiency based on stochastic frontier analysis is adopted to empirically investigate the variations in water-use intensity and technical efficiency in the SNWTP's water-receiving cities. This study argues that there is no definitive link between improvements in water-use technical efficiency and decreases in water-use intensity, and thus water-saving policies oriented toward reducing water-use intensity do not necessarily increase water-use technical efficiency. In addition, achieving the goals of water-saving policies by reducing water use intensity alone remains challenging and requires improving the water-use technical efficiency caused by endogenous technological progress. Finally, setting a unified target to reduce water-use intensity leads to inequitable sharing of water-saving tasks between regions, resulting in conflicts of interest among government bureaucracies.
... However, the hydroclimatic circumstances and water demand in both water-receiving and exporting regions are ever-changing and can not be fully predicted when the IBTs are designed. The compound influence of dynamic hydroclimatic and socioeconomic context could challenge the necessity and efficiency of existing IBTs (Barnett et al., 2015;Gohari et al., 2013;Khadem et al., 2021;Zhao et al., 2015). ...
... However, there are no definitive conclusions due to the complexity of the project. In addition, the methodologies of these studies were relatively simplified since they only considered the SNWTP as a whole entity when exploring the relationship between the project's impacts and the attributions (Barnett et al., 2015). For example, the energy consumption of the eastern route of the SNWTP was assessed using a linear function of the transferred water volume and the average hydraulic heads of the pump stations rather than using the actual hydraulic conditions of each pump due to a lack of detailed data (Chen et al., 2019). ...
Energy efficiency plays an important role in the sustainable operation of the world's largest water transfer project, i.e., China's South-to-North Water Transfer Project, by reducing its energy-related operating costs. However, effective energy-saving measures are still under development for the project due to its huge scale and complexity. An optimized operational model was established in this study to reduce the energy use of the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project by optimally scheduling the water-pumping process of the different pumps along the transfer route in the context of hydrological variability. The optimized operational rules and recommended operational parameters were obtained. The results show that the proposed operational rules in the form of piecewise functions can reduce the water pumping of the project, thus providing a basis for reducing energy consumption. The energy use of the project's water pumping could also be reduced in the wet years by using the local water in midstream lakes along the transfer route rather than the pumped water from the Yangtze River at the southern terminus of the route. In addition, it was also found that the initial water storage of the lakes along the southern part of the route has a greater impact on the volume of the water pumping. Raising the water levels of these southern lakes using local runoff at the beginning of a year would help reduce the subsequent water pumping from the Yangtze River and the relative energy use of the project. In addition. the key areas for energy-saving along the eastern route of the South–North Water Transfer Project were identified, providing new insights for understanding the water-energy nexus behaviors of a long-distance water transfer project.
... Moreover, since the reservoir is in the early stage of water storage operation at a high water level [32], coupled with substantial fluctuations in water levels, zooplankton compositions could be affected by the changes in hydrological conditions and physicochemical environments. Accordingly, given the importance and peculiarity of the ecosystem, which is accompanied by uncertainties and controversies in the sustainability of ecosystem services [33][34][35], research on the zooplankton community patterns of DJKR need to be further strengthened. ...
The Danjiangkou Reservoir (DJKR) serves as the water source for the world’s biggest water diversion project, the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MR-SNWDP) in China, and this project concerns the water security of tens of millions of people in northern China. Hence, the maintenance of ecosystem health and optimization of management necessitate studies to assess the composition and dynamics of key aquatic living resources. Zooplankton represent a critical component of the reservoir ecosystem and are sensitive to environmental changes and anthropogenic disturbances. In this study, the zooplankton compositions in DJKR were quantified and compared in May, August, and November 2017. Simultaneously, the effects of water trophic states on the zooplankton community structure were analyzed at three levels (overall, taxonomic, and functional groups). A total of 65 zooplankton taxa were recorded, with the taxonomic richness of Rotifera (28 taxa) being the highest among taxonomic groups, which were further classified into 10 functional groups. The community was characterized by low diversity and high evenness. Compared with historical studies, the biomass had increased remarkably, while the abundance showed a decreasing trend in DJKR, and there were more large-bodied zooplankton in this study. The multivariate analysis revealed that zooplankton compositions changed significantly among the three sampling months without distinguishable spatial variations. Moreover, the zooplankton compositions at all three levels correlated significantly with total nitrogen, water transparency, and permanganate index in most situations, as verified by db-RDA and Mantel’s test. However, the contributions of chlorophyll a and total phosphorus were only significant for the LCF group, implying that the bottom-up effects of phytoplankton on zooplankton were weak in DJKR. Therefore, analysis based on functional groups may reflect a more accurate snapshot of the relationships. Our findings will contribute to enriching the long-term fundamental ecological knowledge of the DJKR and the MR-SNWDP, as well as provide key taxonomic information for ecosystem assessment and management.
... To address the water shortage in NCP, the South-North Water Diversion (SNWD) project was started to deliver water from the Yangtze River to the NCP since 2014 (Barnett et al., 2015). However, research indicates that if water resources are not allocated efficiently, increasing only external water diversion will not alleviate water shortages (Aeschbach-Hertig and Gleeson, 2012). ...
When allocating water resources, stakeholders (such as water departments, agricultural sector actors, and farmers) aim to maximize their benefits. This leads to conflicts between water savings, food security, and profit growth, causing major challenges for water managers. A hydro-economic model was developed to alleviate groundwater sustainability, food security, and economic growth (GFE) conflicts through crop pattern optimization. This model combines groundwater, agronomic, and economic sub-models to simulate spatiotemporal variations in groundwater level, irrigation requirement, crop production, and net profit. The NSGA-II algorithm was used to maximize net profits while minimizing groundwater extraction and food reduction through crop pattern optimization in irrigation areas and under crop production constraints. Then, using the Baoding Plain as the study area, three scenarios with no external water supply and nine scenarios with an external water supply of 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9 km³/y were designed. The present crop pattern caused a groundwater decline of 0.32 m/y and an overdraft of 0.61 km³/y. The three scenarios without external water supply showed different options for maximizing net profit, minimizing groundwater extraction, and minimizing food reduction without affecting food production, food self-sufficiency or groundwater sustainability. All three scenarios cannot simultaneously satisfy the GFE target. With an external water supply of 0.3 km³/y, only one scenario met the GFE target; with that of 0.6 km³/y, all scenarios met the GFE target; and with that of 0.9 km³/y, groundwater levels increased, profits overflowed, and food overproduction occurred.
... China's per capita water availability is only equivalent to a quarter of the world average, and is unevenly spatially and temporally distributed [34]. In North China, where water scarcity is particularly severe, the yearly per capita water availability is only half of the global water stress threshold [35]. In order to address the severe water scarcity and uneven distribution of water, China attempted to carry water from the Yangtze River Basin toward North China and Northwest China through the building of three SNWTP routes in the east, middle, and west (see Fig. 1). ...
Based on a quasi-natural experiment in China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), this study adopts a difference-in-differences approach to scrutinise the effect of inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) policies on the water-use technical efficiency (WUTE). The findings show that IBWT can improve WUTE in water-receiving cities, but this is not related to the improvement in water endowment resulting from IBWT. Conversely, improvements in water endowment further decrease WUTE. Moreover, IBWT can improve the water-saving capacity and the intensity of environmental regulations in water-receiving cities, thus contributing to the sustainable improvement of WUTE from the input and the undesirable output. Finally, the effect of IBWT policies on WUTE is heterogeneous, depending on differences in economic and demographic elements. The WUTE estimation approach in this study contributes to an improved understanding of WUTE. This study also reveals a causal relationship between IBWT and WUTE, speaking to the ongoing debate on the relationship between IBWT, WUTE and water scarcity. Furthermore, this study adds to the understanding of the complex relationship between IBWT and WUTE, and provides insights into the internal mechanisms of IBWT affecting WUTE.
... Water diversion projects usually aim to ease water shortages, improve regional water security and safety, and promote socio-economic development in receiving areas (Long et al., 2020). The disbenefits are borne by water sources areas: construction of large reservoirs and canals, decreased water resources, environmental risks, inundated farmland, and relocation of local communities (Barnett et al., 2015). Xichuan, as the water source area of China's MR-SNWT project, has experienced these disbenefits since the 1950s when the Danjiangkou Reservoir was first built. ...
Ecological agriculture (EA) is commonly regarded as a top-down agricultural reform plan in China. However, the policy process is more complicated than that. Taking Xichuan, Henan province, the water source area for the Middle Route of South–North-Water-Transfer (MR-SNWT) project, as a case study, this paper tracks the participation of various agencies and their interactions with Xichuan’s government, to reveal how EA has been integrated into local rural development. As agents were assembled to promote Xichuan’s development, EA in Xichuan was considered both as a goal in itself and as a tactic employed to meet the multiple goals of various participants: water protection, poverty alleviation, follow-up support for people who lost their land to the reservoir and changing customer food preferences. With the dominant initiative from a strong central state, the local government and other stakeholders integrated their investments and concerns into policy process, seeking to maximise their own interests; however, they sometimes had to compromise on some standards. This study expands our understanding of ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ by illustrating the overlap and interaction of different actors in advancing similar policies even if they have varied and sometimes competing interests, and it encourages the study of policy processes over space that incorporate multi-actors.
... Water diversion projects usually aim to ease water shortages, improve regional water security and safety, and promote socio-economic development in receiving areas (Long et al., 2020). The disbenefits are borne by water sources areas: construction of large reservoirs and canals, decreased water resources, environmental risks, inundated farmland, and relocation of local communities (Barnett et al., 2015). Xichuan, as the water source area of China's MR-SNWT project, has experienced these disbenefits since the 1950s when the Danjiangkou Reservoir was first built. ...
Ecological agriculture (EA) is commonly regarded as a top-down agricultural reform plan in China. However, the policy process is more complicated than that. Taking Xichuan, Henan province, the water source area for the Middle Route of South–North-Water-Transfer (MR-SNWT) project, as a case study, this paper tracks the participation of various agencies and their interactions with Xichuan’s government, to reveal how EA has been integrated into local rural development. As agents were assembled to promote Xichuan’s development, EA in Xichuan was considered both as a goal in itself and as a tactic employed to meet the multiple goals of various participants: water protection, poverty alleviation, follow-up support for people who lost their land to the reservoir and changing customer food preferences. With the dominant initiative from a strong central state, the local government and other stakeholders integrated their investments and concerns into policy process, seeking to maximise their own interests; however, they sometimes had to compromise on some standards. This study expands our understanding of ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ by illustrating the overlap and interaction of different actors in advancing similar policies even if they have varied and sometimes competing interests, and it encourages the study of policy processes over space that incorporate multi-actors.
... This news is important because the reservoir is a key water source for the Middle Route of the ambitious South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). This state-led inter-basin water transfer project is a massive undertaking, connecting four major river basins across six provinces, with the potential to move 25 billion cubic metres of water to key cities (Barnett et al., 2015). There is much at stake in securing this first class water: the building of infrastructures to store and move large amounts of water has displaced and reordered hundreds of thousands of people, rerouted flows and activities, and essentially created new hydrosocial territories (Rogers & Wang, 2020) for state control, governance and inspection. ...
Central China’s Danjiangkou Reservoir supplies clean water to major cities as part of the South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). Fencing is presented as essential to establishing borders, controls, and authority over the water reservoir and surrounding areas that were previously settled lands. Drawing on Tania Li’s work, as well as work by geographers and anthropologists on the contested production of the state and the border through practice, we focus on the mundane engagements and material practices of a range of actors with this state-led development to illustrate how even state lines that seem natural, and are used to justify or facilitate the massive resettlement and landscape reorganization, also require ongoing construction and engagement. While fencing is presented as part of establishing pristine first class water quality, our research shows that fences have failed, been crossed and are constantly negotiated. We contend that to unravel the apparent solidity of fencing technologies, they should be understood as an interface, one that is under constant negotiation and reconfiguration and that in practice requires the work of a range of actors. In considering these engagements, we contribute to a burgeoning literature critically examining the state in China.
... Individual IBTs across the globe have been well studied from various perspectives of hydrology (Long et al 2020), water management (Gohari et al 2013, Barnett et al 2015, economics (Zhao et al 2015), and ecosystem conservation (Davies et al 1992, Grant et al 2012, Vargas et al 2020. However, two considerable gaps remain in our understanding of the IBTs' role in water stress alleviation. ...
Inter-basin water transfer (IBT) is widely used to mitigate water shortage at the cost of compromising water availability in water-exporting regions. Yet, we do not know how efficient are the IBTs in alleviating inter-regional water stress in a changing climate and water supply-demand context. From a socio-hydrological perspective, we here quantify the efficiency of more than 200 IBTs across the United States by a Stress Relief Index that measures the impact of water redistribution on the overall water stress level. Based on the assumption that an IBT-induced increase and reduction in water availability would respectively constitute a positive and negative impact on regional water security, we show that 29% of the IBTs could be considered socially inefficient by 2010 as they shift water stress from water-receiving to water-exporting and downstream regions. Future stress escalations induced by growing population, declining runoff, and increasing demands for energy production and irrigation will alter IBT efficiency disproportionately. The inefficient IBTs would amount to 32% and 35% by the end of the 21st century under the scenarios of representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5 and RCP8.5, with 7~16 IBTs reaching a tipping point that their role in the water system could switch from alleviating to aggravating the overall water stress. Our results indicate that the evolving climatic and socioeconomic status can largely affect transfer efficiency, highlighting the need of basin-level adaptation strategies for sustainable use of the IBTs.
... This study constructs a differential game model of water markets that considers water quality to examine and compare the differences of individual behaviors under different contracts. China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) provides an ideal case, which connects China's four major river basins, six provinces, and hundreds of millions of water users (Barnett et al., 2015), affecting almost one-third of China's land . The case study of SNWTP helps to understand in theory and practice how incentive coordination affects individual pollution control behavior and optimal decision-making in water markets. ...
The large-scale implementation of water market programs worldwide has increased attention, while little research has paid attention to the water quality-related incentive coordination in water markets. Through the case of the water market of the East Route of China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP-ER), this study adopts a differential game perspective to examine the role of coordination mechanisms in water markets critically. By drawing on a large number of literature, which conceptualizes the incentives of the water market as rooted in market environmentalism, this study opens up the view on incentive-compatible coordination in water markets. By combining the numerical illustration of SNWTP-ER, this study finds that the coordination mechanism can mobilize a series of incentive-compatible coordination techniques and practices to achieve the optimal state of individuals and society simultaneously. In addition, the incentive-compatible coordination mechanism overcomes current water markets’ inability to improve water quality and water allocation simultaneously, reflecting that market environmentalism may be a feasible solution to environmental crises. Finally, designing an incentive-compatible coordination mechanism in water markets is still challenging. The mechanism depends not only on the price and quality elasticity of water demand but also on finding the optimal coordination coefficient.
... An IBWT project can redistribute water resources in time and space according to human will, and improve the watershed environment while meeting water demand (Sinha et al. 2020). However, improper scheduling of IBWT may lead to a waste of water resources and cause damage to the ecological environment of the water diversion and receiving areas (Barnett et al. 2015). Therefore, it is essential to quantify the impact of IBWT at the basin scale to fully improve the water utilization efficiency of IBWT projects and avoid ecological environment damage. ...
Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) has been widely applied to solve the water resource crisis in water shortage areas, and its impact on the ecological environment of water-recipient areas has gained increasing attention in recent years. In this study, based on the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, the average monthly channel flow and water environmental capacity (WEC) with or without IBWT projects were simulated and quantified in the Fenhe River basin of China. The results showed that the IBWT projects significantly improved the flow of 63% of channels, and the increase in the dry season (80%) was much higher than that in the wet season (20%). The changes in the ideal WEC were positively correlated with the channel flow, while the remnant WEC showed different change trends in different channels and seasons. Spatially, the remnant WEC decreased in a few upstream channels and increased in the downstream channels. Seasonally, IBWT projects had different seasonal effects on the remnant WECs of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP). In the dry season, the remnant WEC of TN decreased by 2% after IBWT, while the remnant WEC of TP increased by 140%. In the wet season, the remnant WEC of TN increased by 4%, while the remnant WEC of TP decreased by 80%. Through a long-term simulation of IBWT projects, this study reduced the uncertainties caused by random changes in the hydrological environment. These results could provide effective guidance for management after the construction of IBWT projects.
... The relevant debates and criticisms above are often linked to the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project of China (MRSNWDPC), the longest inter-basin water diversion project in the world. Barnett et al. (2015) questioned the pollution and environmental fallout of this project, which would make it unsustainable ecologically and socially. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the water quality of the project, from its water source to the tributaries; the reported research items include the dissolved trace elements, nutrients, and anthropogenic activities influence (Li et al., 2008;Liu et al., 2016). ...
The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project of China (MRSNWDPC), the longest trans-basin water diversion project in the world, has been in operation for over 6 years. The water quality of this mega hydro-project affects the safety of more than 60 million people and the health of an ecosystem over 160,000 km2. Abnormal algal proliferation can cause water quality deterioration, eutrophication, and hydro-project operation issues. However, few studies have investigated and reported planktonic algae and their relationship with the water quality of this trans-basin water diversion project. Here, spatio-temporal characteristics of algal cell density (ACD) and 11 water quality parameters, including water temperature (WT), pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate index (CODMn), 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), fecal coliforms (F. coli), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3−N), fluoride (F−), and sulfate (SO42−) in the MRSNWDPC from May 2015 to February 2019 were determined using multivariate statistical approaches. Consistent seasonal variation in ACD was observed each year, which grew in spring and then continuously decreased from summer to winter. Summer and winter are the seasons with the highest and lowest ACDs, with average values of 572.95 × 104 cell/L and 157.09 × 104 cell/L, respectively. The NH3−N was positively correlated with ACD growth in all seasons, with Pearson correlation coefficients ranging from 0.594 to 0.738 (P < 0.01). The results of the principal component analysis show that the sources affecting the water quality variation in this project are complex, and NH3−N was the most critical water quality parameter affecting ACD variation, which was linked to ACD in four seasons with strong positive loadings ranging from 0.754 to 0.882, followed by CODMn. The management department of the MRSNWDPC should focus on key periods of phytoplankton control in spring and summer; in addition, variation in the concentrations of NH3−N and CODMn merits special attention. This study provides a helpful reference for the water quality security and algae control strategy of the MRSNWDPC and similar projects in the world.
... The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) is a canal that supplies water to 19 cities and more than 53.10 million residents as part of the largest inter-basin water diversion project in the world (Tang et al., 2014). Water quality and safety as well as issues surrounding the ecological impact of the project have attracted considerable discussion and generated huge controversy (Barnett et al., 2015;Chen and Xie, 2010;Feng et al., 2007;Xin et al., 2020). The project has been under strict regulation, with authorities reducing the impact of human activities, as well as comprehensively shutting off natural streams and surface runoff through engineering facilities such as inverted siphon tunnels and aqueducts, in addition to establishing strict protection zones along the main canal (Zhu et al., 2018). ...
Investigations of microplastics have increased exponentially over the past decade, yet no information is currently available on the status of microplastics in strictly regulated, artificial bodies of water. The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) in China, a highly regulated canal, supplies water to 19 cities and more than 53.10 million residents since 2014, as part of the world’s largest inter-basin drinking water diversion project. In this study, the spatiotemporal distribution, characteristics, and polymer types of microplastics were surveyed for the first time in the Middle Route of the SNWDP. On average, microplastics were distributed at abundances of 496 items m⁻³ in water, 20 items kg⁻¹ in biofilms (wet weight), and 24 items kg⁻¹ in sediments (wet weight), lower than that in other typical inland waters. Both sites and seasons significantly affected microplastic abundance in water, biofilms, and sediments; microplastic abundance in water was also significantly positively correlated with distance to the headwork. The main microplastics in the canal were small (0.05–1 mm) polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers. Interestingly, microplastics were concentrated in biofilms, indicating that biofilms could serve as a sink for microplastics in the canal. Vehicular harvester was used to demonstrate the practicality of biofilm harvest to mitigate contamination with microplastics. Our results showed that microplastics are consistently transported long distances through the canal, biofilms play an important role in the fate of microplastics in the canal, and that biofilm harvest could be potentially used to mitigate microplastic pollution.
... This intervention, which often involves large-scale constructions of reservoirs, tunnels and pumping schemes, is a supply-oriented measure to societal challenges ( Gupta & van der Zaag, 2008 ). Though inter-basin water transfer has been criticized for its associated negative societal and environmental impacts ( Gohari et al., 2013 ;Barnett et al., 2015 ;Berbel et al., 2016 ;Li et al. 2016 ;Ding et al. 2020 ), many applications have been found worldwide ( Erskine et al., 1999 ;Liu & Zheng, 2002 ;Rey et al., 2016 ;Nong et al. 2020 ), because of its effectiveness in reducing regional water pressure and improving water supply security. A recent study analyzed the economic, environmental and social impacts of mega water diversion projects in China, but did not analyze their impact on national water scarcity ( Yu e al. 2018 ). ...
Securing water supply in the face of increasing water scarcity is one important challenge faced by humanity in sustainable development. Inter-basin water transfer is widely applied to provide water supply security in regions where water demand exceeds water availability. However, the effect of inter-basin water transfer on alleviating water scarcity and its inequality is poorly understood especially at the national scale. Based on a newly compiled database of inter-basin water transfer projects in China, here we report a first national assessment of their effect on securing water supply in different basins. We developed a number of indices to facilitate quantifying the effect of water transfer on water scarcity and its inequality. The capacity of inter-basin transfer projects has been steadily increased, which achieved ∼48.5 billion m³ yr⁻¹ by 2016 (equivalent to ∼8% of the national water use). The results indicate that water transfer has impacted water supply of 43 sub-basins out of a total of 76 sub-basins, but it hardly changes a basin's water scarcity level (e.g., from water scarcity to low water scarcity). Approximately three quarters of people in China are affected by water transfer. More than a half of the national population (705 million) benefit from alleviated water scarcity, leading to the inequality coefficient reduced from 0.64 under natural water availability condition to 0.59 considering water transfer in 2016. However, 357 million people in water transfer source basins are subject to increased water scarcity, in which ∼21% are from water stressed sub-basins. This study reveals for the first time water transfer induced water scarcity and inequality change across sub-basins in China, and highlights the challenges to secure water supply across basins.
... In post-resettlement stage, there was a decrease in industrialisation in the stayer communities. To maintain water quality for the SNWD project, the Danjiangkou Reservoir area (the catchment area) was divided into water-source conservation areas [57] since 2003. By 2014, more than 12 billion CNY of external investment was cancelled, about 890 enterprises with serious pollution discharge were closed or limited [31] and 60,000 staff members lost their non-farm jobs. ...
Large reservoir projects typically occupy vast lots of rural land and trigger resettlement on a massive scale. In China’s reservoir context, increasing concerns have arisen regarding distant-resettlees (those who are resettled outside the reservoir area), while fewer studies have examined the nearby-resettlees (those who are resettled near the original area) and the non-movers (those who do not resettle). The significance of these two groups has been downplayed and their populations are in the millions (or more) in China. How and why they are impacted is under-researched and their relative position and intergroup nexus with the distant-resettlees remains unclear in the existing literature. To address this research gap, this paper incorporates the differences between nearby-resettlees and non-movers and collectively refers to them as the “stayers” as they are left behind in reservoir areas. Based on the background of reservoir-induced resettlement in present-day China, and a review of the project-induced impacts, we use Danjiangkou Reservoir as a case study. The findings indicate that the stayers are largely disadvantaged in terms of land assets, housing conditions, finance, infrastructure, industrialisation, livelihood strategies, and emotional impact, while many distant-resettlees are less affected or positively impacted in these aspects. Through the lens of the political nature of reservoir-induced resettlements, we interpret the gaps between the distant-resettlees and stayers. Finally, domestic and global policy implications and further comments are presented.
... China has transitioned from an underdeveloped country to the second largest economy, but also one of the world's most waterstressed regions (13)(14)(15)(16)(17). To avoid the long-term water crisis, diverse water conservancy measures were developed since the 1980s (15,18). ...
... The construction of water engineering projects is highly valued in China [22]. The construction of Anfeng Tang, which created a still-existing reservoir 100 km in circumference that can irrigate an area of 24,000 square kilometers, has a long history, one that is almost as old as the nation itself. ...
This paper addresses recent developments in the application of water Resource dispatching systems (WRDSs) in China. Through a survey of watershed managers and a literature analysis, it was found that water diversion projects should be the top priority of water resource management by considering the recovery construction of water diversion projects. Case studies of WRDSs in the South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) and Pearl River Basin are discussed in this article. The results show that total water consumption management (WCM), water quality monitoring and management (WQMM), minimum discharge flow management (MDFM), and water dispatch management (WDM) modules should be considered in WRDSs. Finally, strategies and needs for resolving water resource management problems are discussed, along with other applications of WRDSs in China.
... The idea of "water security systems" in BTH is not new and sits within the framework of the centralized national water governance regime (Jiang, 2015;Sheng & Webber, 2019). However, there are ongoing issues regarding both policy and implementation (Barnett, Rogers, Webber, Finlayson, & Wang, 2015). Despite the policy driving balanced regional equity, inclusive of development needs and environmental protection, the issue of fragmented authoritarianism (overlapping and separated management) has greatly hindered the practice of integrated water resources management (Pohlner, 2016). ...
The cities across the northern dry region of China are exposed to multiple sustainability challenges. Beijing‐Hebei‐Tianjin (BTH) urban agglomeration, for example, experiences severe water shortages due to rapidly expanding urban populations, industrial use, and irrigation‐intensive agriculture. Climate change has further threatened water resources security. Overuse of water resources to meet the demand of various water sectors has far‐reaching health and environmental implications including ecosystem sustainability. Surface water and groundwater pollution present public health risks. Despite the extraordinary policies and efforts being made and implemented by the Government of China, the BTH region currently lacks coordination among stakeholders leading to poor water governance. Consultation among scientists, engineers and stakeholders on regional water security issues is crucial and must be frequent and inclusive. An international symposium was held in Shijiazhuang in early November 2019 to identify some of the key water security challenges and scope of an idealized future eco‐city in the region by developing a sustainability framework. This work drew on experiences from across China and beyond. Scientists agree that integration of science, technology, and governance within an appropriate policy framework was particularly significant for combating the issue of water insecurity, including in the region's newly developed city, Xiong'an New Area. An emerging concept, “Healthy Waterways and Ecologically Sustainable Cities” which integrates social, ecological and hydrological systems and acts as an important pathway for sustainability in the 21st century was proposed in the symposium to tackle the problems in the region. This high level biophysical and cultural concept empowers development goals and promotes human health and wellbeing. The framework on healthy waterways and ecologically sustainable cities can overcome sustainability challenges by resolving water resource management issues in BTH in a holistic way. To implement the concept, we strongly recommend the utilization of evidence‐based scientific research and institutional cooperation including national and international collaborations to achieve the Healthy Waterways and Ecologically Sustainable Cities goal in the BTH in future.
This article is categorized under:
• Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness
Abstract
Conceptual artwork of Healthy Waterways and Ecologically Sustainable City
... The citizens of the bustling metropolis drink clean, non-toxic tap water, but water pollution is still a major threat to human survival in underdeveloped areas [1,2]. There is always a tendency for industrial areas to migrate to less developed regions because of low labor costs and relatively weak environmental regulations [3,4]. ...
In this study, the cotton fabrics/cuprous oxide-nanocellulose (Cu2O-NC) flexible and recyclable composite material (COCO) with highly efficient photocatalytic degradation of dyes and antibacterial properties was fabricated. Using flexible cotton fabrics as substrates, Cu2O were in-situ synthesized to make Cu2O uniformly grew on cotton fibers and were wrapped with NC. The photocatalytic degradation ability of COCO-5 was verified by use methylene blue (MB), the degradation rate was as high as 98.32%. The mechanism of COCO-5 photocatalysis and the process of dye degradation were analyzed by using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrum, transient photocurrent response (TPR) spectrum, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and ion chromatography (IC). This study analyzed the complete path from electron excitation to dye degradation to harmless small molecules. Qualitative and quantitative experiments demonstrate that COCO-5 has high antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli, the highest antibacterial rate can reach 93.25%. Finally, the stability of COCO-5 was verified by recycling and mechanical performance tests. The textile-based Cu2O functionalized material has photocatalytic degradation and antibacterial properties, and the preparation process is simple and convenient for repeated use, so it has great potential in wastewater treatment containing dyes and bacteria.
... China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) provides the case through which to examine incentive coordination as an application of neoliberal environmentality. The SNWTP connects China's four major river basins, six provinces, and hundreds of millions of water users and polluters (Barnett et al., 2015), affecting almost a third of China's landmass . We demonstrate the economic and political logic of incentive coordination policies in SNWTP and how they differ from PES policies in galvanizing individual conduct. ...
The transboundary water pollution control is often complex and challenging due to the multiple jurisdictions or countries involved. However, current studies fail to comprehensively examine the issue of incentives in transboundary water pollution control, nor do they consider dynamic changes in the behavior of local actors. Multiple administrative boundaries and multiple actors are spanned in the middle route of China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP-MR) making it an ideal case for applying the theory of neoliberal environmentality to examine the governance of transboundary water pollution, as it provides a lens to carefully observe how incentive coordination as a techne of neoliberal environmentality shapes the behavior of local actors to improve water quality. By constructing a baseline scenario, an eco-compensation scenario, and an incentive-coordination scenario, this paper provides a differential game modeling approach to examine and compare the behavioral differences of local actors under different scenarios, and to understand the benefits distribution mechanism under Chinese non-democratic and non-western system. The findings demonstrate that incentive coordination for transboundary water pollution control has the same political and economic roots as neoliberal environmentality. Moreover, compared to eco-compensation modeled as a leader-follower game, incentive coordination as a social planner optimization makes local actors’ interests more compatible with improving water quality, and thus is more similar to the voluntary transactions envisaged by PES. Finally, the neoliberal incentive structure constructed by incentive coordination for transboundary water pollution control can help to improve the effectiveness of water pollution control under the existing eco-compensation systems that rely on command-and-control instruments.
... China's SNWTP aims to transfer water from the Yangtze River to the north and northwest of China by constructing eastern, middle, and western routes to change water resources' spatial distribution. The SNWTP connects China's four major river basins, six provinces, and hundreds of millions of water users and polluters (Barnett et al., 2015), affecting almost one-third of China's territory ). The first phase of the eastern and middle routes began construction in December 2002and December 2003, respectively, and was completed in December 2013and December 2014 Both the eastern and middle routes are at risk of water pollution. ...
Water pollution is subject to the effects of various drivers and exhibits significant spatiotemporal effects. This paper reviews the spatiotemporal variation pattern of water pollution drivers within the extended framework of the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) that considers spatiotemporal effects. Taking China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) as an example, this paper examines the spatial spillover and spatiotemporal heterogeneity of water pollution drivers in the SNWTP’s water receiving cities by constructing spatial autocorrelation regression and geographical and temporal weighted regression models. The findings demonstrate that water pollution drivers have interactions between adjacent economic cities, making it more challenging to assess water pollution in specific cities accurately. Moreover, there are significant spatiotemporal heterogeneities in the drivers’impact on water pollution. First, the spatial effect of the population driver is more prominent than the temporal effect. Second, the economic driver is positively correlated with pollution and fluctuates with time. Finally, the technology driver also presents significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity. These spatiotemporal heterogeneities make water pollution control more complicated.
... The planned diverted water volume (~9.5 km 3 year −1 ) from the central route represents~30% of mean annual streamflow into the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the source area. Long-term monitoring and research, as well as improved legislation, policies, and management practices are required to minimize negative environmental impacts in the source region 46,47 , particularly the resilience of water supply from the source region under future climate change and extremes, and seawater intrusion into estuaries of the Lower Yangtze River during low-flows due to water abstractions 48,49 . Socio-environmental impacts of these large-scale water diversions also need to be considered. ...
Groundwater (GW) overexploitation is a critical issue in North China with large GW level declines resulting in urban water scarcity, unsustainable agricultural production, and adverse ecological impacts. One approach to addressing GW depletion was to transport water from the humid south. However, impacts of water diversion on GW remained largely unknown. Here, we show impacts of the central South-to-North Water Diversion on GW storage recovery in Beijing within the context of climate variability and other policies. Water diverted to Beijing reduces cumulative GW depletion by ~3.6 km3, accounting for 40% of total GW storage recovery during 2006–2018. Increased precipitation contributes similar volumes to GW storage recovery of ~2.7 km3 (30%) along with policies on reduced irrigation (~2.8 km3, 30%). This recovery is projected to continue in the coming decade. Engineering approaches, such as water diversions, will increasingly be required to move towards sustainable water management. The authors here address water sustainability in the greater area of Beijing, China. Specifically, the positive effects towards Beijing groundwater levels via water diversion from the Yangtze River to the North are shown.
... There are also additional problems caused by inefficient strategies aimed at preventing water shortages. One example is the huge south-to-north water transfer program in China, which did not successfully alleviate drought in the intended areas due to improper management of the water that was delivered [10]. ...
Globally, water scarcity has become a common challenge across many regions. Digital surveillance holds promise for monitoring environmental threats to population health due to severe drought. The 2019 Chennai water crisis in India resulted in severe disruptions to social order and daily life, with local residents suffering due to water shortages. This case study explored public opinion captured through the Twitter social media platform, and whether this information could help local governments with emergency response. Sentiment analysis and topic modeling were used to explore public opinion through Twitter during the 2019 Chennai water crisis. The latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) method identified topics that were most frequently discussed. A naïve Tweet classification method was built, and Twitter posts (called tweets) were allocated to identified topics. Topics were ranked, and corresponding emotions were calculated. A cross-correlation was performed to examine the relationship between online posts about the water crisis and actual rainfall, determined by precipitation levels. During the Chennai water crisis, Twitter users posted content that appeared to show anxiety about the impact of the drought, and also expressed concerns about the government response. Twitter users also mentioned causes for the drought and potential sustainable solutions, which appeared to be mainly positive in tone. Discussion on Twitter can reflect popular public opinion related to emerging environmental health threats. Twitter posts appear viable for informing crisis management as real-time data can be collected and analyzed. Governments and public health officials should adjust their policies and public communication by leveraging online data sources, which could inform disaster prevention measures.
... Therefore, the key challenge in the local water authorities in JSP would be how to monitor and manage sustainably the water pollutants along the whole water use processes of all the water use sectors. As the very first step, transparent information and estimation on water quality should be given to all the relative water managers and users (Barnett et al. 2015). Our study focused on JSP, but the methods used, combining data from climate observations, hydrological models and national statistics, can be applied to other regions as well. ...
Water stress due to poor water quality has been becoming severe in many places across the world. Comprehensive water utility and water scarcity assessments require information integrating both water quantity and quality. While massive attentions have been paid to water quantity scarcity evaluations, little effort has been made to assess inter-annual variations of regional water scarcity resulting from both water quantity and quality. The study, taking water-abundant while stressed Jiangsu province (JSP) in eastern China as the study area, investigated (i) the development in green, blue and grey water footprint (WFs) for crop production, over 1986–2016, (ii) the inter-annual evolutions in blue and grey WFs for industry and households over 2010–2016 and (iii) the associated inter- and intra-annual variations in water scarcities resulting from water quantity and quality. Results showed that the annual total WF of crop production in JSP increased by 18% between 1986 and 2016. Grey WF accounted for 77% of the total WF at an annual average level. Crop production occupied 61% and household accounted for 34% in the total grey WF related to N. The monthly blue water scarcity levels in JSP increased by 4 (October 2016) – 62 (February 2012) folders when water quality effects were taken into account. The wetter the year, the lower the blue water scarcity of water quality and quantity. As a sensitive and crucial region with both severe water pollution scarcity and the role of water source region in the huge South-to-North water transfer project, it is of great necessity to enhance the water pollution management and increase information transparency among water authorities and consumers.
... Only a few papers have noted the correlation between IBWT as a human activity and environmental change. 10,11 Unfortunately, these studies fail to account for the environmental impacts of human activities other than IBWT. Moreover, studies of the environmental impacts of human activities focus on population factors, economic factors, and technological factors, 12 without considering IBWT. ...
Inter-basin water transfer has become a means by which countries around the world solve the problem of water shortage. Moreover, inter-basin water transfers may also stimulate stronger controls over water pollution control in water-receiving areas. However, most existing literature fails to examine the impacts of inter-basin water transfers on water consumption and pollution from the perspective of the complex entanglement between human activities and environmental change. In order to respond to this research gap, this study establishes an improved human-environment model that considers the impacts of inter-basin water transfer, and uses data about China’s South-North Water Transfer Project to empirically study the temporal and spatial effects of inter-basin water transfers. The results show that inter-basin water transfer not only fails to improve water consumption in water-receiving cities, but also further restricts residents’ water use due to the high water price caused by this project. Furthermore, inter-basin water transfers also fail to reduce water pollution in water-receiving cities – levels of water pollution depend more on external environmental policies. These results have some implications for understanding the inter-basin water transfers in authoritarian states: although inter-basin water transfers do not affect water consumption and pollution, authoritarian states can maintain and consolidate their political legitimacy by gaining public trust through inter-basin water transfers.
... So far, the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) that was started to be built in China in 2002 is the largest inter-basin water transfer scheme in the world (Barnett et al., 2015;Li et al., 2016). It includes three independent routines, namely, west, east, and middle routes, where the last two routes have been completed and can deliver about 25 billion m3 of water per year (Liu and Zheng, 2002). ...
To tackle ever-changing global water problems, inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects provide water supply alternatives for water-scarce regions and create potential risks for water-supply regions. To analyze the multiple interrelated impacts of IBWT projects on supply regions, in this study, we establish a cascade multi-objective complementary optimal scheduling model and apply the model to the water supply regions of the west route of China's South-North Water Transfer Project and the Dadu-Minjiang Water Transfer Project. With the goal of fully utilizing water resources to gain comprehensive benefits, we objectively and quantitatively evaluate the impacts of IBWT projects on the ecology and hydropower generation of water supply regions. To reduce the complexity of solving the model, the model is decomposed into a two-stage optimization model and is solved with particle swarm optimization and fuzzy optimization. The results show that: (1) The multi-objective model that simultaneously considers minimal ecological water shortage degree, maximal power generation, and the maximization of the annual minimum output is more conducive to the full utilization of water resources. (2) The factors affecting the ecological flow, the power generation and its structure in the water supply region, and the annual minimum output are different. (3) To deal with risks, the upstream power station in the water supply region is controlled to meet the ecological needs as the primary goal, and the downstream power station is mainly responsible for the task of compensating and adjusting the output gap during the dry season. This study can provide technical support for the demonstration and decision-making of IBWT projects, and it explores the ideas of water resource planning and management.
Climate change is leading to changing patterns of precipitation and increasingly extreme global weather. There is an urgent need to synthesize our current knowledge on climate risks to water security, which in turn is fundamental for achieving sustainable water management. Climate Risk and Sustainable Water Management discusses hydrological extremes, climate variability, climate impact assessment, risk analysis, and hydrological modelling. It provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary exploration of climate risks to water security, helping to guide sustainable water management in a changing and uncertain future. The relevant theory is accessibly explained using examples throughout, helping readers to apply the knowledge learned to their own situations and challenges. This textbook is especially valuable to students of hydrology, resource management, climate change, and geography, as well as a reference textbook for researchers, civil and environmental engineers, and water management professionals concerned with water-related hazards, water cycles, and climate change.
Climate change is leading to changing patterns of precipitation and increasingly extreme global weather. There is an urgent need to synthesize our current knowledge on climate risks to water security, which in turn is fundamental for achieving sustainable water management. Climate Risk and Sustainable Water Management discusses hydrological extremes, climate variability, climate impact assessment, risk analysis, and hydrological modelling. It provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary exploration of climate risks to water security, helping to guide sustainable water management in a changing and uncertain future. The relevant theory is accessibly explained using examples throughout, helping readers to apply the knowledge learned to their own situations and challenges. This textbook is especially valuable to students of hydrology, resource management, climate change, and geography, as well as a reference textbook for researchers, civil and environmental engineers, and water management professionals concerned with water-related hazards, water cycles, and climate change.
The Chinese water environment system is severely degraded by intensive anthropogenic activities. To relieve these problems, the national government has proposed to establish a comprehensive evaluation system of water environment carrying capacity (WECC). However, few studies provide a comprehensive depiction of the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of WECC within a basin/region owing to the limitations of interdisciplinary research methods. By integrating the system dynamics model, cellular automaton model, and gridded geographic information system technology, we developed a spatial system dynamics model to explore the spatiotemporal pattern of the WECC of Yongding River Basin in North China. The spatial system dynamics model works well and the simulation accuracy was close to 85%. Our results showed that inadequate water resources and water quality induced the overloaded WECC in Yongding River Basin, which was unevenly distributed within the river basin. From 2017 to 2035, Zhangjiakou often suffered an overload of WECC throughout the year due to quantity-related water shortages. However, in Beijing's mountainous area, the WECC status of control units 1 and 4 was in good status owing to sufficient water quantities. Considering the overload of the WECC and its feedback relationship with anthropogenic activities, effective and feasible management measures, such as reducing agricultural irrigation water use and domestic pollution, improving the rate of sewage collection and treatment, or industrial restructuring should be prioritized in this arid river basin. Our study improved methodologies in WECC modeling for river basins, helped overcome difficulties in revealing the spatiotemporal dynamic patterns of WECC, proposed a calculation method of WECC in terms of population and GDP, and verified that the threshold of WECC was not static, which provides information for finding a balance between economic development and water safety, especially in regions with water scarcity.
Recent climate change and vegetation greening have important implications for global terrestrial hydrological cycles and other
ecosystem functions, raising concerns about the watershed water supply
capacity for large water diversion projects. To address this
emerging concern, we built a hybrid model based on the Coupled Carbon and
Water (CCW) and Water Supply Stress Index (WaSSI) models and conducted a
case study on the upper Han River basin (UHRB) in Central China that serves as the water source area to the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP). Significant vegetation greening occurred in the
UHRB during 2001–2018, largely driven by the widespread afforestation in the
region, with the normalized difference vegetation index increasing at a rate
of 0.5±0.1 % yr−1 (p<0.05) but with no significant trends in climate during the same period (albeit with large interannual
variability). Annual water yield greatly decreased, and vegetation greening
alone induced a significant decrease in water yield of 3.2±1.0 mm yr−1 (p<0.05). Vegetation greening could potentially reduce
the annual water supply by 7.3 km3 on average, accounting for 77 % of
the intended annual water diversion volume of the SNWDP. Although vegetation greening can bring enormous ecosystem goods and services (e.g., carbon
sequestration and water quality improvement), it could aggravate the
severity of hydrological drought. Our analysis indicated that vegetation
greening in the UHRB reduced about a quarter of water yield on average during drought periods. Given the future warming and drying climate is likely to
continue to raise evaporative demand and exert stress on water availability,
the potential water yield decline induced by vegetation greening revealed by
our study needs to be taken into account in the water resources management over the UHRB while reaping other benefits of forest protection and
ecological restoration.
This article applies the pluralistic concept of environmental justice to the issue of park accessibility between people across different socioeconomic strata in the metropolitan region of Shanghai. Data were obtained from China's 2000 and 2010 population census, Shanghai Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau, semi‐structured interviews and secondary sources. The article finds significant environmental injustice between foreign citizens and Chinese citizens (including people from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and mainland people with and without Shanghai hukou) and between blue collar, white collar and wealthy white collar people from distributive, recognition, participatory and procedural justice perspectives. The article then discusses why such injustice is the result of urban China's unique authoritarian mode of governance, power structure, neoliberal practice and globalisation development. The findings offer insights into the development of the concept of environmental justice in the Chinese context and the country's objective to build an impartial society.
The chapter evaluates water resources development, focusing on large dams and inter-basin water transfer projects. Hydraulic engineers have built large dams for irrigation projects, flood protection, and hydropower generation. The Three Gorges Dam boasts its mighty capacity of hydropower generation, flood control, and facilitation of inland navigation although various challenges need to be tackled, including resettlement issues. Inter-basin water transfer projects have been significant between North and South China. The South North Water Transfer Project has diverted substantial amounts of water to slake the thirst of North China, particularly around Beijing and Tianjin. A long-term evaluation will be required if the project is able to resolve water shortage in North China against institutional as well as natural hindrances.
Urban agglomerations are a primary spatial focus of socioeconomic activity and inherently include large volumes of embodied water. We have applied the concept of water metabolism health to comprehensively evaluate the overall operation of water systems in urban agglomerations and propose an innovative assessment framework. In particular, we constructed a water metabolism network (WMN) model to simulate a water system in which different cities and sectors are integrated, combining a newly compiled multiregional input-output (MRIO) table of water flow with ecological network analysis (ENA). A case study considering the Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration in 2015 demonstrates that its network is well synergic but highly dependent, with considerable negative effects. Highly developed cities in southeastern of the PRD exhibit higher embodied water productivity and robustness but impose considerable negative effects on the water system. We found the agricultural sector to be a dominant controller of the network; the construction and service sectors represent the primary beneficiaries with strong competition. We suggest measures at various scales to improve water utilization efficiency and promote positive interactions between components, thus improving water metabolism system health for urban agglomerations.
Water scarcity has become a major threat to sustainable development under climate change. To reduce the population exposure to water scarcity and improve universal access to safe drinking water are important targets of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 in the near future. This study aims to examine the potential of applying adaptive inner-basin water allocation measures (AIWAM), which were not explicitly considered in previous studies, for mitigating water scarcity in the future period (2020–2050). By incorporating AIWAM in water scarcity assessment, nonagricultural water uses are assumed to have high priority over agricultural water use and thus would receive more water supply. Results show that global water deficit is projected to be ~3241.9 km³/yr in 2050, and severe water scarcity is mainly found in arid and semi-arid regions, e.g. Western US, Northern China, and the Middle East. Future warming climate and socioeconomic development tend to aggravate global water scarcity, particularly in Northern Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East. The application of AIWAM could significantly mitigate water scarcity for nonagricultural sectors by leading to a decrease of global population subject to water scarcity by 12% in 2050 when compared to that without AIWAM. However, this is at the cost of reducing water availability for agricultural sector in the upstream areas, resulting in an increase of global irrigated cropland exposed to water scarcity by 6%. Nevertheless, AIWAM provides a useful scenario that helps design strategies for reducing future population exposure to water scarcity, particularly in densely populated basins and regions. Our findings highlight increasing water use competition across sectors between upstream and downstream areas, and the results provide useful information to develop adaptation strategies towards sustainable water management.
A dynamic multi-region computable general equilibrium (CGE) model is used to analyze virtual water and its effect in the Huaihe River basin, which includes Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Henan provinces. The baseline scenario was first constructed to describe the trade situation and virtual water among different regions and sectors from 2009–2020. Then two hypothetical policy scenarios were set to analyze the economic, water consumption and virtual water trade impacts under different policy shocks. The results show that (1) the Huaihe River basin was a net virtual water outflow region, with 13.977 × 109 m3 virtual water transferred outside the river basin in 2009, and 26.653 × 109 m3 VW transferred to outside in 2020. Jiangsu is the largest virtual water outflow province (mainly flows to outside), followed by Anhui. Anhui suffers from severe water shortage, but provides a net virtual water outflow to Henan, Jiangsu and Shandong and outside; (2) reducing Anhui's agricultural output (S1 scenario) and Anhui's agricultural virtual water outflow (S2 scenario) can not only reduce virtual water trade but also save water, but S1 scenario reduced net virtual water outflow by more, and saved more water. S1 had a positive effect on gross domestic product (GDP), but reduced the employment rate. HIGHLIGHTS
Role of VWT analyzed using a CGE.;
CGE based on 12 years of data (2009–2020).;
VW study not only focused on agriculture, but also included industry and service sectors.;
Two hypothetical scenarios were set to analyze the economic, water consumption and VWT impact.;
Assessment of VW will change water usage and trade in different upstream and downstream regions of the Huaihe watershed.;
The conservation and efficient use of water resources are directly related to the sustainable and high-quality development in China. This paper regards the pilot policy of water-saving society construction as a quasi-natural experiment, and employs a differences-in-differences approach to evaluate the effectiveness of urban water-saving policies and exploit its drive mechanism by using the panel data of 263 cities in China from 2001 to 2016. Findings show that the pilot policy of water-saving society construction can achieve better water-saving effects, which can not only promote the reduction of urban water consumption in intensity and total amount, but also improve the efficiency of water resources utilization. And this policy has brought long-term dynamic effects on the urban water resources conservation. Heterogeneous effects exist in different types of cities, that is, the water-saving performance is more significant in cities with sufficient water resources and in central China. Besides, this paper finds that the impact of this water-saving policy on urban water resource conservation is mainly through two channels such as water resources infrastructure investment and water resources pricing. These findings provide useful inspirations for local governments to take effective economic measures to manage water resources.
Inter-basin water transfers are intended to have a positive impact on the development of a region, but are always accompanied by huge energy consumption. The feasibility and effectiveness of water transfer projects have not yet been clearly evaluated, especially in the light of their energy consumption and effects on social development. This paper develops a method that combines life cycle approach and system dynamic model to reveal the effectiveness of different water supply alternatives (transferred water, reclaimed wastewater and rainwater harvesting) when they are all constrained to consume equal energy. This approach is applied to the case of Jinan city in Shandong province, China, the main water-receiving city on the Eastern Route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (ER-SNWTP). The results show that in normal years, Jinan's reclaimed water and rainwater harvesting supply are effective replacements for transferred water under the constraints of equal energy consumption and capital costs; even in dry years these two alternatives still play an important role. The results of this study indicate the relative effectiveness of reclaimed water and rainwater harvesting in supplying urban water while conserving energy and capital.
Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.
Chen, D.; Luo, Z.; Webber, M.; Rogers, S.; Rutherfurd, I.; Wang, M.; Finlayson, B.; Jiang, M.; Shi, C. and Zhang, W. 2020. Project and region: The challenges of managing water in Shandong after the South-North Water Transfer Project. ABSTRACT: This paper examines the challenges that a region of China is facing as it seeks to integrate a centrally planned, hierarchically determined water transfer project into its own water supply systems. Water from China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has been available in Shandong since 2013. How has this province been managing the integration of SNWTP water into its water supply plans, and what challenges is it facing in the process? This paper demonstrates that Shandongʼs planners consistently overestimated future demand for water; this, together with the threats posed by reduced flows in the Yellow River, encouraged the Shandong government to support the building of the SNWTP. However, between the genesis of the plans for the SNWTP and its construction, the supply from the Yellow River became more reliable and the engineering systems and the efficiency of water use in Shandong Province itself has improved. As a result, by the time the SNWTP water became available, the province had little pressing need for it. Besides this reduced demand for SNWTP water, there have been difficulties in managing delivery of, and payment for, water within the province. These difficulties include unfinished local auxiliary projects that connect cities to the main canal, high water prices, conflict and lack of coordination among stakeholders, and ambiguous management policies. The result is that in 2016, on average, cities used less than 10% of their allocated quota of SNWTP water, while seven cities used none of their quota. The story of the SNWTP in Shandong is that of a centralised, hierarchically planned, fixed infrastructure with its deterministic projections coming into conflict with the fluidity of water demand and local political circumstances.
The world's longest trans-basin water diversion project, the Middle-Route (MR) of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project of China (SNWDPC), has officially been in operation for over 5 years since December 2014. Its water quality status has always attracted special attention because it is related to the health and safety of more than 58 million people and the integrity of an ecosystem covering more than 155,000 km². This study presented and analysed the spatio-temporal variations and trends of 16 water quality parameters, including pH, water temperature (WT), dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate index (PI), five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), fecal coliform (F. coli), total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3⁻N), sulphate (SO4²⁻), fluoride (F⁻), mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), selenium (Se), copper (Cu), and zinc (Zn), which were determined monthly from samples collected at 27 water quality monitoring stations in the MR of the SNWDPC from March 2016 to February 2019. The water quality index (WQI) was used to evaluate the seasonal and spatial water quality changes during the monitoring period, and a new WQImin model consisting of five crucial parameters, i.e., TP, F. coli, Hg, WT, and DO, was built by using stepwise multiple linear regression analysis. The results demonstrated that the water quality status of the MR of the SNWDPC has been steadily maintained at an “excellent” level during the monitoring period, with an overall average WQI value of 90.39 and twelve seasonal mean WQI values ranging from 87.67 to 91.82. The proposed WQImin model that uses the selected five key parameters and the weights of those parameters has exhibited excellent performance in the water quality assessment of the project, with the coefficient of determination (R²), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Percentage Error (PE) values of 0.901, 2.21, 1.93%, respectively, showing that the proposed WQImin model is a useful and efficient tool to evaluate and manage the water quality. For the management department, the risk sources near certain stations with abnormally high values should be carefully inspected and strictly managed to maintain excellent water quality. The potential risks of algae proliferation in this project should be of concern in future research.
Water tables are dropping by approximately one meter annually throughout the North China Plain mainly due to water withdrawals for irrigating winter wheat year after year. In order to examine whether the drawdown can be reduced we calculate the net water use for an 11 year field experiment from 2003 to 2013 where six irrigated crops (winter wheat, summer maize, cotton, peanuts, sweet potato, ryegrass) were grown in different crop rotations in the North China Plain. As part of this experiment moisture contents were measured each at 20 cm intervals in the top 1.8 m. Recharge and net water use were calculated based on these moisture measurement. Results showed that winter wheat and ryegrass had the least recharge with an average of 27 mm/year and 39 mm/year, respectively; cotton had the most recharge with an average of 211 mm/year) followed by peanuts with 118 mm/year, sweet potato with 76 mm/year, and summer maize with 44 mm/year. Recharge depended on the amount of irrigation water pumped from the aquifer and was therefore a poor indicator of future groundwater decline. Instead net water use (recharge minus irrigation) was found to be a good indicator for the decline of the water table. The smallest amount of net (ground water) used was cotton with an average of 14 mm/year, followed by peanut with 32 mm/year, summer maize with 71 mm/year, sweet potato with 74 mm/year. Winter wheat and ryegrass had the greatest net water use with the average of 198 mm/year and 111 mm/year, respectively. Our calculations showed that any single crop would use less water than the prevalent winter wheat summer maize rotation. This growing one crop instead of two will reduce the decline of groundwater and in some rain rich years increase the ground water level, but will result in less income for the farmers.
This stimulating and challenging book explores the duplicitous nature of development in China. On the positive side, it brings longer and healthier lives; fewer children dead before they are five years old; more comfort and security from famine and disaster; more education; more communication; more travel; less war. But from another, darker perspective, development brings violence to some people - those who are in the way of the new things, those who cannot adapt to the new ways - and it threatens old knowledges, habits and societies as it disrupts old power structures.
China has been facing increasingly severe water scarcity that seriously threatens the socio-economic development and its sustainability of this country. This paper is intended to analyze and assess the water security of China. It first attempts to characterize the current status of water security within a risk-based, integrated framework that encompasses five key aspects critical to water sustainability, including water availability, water use patterns, wastewater generation and pollution control, water institutions and management, and health of aquatic systems and societal vulnerability. Based on the above assessment, the paper then analyzes emerging challenges for water security brought by climate change, population growth and rapid urbanization, and the water-food-energy nexus. In the end, the paper discusses China's future prospects on water security, including current achievements, government actions and policy initiatives, and recommendations for management improvement aimed at increasing water security.
This paper compares the key arguments of ecological modernization theory (EMT) with the reality of recent environmental reform in China. Based on data gathered from a survey and in-depth interviews with executives from Hong Kong-based enterprises operating in Guangdong province, we examine the changing roles of government, market, and civil society actors in the reform process, focusing on various types of pressures these actors have exerted on business enterprises. Compatible with Mol's (2006) conjectures, ecological concerns have gradually gained a foothold in existing political, economic, and to a lesser extent, social institutions. Yet, the relevant actors and their patterns of interactions differ from what EMT generalizes from Western European experiences. Specifically, local governments are assuming a more formalized relationship with firms in regulatory enforcement. Among market actors, organizational buyers along the supply chain have exerted more noticeable pressures on manufacturing firms than industrial associations and individual consumers. Civil society, while remaining less of an institutionalized actor in the environmental policy process, appears to pose a perceptible threat to at least some firms.
Many development agencies and other actors are advocating that China adopt a system of water markets or of high water prices in order to resolve the inefficiencies of irrigation agriculture and to supply sufficient water for growing urban and industrial uses. We argue that this proposal rests on a series of propositions: that the price of water is too low to encourage farmers to be efficient; that farmers are not charged volumetric prices and so are not encouraged to conserve water; that water is scarce largely because farmers are profligate in their use of water; and that proper pricing of water will not affect equity. None of these contentions is true. Farmers have to pay not only the official charges for water but also the much higher costs of pumping it onto their fields. Once pumping is included, farmers are paying prices that are volumetric. Furthermore, the inefficiency of farmers arises in large part from the manner in which water is delivered to them: the system offers no rewards for care in the use of water and instead rewards greed. And, finally, although it might be true that higher prices do not affect equity within a village, in fact they would have substantial effects on inter-sectoral equity, with farmers becoming worse off in comparison to urban dwellers. The paper concludes by sketching a more appropriate scheme for raising the efficiency of use of irrigation water.
This paper analyses institutional reforms and political participation, most notably indirect and direct elections of residential committees (RC), in China's urban neighbourhoods and communities (shequ). It shows that these elections at present are not meaningful to the majority of city dwellers as the RCs have little decision-making power and no revenues generated by a collective economy as in most of China's villages. RCs are primarily important to those weaker strata of society who depend on the state to be provided with social services and financial support - tasks that the RCs are forced to assume on behalf of higher government authorities. Nevertheless, the author finds that as limited the significance of - and knowledge about - RC elections in the daily lives of China's urban dwellers still are, they still have some influence on political awareness and participation. For instance, they make people voice more opinions in their shequ, which may be a good starting point for more direct interference in local political affairs soon to come. The paper emphasizes that RC elections have been introduced in order to enhance regime legitimacy but suggests that they may spur democratization by the rise of accountability as a conditioning factor of this legitimacy and by electoral 'habituation' as a transition to full democratic commitment. Whilst 'security first, participation second' seems to be the order of the day and the 'freedom of politics' is still more important than a concern for RC elections and shequ affairs, it remains to be seen if those elections may not soon trigger off a meaningful drive for political participation in China's cities.
In this paper we describe a new incentive-based pollution control program in China, in which the environmental performance of firms is rated from best to worst using five colors--green, blue, yellow, red and black--and the ratings are disseminated to the public through the media. We focus on the first two municipal disclosure programs, which have been implemented at very different levels of economic and institutional development. In both cases, the increases in compliance with pollution regulations have been similar to increases produced by public disclosure programs in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The results suggest that incentives created by public disclosure may significantly reduce pollution in China, even though environmental NGO's play little role and there is no formal channel for public participation in environmental regulation.
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