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REVIEW ARTICLE
Eco-environmental impact of inter-basin water transfer
projects: a review
Wen Z huang
1,2
Received: 8 December 2015 /Accepted: 9 May 2016
#Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract The objective reality of uneven water resource dis-
tribution and imbalanced water demand of the human society
makes it inevitable to transfer water. It has been an age-old
method to adopt the inter-basin water transfers (IBTs) for al-
leviating and even resolving the urgent demand of the water-
deficient areas. A number of countries have made attempts
and have achieved enormous benefits. However, IBTs inevi-
tably involve the redistribution of water resources in relevant
basins and may cause changes of the ecological environment
in different basins. Such changes are two-sided, namely, the
positive impacts, including adding new basins for water-
deficient areas, facilitating water cycle, improving meteoro-
logical conditions in the recipient basins, mitigating ecological
water shortage, repairing the damaged ecological system, and
preserving the endangered wild fauna and flora, as well as the
negative impacts, including salinization and aridification of
the donor basins, damage to the ecological environment of
the donor basins and the both sides of the conveying channel
system, increase of water consumption in the recipient basins,
and spread of diseases, etc. Because IBTs have enormous
ecological risk, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze
the inter-basin water balance relationship, coordinate the pos-
sible conflicts and environmental quality problems between
regions, and strengthen the argumentation of the ecological
risk of water transfer and eco-compensation measures. In ad-
dition, there are some effective alternative measures for IBTs,
such as attaching importance to water cycle, improving water
use efficiency, developing sea water desalination, and rainwa-
ter harvesting technology, etc.
Keywords Inter-basin water transfer .Ecological
environment .Ecological risk .Risk analysis .
Countermeasures
Introduction
Inter-basin water transfers (IBTs) mean building water transfer
projects that span two or more basins for transferring water
from a basin with abundant water resources to those in short-
age, thus realizing adjusting water quantity between basins
and resolving the water demand in the water-deficient area.
The IBTs have developed over a long history. Dated back to
the 2400 BC, as the Ancient Egypt intended to satisfy the
demand for irrigation and shipping in today’s south area of
Ethiopia, King Menel commanded to build the first IBT pro-
ject in the world, which diverted the water from the Nile to
irrigate the land along the channel and eventually facilitated
the development and prosperity of the Egypt civilization
(Fang, 2005). However, modern IBTs emerged in the nine-
teenth century. So far, many countries around the world are
facing the water shortage problem of different degrees. On
March 21, 2013, Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the
United Nations, addressed on the World Water Day that it was
predicted that there would be more than a half of the world
population facing the water shortage problem by 2030 as the
demand for water resources had exceeded by 40 % of the
water supply. Clean water source has become the significant
restriction for the social and economic development of all
Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues
*Wen Zhuang
wzhuang@yic.ac.cn
1
College of City and Architecture Engineering, Zaozhuang
University, Zaozhuang, Shandong 277160, China
2
Key Laboratory of Coastal Environmental Processes and Ecological
Remediation, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Yantai, Shandong 264003, China
Environ Sci Pollut Res
DOI 10.1007/s11356-016-6854-3
countries. many countries have already employed large-scale
and long-distance IBTs to redistribute water resources for al-
leviating the imbalance between supply and demand of water
resources.
According to incomplete statistics, the IBTs which had al-
ready been completed or under construction around the world
were totally more than 160 by 2015, and dispersed in around
20 countries and regions, mainly including the USA, Canada,
the former Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, and China, etc., all
of which occupied over 80 % of the total water transfer quan-
tity (Yang, 2003; Wang et al., 2008;Zhaoetal.,2015). Table 1
gives some world-renowned IBTs.
As the ecological and environmental problem becomes
prominent day by day, people pay more attention to the eco-
logical and environmental impacts of water transfer projects.
IBTs appear to solve the problem of water shortage or full
utilization of water resources. In contrary, after in-depth re-
searches, it is found that the potential environmental and eco-
logical impacts are gigantic and complicated (Wang, 1999). In
general, such impacts include both direct and indirect, short-
term and long-term, evoked and accumulated, one-time and
multiple. The paper takes a typical IBT case to introduce the
ecological and environmental impact of the IBTs.
China’s South-to-North Water Transfer Project
(SNWTP) with an uncertain future
Known as the largest hydraulic project in the world, SNWTP
is a national strategic project that aims to mitigate the water
shortage problem in the north and northwest regions of China.
It transfers abundant water from Yangtze River Basin to the
north and northwest regions of China (Li et al., 2016).
SNWTP is featured with large-scale, massive investment, in-
volving a large number of participating parties and having
significant impacts on the sustainable utilization of water re-
source in China. This mega project faces a number of com-
plexity issues and challenges that had not been experienced in
previous projects. (Liu et al., 2013). This project has three
transfer lines, namely, the east line, the middle line, and the
west line (Chen and Wang, 2012;Fig.1). SNWTP com-
menced in 2003 and will take 50 years for completion; forty
to fifty billion cubic meters of water are supposed to be deliv-
ered to northern China every year and benefit 300 to 325
million people (Zhao et al., 2015;Lietal.,2016). By
December 2014, the accumulative investment had exceeded
RMB 250 billion, 50 % of the total planned investment
(South-to North Water Diversion, http://www.nsbd.gov.cn/
zw/gg/201501/t20150119_366773.html).
The SNWTP has sparked a grievous controversy in envi-
ronmental implication. On the one hand, the SNWTP is
regarded as a unreliable water supply system because of its
extensive energy demand. On the other hand, it has potential
negative eco-environmental impacts such as water shortage
and saltwater intrusion in water supply areas (Li et al., 2016).
Researchers pointed out that the Xiangfan section of
Hanjiang River, as the water source of the middle line of the
SNWTP, would have an evident water level drop after the
commencement of the water transfer in the middle line, and
the water pollution would aggravate and fish might decrease
substantially (Li et al., 2015). Other researchers also consid-
ered that the estuary of the Yangtze River would suffer from a
greater degree of salt water intrusion after the operation of the
SNWTP. As a result, the drinkable water quality for Shanghai
will be affected (Xu et al., 2012). The water donor basin of the
east line of the SNWTP is located in the Yangtze River Delta
where the industrial pollution is serious, the water conveyance
canal passed through the Huaihe River Basin which is also
polluted seriously. Therefore, water pollution is the main con-
trol factor restricting the economic benefits and development
of the SNWTP (Gao and Wang, 2008).
The former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Housing and
Urban–Rural Development of China claimed that the mode of
water transfer for solving water shortage in cities of China had
resulted in numerous problems, to a certain extent, it had
Blanded in a predicament^(Qiu, 2014): with the growing scale
and distance of water transfer projects, it becomes more and
more difficult to transfer water, and the ecological damage in
the water donor basins becomes more and more serious; more-
over, water transfer projects feature a lot of work, high invest-
ment and operation costs; in addition, because of the differ-
ences in terms of components between the transferred water
and the local water, the scale deposit inside the tap water
pipelines dissolves and separates out, which results in new
pollution that cannot be treated easily (Qiu, 2014).
IBTs has complex ecological environmental impacts on
water donor basins, water recipient basins, and area along
water transfer routes. According to the nature, these impacts
are divided into positive ones and negative ones which will be
elaborated below. Measures adopted by experienced countries
and strategies proposed by related researchers are illustrated to
eliminate or reduce negative impacts on ecological environ-
ment caused by transfer project. Finally, several possible al-
ternative measures of IBTs are introduced.
Positive impact of IBTs on the ecological
environment
Positive impacts on water donor basins
IBTs which usually involves controlled comprehensive utili-
zation of rivers can take advantage of abandoned water effec-
tively to turn its harm into the good. Therefore, most of water
transfer projects have flood control function.
Environ Sci Pollut Res
Tab l e 1 World-renowned inter-basin water transfer projects
Project Name Country Water transfer
quantity/(billion
m
3
a
−1
)
Tot al length o f
trunk canal/km
Features References
California North-to-South
Water Transfer Project
USA 5.2 900 It is the largest multipurpose development project in America to solve the
condition of waterlogging in the north region and drought in the south.
Chen, 2004
Central Arizona Project USA 3.7 800 The project aims to solve the subsidence of ground caused by excessive
mining of groundwater in the middle region of Arizona. It is one of the
projects in the
world that adopt the most advanced control system for management of
water supply.
Wan g et a l. , 2008
Quebec Water Transfer
Project
Canada 25.2 861 It diverts water from adjacent rivers and gathers it into one river for terraced
hydropower development, which reflects economical efficiency and
rationality in terms of water resources development. It is worth of learning
from this hydropower development project.
Wan g et a l. , 2008
Karakum Water Transfer
Project
Former Soviet
Union
–1400 It caused the Aral Sea crisis, which is considered as one of the largest human-
made disasters in the world.
Wan g et a l. , 2008;
Krivonogov et al., 2014
West-to-North Water
Transfer Project
Pakistan 14.8 622 It takes advantage of the sloping topographic condition downstream and
flexibly arranges three transfer channels according to the elevation. It is a
model example for open channel artesian transfer in the flat area.
Chen, 2004
Snowy Mountains
Scheme
Australia 1.13 80 It is a large-scale IBT hydropower project that takes advantage of natural fall
and transfers water from the Snowy Mountains to the Murray River basin.
Ghassemi and White, 2007
Bavaria Water Transfer
Project
Germany 0.15 ∼0.3 –Its aim is ecological protection. This is uncommon among the water transfer
projects which have been already completed or under construction in the
world.
Fang, 2005
Great Man-Made River Libya 2.5 4500 It is the water transfer project with the longest pipe among those completed
and under construction in the world. It uses underground water as the
source.
Fang, 2005
The National River-
Linking Project
India –4440 Some large-scale water transfer projects are linked. The transfer of water is
essentially by gravity. It aims to solve the uneven distribution of regional
water resource, control flood, and generate electricity.
Ghassemi and White, 2007
South-to-North Water
Transfer Project
China 44.8 3833 It is a super large-scale project system that transfers some redundant water of
the Yangtze River basin to the Yellow River and the region at its north side
for the purpose of supplementing water sources to the North China and
northwest region where in shortage of water sources. It will become the
IBT project with the largest annual water transfer quantity upon comple-
tion in the world. Its ecological impact has caused great controversy.
Zhao et al., 2015
Environ Sci Pollut Res
The distribution of precipitation is uneven in India,
with maximum annual precipitation of 4000 mm in the
eastern Himalayas and mountains of west coast, of
1000 mm in the eastern Assam, less than 600 mm in the
leeward slope of the central and southern Ghats, and less
than 100 mm in Rajasthan and Thar Desert in the north-
west and in Gujarat in the north of Bombay where are the
driest areas. Snow water supplied by Himalayas often
causes flood in the north and the west, while monsoon
rain causes short-lived flood in the south-central area
(Wang, 2004; Ghassemi and White, 2007).
India has implemented a series of IBTs since the twen-
tieth century. For example, Parambikulam Aliyar Project
was built during the 1960s. It is a complex multipurpose
project of seven streams consisting of five west and two
east flowing rivers. These rivers were dammed and their
reservoirs linked by tunnels. This project is used to irri-
gate 162,000 ha (Ghassemi and White, 2007). The
Rajasthan Canal Project under construction which sup-
plies water to the desert area from Himalayas has a supply
canal178kminlengthwithdesignflowof685m
3
/s and
irrigated area of 1.2 million ha. The IBTs redistributed
water resources rationally, which will play the role of
irrigation in arid regions and can effectively reduce the
flood disaster during the transfer (Wang, 2004).
Positive impacts on water recipient basins
Restoration of the damaged ecological system
and improvement of the biological diversity
One of significant beneficial effects of IBTs is to restore the
damaged ecosystems. As IBTs can increase more water areas
for the water-deficient region, the vertical vapor exchanged
among the hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and
lithosphere intensifies accordingly. In addition, the water cy-
cle benefits from it. And the meteorological conditions of the
recipient basins are improved. IBTs may also increase the
surface water supply and soil water content in the recipient
basins, thus forming local wetlands, mitigating ecological wa-
ter deficiency, compensating and regulating the water volume
of rivers and lakes, as well as protecting the endangered wild
fauna and flora (Dadaser-Celik et al., 2009;Rivera-Monroy
et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2014).
The Mississippi is the primary water source for the coastal
wetland in Louisiana. Affected by the large amount of projects
along the river, the estuary inflow decreased day by day. The
living environment of the coastal wetland was damaged and
its ecological function degenerated gradually. In order to con-
tain the degeneration of the wetland and recover its ecological
function, the state government of Louisiana executed the
Mississippi Transfer Project (Allisona and Meselhe, 2010).
Meanwhile, the government also constructed relevant sand
transfer project for the purpose of maintaining the stability
of the estuary delta and wetland. The water and sand transfer
projects effectively slowed down the disappearing estuary
wetland (Lane et al., 2001; Snedden et al., 2007).
In 2000, China commenced the Peacock River Transfer
Project to recover the wetlands ecosystem of Tarim River.
It remarkably increased the underground water level in the
recipient basin and supplemented the underground water
within 1.05 km at both sides of the river. This project ev-
idently improved the original degenerated wetland ecosys-
tem, including the composition, varieties, distribution, and
habitat for wetland plants, (Chen et al., 2008). In the same
year, the Heihe River Water Transfer Project supplied wa-
ter to East Juyanhai Lake, which had been dried for
10 years, continuously for 3 years from 2002 to 2004.
This has effectively contained the degeneration of the eco-
system and improved the biodiversity (Zhao, 2010).
Fig. 1 Diagram of conveying
lines of South-to-North Water
Transfer project (The red dashed
lines represent rivers; the deep
yellow,green,andwhite dashed
lines represent the three transfer
lines; The yellow circles represent
cities)
Environ Sci Pollut Res
Relief of ground subsidence caused by overexploitation
of groundwater
IBTs can reduce the exploitation of underground water and
benefit the infiltration and capillary rising of the surface water,
soil water, and underground water. Underflow discharge and
other cycles are beneficial to the conservation of water and
soil, and prevention of surface subsidence. From 1940,
California over-exploited 1.8 million m
3
of water every year
with the exploitation depth of 305–754 m. Land subsidence
affected farmland of more than 9000 km
2
. After water transfer,
land subsidence was effectively prevented, and soil and water
were conserved (Poland, 1981; Larsona et al., 2001).
Improvement of water quality
It can accelerate water exchange, improve self-purification
capacity of water, and improve water quality through inter-
basin water transfer.
Although having more than 1900 km of coastline, Libya is
a typical desert country with more than 95 % of its area a
desert. The vast majority of the population lives in the cities
along the northern Mediterranean, with its capital Tripoli
owns 28 % of the population. Shortage of fresh water cannot
be solved only through desalination, since groundwater in
coastal areas has been depleted and the water is not suitable
for drinking because of the penetration of seawater (Gijsbers
and Loucks, 1999).
Libya began to build an underground artificial river in the
desert to supply water to the north. The project is planned to be
finished in 30 years with total investment of USD$30 billion.
It is designed to pump groundwater of 6.5 million cubic me-
ters per day from Kufra, Tāzirbū, Sabha, and other oases in the
south, and transport the water to Ajdabiya reservoirs in the
north through the underground cement pipelines of total
length of 5000 km and the diameter of 4 m and multi-stage
pump stations along, in order to meet industrial and residential
water consumption and farm irrigation of 400,000 ha in the
north coast. In addition to meeting municipal water consump-
tion, the national food self-sufficiency rate reached 40 % since
250,000 ha of farmland was irrigated and a number of large
farms had been established by water transfer (http://global.
britannica.com/topic/Great-Man-Made-River).
Positive impacts on the water transfer routes
Through water transfer, the nutrients are brought into the wa-
ter, which is conducive to growth and reproduction of food
organisms and fish and promote the development of fishery.
Furthermore, it can also improve water quality, expand waters,
so that to create artificial and ecological landscape and devel-
op tourism, entertainment and so on.
Pakistan further improved the irrigation system in Indus
plains and gradually restored and developed water supply to
irrigation system in the Ravi River, Sutlej River, and Beas
River through its construction of West-to-East Water
Transfer Project. According to statistics from 1971 to 1978,
the quantity of water transfer which is transported from the
Indus River and its tributaries Jhelum River and Chenab River
to the Ravi River, Sutlej River, and Beas River has been ac-
cumulated to 152.4 billion m
3
, with an annual average of 21.8
billion m
3
and irrigated farmland of 1.63 million ha. Pakistan
transforms from the original food importing country to an
exporting one since its agricultural production conditions have
been greatly improved. Habitat is provided for endangered
wildlife along the water transfer route, and dams and channels
also become scenic tourist area (Li et al., 2003).
Negative impacts of IBTs on the ecological
environment
IBTs are double-edged swords. Apart from the positive im-
pacts on the ecological environment, IBTs also have the neg-
ative impacts. One of the major features of the IBTs is the
redistribution of water resources. But, they will cause some
ecological environmental risks. By summarizing the collected
data, the primary negative impacts of IBTs for the ecological
environment are given as below:
Negative impacts on water donor basins
Large-scale and long-distance IBTs might not only cause the
decreasing runoff volume of the water donor rivers, but also
might result in salinization of soil and salt water intrusion at
the estuary.
The North-to-South Water Transfer Project of the former
Soviet Union, transferring water from Neva River, caused the
decreasing water volume of the Lake Ladoga. Because of this,
inorganic salt and mineralized debris increased, and finally the
ecological system was seriously damaged. Although methods
have been taken in recent years to reduce the content of inor-
ganic salt flowing into the lake, they haven’t achieved the
anticipated goal of ecological recovery (Pozdnyakov et al.,
2013).
Another example: the California Water Transfer Project
and the Delta Mendota Canal of the Central Valley Project
reduced the fresh water flowing into the San Francisco Bay
from the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River by 40 %.
The water quality of the San Francisco Bay thus deteriorated
and sea water intruded into the delta, forming a salinity gradi-
ent about 80 km long that extends from the western part of the
Delta downstream to northern San Francisco Bay (Davies
et al., 1992;MaandWang,2011).
Environ Sci Pollut Res
Negative impacts on water recipient basins
Causing the waste of water resources in recipient basins
IBTs might stimulate the water consumption in recipient ba-
sins, thus it had to increase water transfer endlessly. What is
more, the extensive irrigation method and predatory agricul-
tural operation resulted in the salinization of a large amount of
land. More seriously, the unexpected increase of water con-
sumption lead to reduction of runoff into the sea. The quantity
of water consumption is related to the local climatic condi-
tions, situations of water use and ways of water use. Except
the climatic conditions, the other two items are directly con-
nected to human activities. It is estimated that the evaporated
water around the world increases approximately 8.7 trillion
m
3
every year owing to the activities such as reservoir storage,
water transfer projects, agricultural cultivation improvement
of irrigated and non-irrigated land. In addition, 150 billion m
3
of water evaporated by cities and industries. It totals around
8.85 trillion m
3
, which is equivalent to the daily increase of 24
billion m
3
, almost equal to 2 % of the evaporated water from
the earth surface or 12 % from the land (Chen, 2004).
Spread of new pollution and diseases
IBTs usually feature long-distance water delivery line that
crosses regions with complex ecological geographic charac-
teristics. This may cause diseases such as typhoid fever, dys-
entery, cholera, encephalitis, and bilharziasis, which affect the
human health (Sible et al., 2015). Excessive water transfer for
irrigation may easily generate and spread parasite and aquatic
organism diseases that are particularly serious in the tropics
and subtropics. For example, the Orange River Water Transfer
Project in South Africa was taken for irrigation and domestic
use along the channel, thus the incidence of schistosomiasis
expanded and increased with the agricultural development,
schistosomiasis host snails, and a corresponding increase in
population density (Gupta and van der Zaag, 2008).
IBTs may also bring the contaminants of the water source
or along the channel to the recipient basins. Lake Michigan
Water Transfer Project (Chicago, USA) is one of the earliest
and most controversial IBTs, since it has a long history of
suffering from various kinds of contaminants such as persis-
tent organic pollutants (Murphy and Rzeszutko 1977; Delfino,
1979; Rasmussen et al., 2014).
Negative impacts on the water transfer routes
Salinization on both sides of the conveying channels
The early water transfer projects which existed with problems of
water loss and evaporation in water distribution system were
mostly constructed for the purpose of irrigation. The lack of
supporting drainage systems or unreasonable design of drainage
systems will cause accumulation and redistribution of salt in the
soil once the soil water table is higher than the critical depth of
groundwater. Accordingly, the saline concentration will build up
in the crop root layer. As a result, the soil structure is damaged,
nutrient elements are lost, and water-soil and water-salt balance
are broken. Eventually, negative influences are brought to the
ecological environment (Zhao et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2013).
West-to-East Water Transfer Project of Pakistan has three
irrigation channels, totaling 663 km, with artesian transfer
speedof1493m
3
s
−1
. Its water level is averagely 1 m higher
than the banks. Thus, seepage water supply to the underground
water even reaches 3.5–4.5 billion m
3
a
−1
. For this reason,
several hundreds of meters wide along the banks become
swampy. Moreover, owing to the insufficient drainage, the turn-
over of water quantity in this region is extremely imbalanced,
which results in land waterlogging and soil salinization, as well
as destruction of fertility and crop failure. More than 24,000 ha
of cultivated land is affected every year (Ma and Wang, 2011).
The effects of the open canal on migration routes and animal
mortality
The open nature of the canal might act as an animal trap,
which is one of the most contentious, emotive, and serious
impacts of the water transfer canal (Davies et al., 1992).
An estimate of the death toll for 65 km of the canal of the
Eastern National Water Carrier (Namibia) between June 1985–
August 1986 revealed a total of 7234 vertebrates (excluding
decomposed animals, and those consumed by carrion feeders).
Nearly 30 mammal species were recorded, including aardwolf,
rare pangolin, antbears, and bat-eared fox. Of the total, 57 % were
reptiles, 22 % amphibians, 19 % mammals, and 2 % were birds.
Certain endangered species, such as the Cape Vulture, Gyps
coprotheres mighthavealsobeenfallpreytothecanalwhen
feeding on large game which has drowned (Davies et al., 1992).
Negative impacts on the original water recipient basins
A typical case is the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Transfer
Projects and the drought of the Aral Sea
The Aral Sea, located at the junction of the Republic of
Kazakhstan and the Republic of Uzbekistan, is an internal salt
water lake, which once was the fourth largest fresh water lake
in the world (Kristopher, 2013; Fig. 2). The water source for
the Aral Sea mainly comes from Amu Darya and Syr Darya.
In 1960, the gross area of the Aral Sea reached 67,500 km
2
.
The average depth was 54 m. And total water volume was
1.09 trillion m
3
. Hundreds of kinds of fished lived in the
Aral Sea. It offered more than ten thousand tons of fishes
product every year which provided sufficient food for the
Environ Sci Pollut Res
residents living by the Lake. The large water body of the Aral
Sea also regulated the dry climate in the Central Asia.
It took only 50 years to drain the Aral Sea. And the primary
reason behind this is some large-scale water transfer projects
implemented by the former Soviet Union. In the 1930s, the
former Soviet Union planned to develop irrigation agriculture
in the Central Asia. However, the priority problem to be solved
was water source. Syr Darya from Tianshan Mountains and
Amu Darya from Pamirs became the primary water source for
this plan. The two rivers flew across the five primary Former
Soviet Republics in the Central Asia, namely, Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, and
finally flew into the Aral Sea (Kristopher, 2013).
In 1937, the Grand Figuera Canal of 220 km was built from
Syr Darya. In 1954, Karakum Water Transfer Project officially
commenced with the goal to divert the natural channels of
Amu Darya and Syr Darya to the east Turkmenistan and mid-
dle Uzbekistan for irrigation. In this period, the Karakum
Lenin Canal was dug with a total length of 1400 km. It started
from the upstream Amu Darya to irrigate the west
Turkmenistan. In 1960, a total of 6.6 million ha of cotton field
and paddy field were reclaimed in the basin of Amu Darya,
Syr Darya, and the newly dug canals. It became the new grain
and cotton production base for the former Soviet Union.
Regardless of this, the substantial increase of economic
benefits could not cover the fact of the rapidly deteriorating
natural environment (Aladin and Potts, 1992; Whish-Wilson,
2002;Glantz,2004; Small et al., 1999,2001; Vostokova,
2004; Roy et al., 2014). The water sources for the Aral Sea
were Amu Darya and Syr Darya. As the water transfer project
introduced water from the two rivers for irrigation on a large
scale, the water volume flew into the Aral Sea decreased
sharply (Fig. 3). Before the construction of the water transfer
project in the 1960s, the average water volume flowing into
the Aral Sea was 56 billion m
3
. It decreased to 26 billion in the
1970s; 7 billion at the beginning of the 1980s; and almost zero
at the end of the 1980s. Without any water supplement and
owing to the high amount of evaporation, the Aral Sea had a
constantly decreasing water quantity and rapidly shrinking
lake surface area. The salt concentration increased to triple
times of that of the sea water, which made massive mortality
of fish and aquatic organism as well as degeneration of biotic
population. By 2020, salinity of the Aral Sea may increase up
to 237–250 % (Rafikov and Gulnora, 2014).
The massive grain and cotton production and large number
of immigrants in the 1970s and 1980s generated a large
amount of irrigation and domestic wastewater with plenty of
residual chemical fertilizer and pesticide. When such waste-
water flew back to the Amu Darya and Syr Darya and finally
to the Aral Sea, it polluted the water of the Aral Sea. After the
Aral Sea dried up, the salt and alkali at the lake bottom were
exposed. Tens of thousands of poisonous salt and alkali
Fig. 2 The position of the Aral Sea (quoted from Krivonogov et al., 2014)
Environ Sci Pollut Res
compounds are blown up from the dried seabed every year,
forming the Bsalt sand storm^from north to south, which
aggravates the salinization and desertization in the Central
Asia. 80 % of the cultivated land in the Republic of
Turkmenistan has had a high level of salinization. The increas-
ing amount of salt and harmful matters also threaten the health
of local residents. It shows an evident increase of percentage
of developing diseases such as leukemia, nephropathy, and
trachitis. What is more serious is that the precipitation in the
Central Asia is decreasing year by year owing to the absence
of the regulation by the Aral Sea for the local climate, thus
resulting in continuous drought. The average temperature in
summer rises with each passing year while it drops remark-
ably in winter. The season for growth becomes shorter and
shorter (O’Hara et al., 2000a,b; Wiggs et al., 2003). All the
benefits acquired in the past decades in the Aral Sea basin by
the former Soviet Union is far from compensating the conse-
quences of ecological disasters in this basin.
Countermeasures against the negative ecological
impacts of IBTs
Enhancing risk evaluation on the eco-environmental risks
of IBTs
IBTs are grant projects to transform nature, since they cover
a wide range with a great amount of investment and arduous
projects. In addition, this may bring long-term issues to the
society and ecological environment. Comparing with other
water conservation measures like construction of above-
ground and underground reservoirs, water saving, and treat-
ment and recycling of effluent sewage, IBTs involve more
issues. And, in most cases, Bthe distant water cannot quench
present thirst^. Therefore, an IBT project shall only be fi-
nalized and implemented after carrying out comprehensive
feasibility study and evaluation of rationality and legitima-
tion regarding the scale, benefits, ecological environment,
society, and other aspects, as well as careful planning and
design (Wen et al., 2011; Locatelli et al., 2014;Zhaoetal.,
2015). Otherwise, another way should be taken.
Davies et al. (1992) appealed that research should address
not only a comprehensive approach to measuring the ecolog-
ical impacts of IBTs, but also the evaluation of the ecological
risks associated with them, as well as the development of
monitoring programs which will allow alterations to be made
to operational criteria, such that particularly deleterious im-
pacts may be reduced. Davies et al. (1992) also urged that
an international workshop be conducted to address the lack
of knowledge of the ecological impacts of IBTs, their extent
and distribution, and the development of a suitable ecological
ethic, monitoring programs, and the integration of IBTs into
overall catchment planning and management.
Based on a comparative assessment of the different disci-
plinary, political, and legal approaches to evaluating whether
IBTs can be justified, Gupta and van der Zaag (2008)pro-
posed five criteria to evaluate inter-basin transfer schemes in
the context of Integrated Water Resources Management:
1. Real surplus and deficit: there is a real (objectively veri-
fiable) surplus in the donor basin; and there is a real (ob-
jectively verifiable) deficit in the recipient basin where
water is used efficiently (with the best available
technology).
2. Sustainability: the transfer scheme is designed to be sus-
tainable in terms of social, environmental and economic
aspects, and is adaptive to natural and social stresses.
3. Good governance: the scheme is based on good gover-
nance (including participatory decision-making and ac-
countability to the public).
4. Balance existing rights with needs: the transfer scheme
respects existing (local, national and international) rights,
and responsibilities; without negative extra-territorial ef-
fects and other impacts on riparian countries. If such im-
pacts nevertheless do occur, adequate compensation mea-
sures or benefit sharing have been agreed. No person or
family or community or state will be worse off because of
the scheme.
Fig. 3 LANDSAT images
showing the spatial extent of the
Aral Sea in athe 1970s, b
summer of 1999, and csummer of
2011, respectively (Roy et al.,
2014)
Environ Sci Pollut Res
5. Sound science: the scheme is based on sound science,
including hydrological, ecological, and socio-economic
analyses. It adequately identifies uncertainty and risk,
and gaps in knowledge. All possible alternatives have
been considered.
Gupta and van der Zaag (2008) laid special stress on that in
applying the proposed set of criteria to evaluate inter-basin
transfer schemes, the overall strength of a particular scheme
will be determined by the criterion that scores lowest, much
like the strength of a chain being determined by the weakest
shackle.
The Indian government is doing a good job in strengthen-
ing the ecological environmental impact of water transfer.
Although a large-scale development has been made for irriga-
tion water source in recent decades, the Indian government
and the state governments are still making plans and doing
researches for a long distance and large flow water transfer.
The Indian government has recognized the importance of
large-scale water transfer for the development of water re-
sources and the improvement of the environment (Gupta and
van der Zaag, 2008).
Developing and improving the relevant laws
and regulations, and enhancing government surveillance
and management
Policies and regulations provided a guarantee for the normal
operation scheduling of water transfer project. Successful wa-
ter transfer projects are basically developed relevant laws and
regulations.
In the USA, construction of water transfer projects is
proceeded strictly in accordance with relevant regulations
from the project approval, determination of investment scale
to construction management and the repayment of project in-
vestment. A project invested and constructed by federal or
state government always has a corresponding specific bill.
Effective legislation and strict enforcement provided an im-
portant guarantee for the success of the USA in water conser-
vancy construction and water resources allocation projects.
From the date of approval, the construction of a water transfer
project is guaranteed by law from aspects of water allocation,
investment, quality standards, benign operation and manage-
ment mechanism and benefit development after completion.
The US federal government provided legislative protection
for California North-to-South Water Transfer Project (Gill
et al., 1971). After the completion of project design, the
California State Assembly determined the construction and
management framework in legal form, and decided that the
full construction costs of the project was derived from bonds
and loanswhich would be repaid by operating income from the
project. Another Example: The US federal government
adopted the Act for Colorado River Basin Project for Central
Arizona Water Transfer Project, and authorized the Bureau of
Reclamation to fund and construct the project. The govern-
ment defined tasks of the project, including transporting water
from the Colorado River to Central Arizona and returning
funds for the construction of Central Arizona Water Transfer
Project invested by the federal government (Wang et al., 2008).
Establishing systems for restoration and compensation
to re-establish the integrity of ecosystems
In the execution stage of the water transfer works and the later
stage of water transfer, eco-compensation measures of ecolog-
ical restoration and ecological compensationare also essential.
Successful IBTs are basically equipped with many regulat-
ing reservoirs along the route and established with stable bases
for water resources, so that to provide the fundamental guar-
antee for the redeployment of water resources. The functions
of regulating reservoir are to store excess water during the
rainy season and reasonably control discharge volume for
the river in order to ensure the balance of surface water and
groundwater in both the water resources area and the intake
area. It also helps to prevent excessive exploitation of ground-
water in dry season and low flow year and make comprehen-
sive utilization of surface water and groundwater.
The most successful experience of California North-to-
South Water Transfer Project is to store excess water in 20
reservoirs in the delta region and then transport it to different
places by canals. Throughout the entire water transfer project
from north to south, rational layout of large reservoirs guaran-
teed water supply. Central reservoirs saved surplus water at
any time to facilitate the redistribution of water resources,
while adjustment by many reservoirs along the way effective-
ly improved the guarantee rate of water supply (Wang et al.,
2008). Composed by 16 reservoirs and related buildings,
Australia Snowy Mountains Scheme transports water of 1.13
billion m
3
per year to inland. During the drought, adequate
released water and proposed irrigation water are guaranteed
by adjustment of large reservoirs, in order to make sure the
quantity of water transfer is not less than 85 % of the average
flow rate even in the worst periods (Ghassemi and White,
2007; Wang et al., 2008).
Pakistan develops water conservancy projects very early
and becomes one of the countries doing well in irrigation
and drainage. Pakistan West-To-East Water Transfer Project
was once encountered with the problem of salinized channels
because the conveying channels and intake region suffered a
large amount of seepage to supplement the underground wa-
ter, particularly in the high level water delivery sections. Later,
the Salinity Control and Reclamation Project came into effect:
on the one hand, it lowers the underground water lever by
hydraulic measures; on the other hand, it prevents and treats
land waterlogging and salinization by crops and soil improve-
ment and other measures. Twenty years since the adoption of
Environ Sci Pollut Res
the this project, good results have been obtained (van
Steenbergen and Oliemans, 2002).
The Dongshen Water Supply Project of China, which is
located within Shenzhen and Dongguan in Guangdong
Province, and aims to supply water to Hong Kong,
Kowloon, and Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. In order to
conserve water sources, ecological public welfare forest was
planted in water sources and on both sides of Dongjiang. It is a
great economic loss for farmers once the forest is classified as
ecological public welfare forest which cannot be cut and plant
economic forest. Therefore, the Chinese government and the
Guangdong provincial government have established the com-
pensation mechanism for ecological benefits of forest, so that
to compensate farmers for economic loss by means of finan-
cial transfer payments (Zhang, 2012).
Preventing and controlling of water pollution
The water quality may continuously suffer cumulative and
sudden impacts caused by land development and man-made
pollution in the water basin. The higher the rate of urbaniza-
tion is, the worse the water quality in this basin will be.
Governments should adopt effective measures to protect the
water environment in order to give better play to the long-term
benefits of project.
After completion of Australia Snowy Mountains Scheme,
the Australian government adopted a series of effective mea-
sures to protect the water environments (Liu, 2000):
1. Strictly control the growth of agricultural water consump-
tion. Related state government has reached a consensus
that the government will no longer issue new agricultural
water permit and significantly increase the price of water.
The government will strictly restrict the increase of agri-
cultural water consumption, encourage investment in
updating irrigation technology, and limit to draw water
from river to ensure that there is enough flow to flush
off salt.
2. Strengthen overall work on water and soil conservation.
There are many reservoirs in water supply system of
Snowy Mountain Scheme. In order to ensure that these
water storage projects are free from the threat of siltation,
the federal government developed the water area of
Snowy Mountain Scheme as a national park which is a
tourism attraction without the development of other in-
dustries. Tourists can only walk on a particular passage
which is actually a small wooden bridge above the ground
in order to protect the vegetation.
3. Appeal to the whole society to protect water quality con-
sciously. In Australia, the key points of water quality pro-
tection are to prevent the outbreak of blue-green algae and
agricultural sewage flow into the river. The effective
means to prevent the growth of blue-green algae is to
reduce organic matter enter into the water; therefore,
intercepting plates are built along the banks in order to
prevent leaves and hay to be involved in the water and
untreated sewage is strictly forbidden from being
discharged into the river. Nowadays, states have already
regarded water transfer and construction of sewage treat-
ment as a whole, and areas with large processing capacity
will get preferential treatment in the water supply.
Germany is one of the countries who did better in water
environment protection. According to the German Water
Management Act, water protection areas can be set in neces-
sary places and implement with special requirements and pro-
hibitions in order to avoid being damaged. Residential and
industrial buildings are not allowed to be built in more strin-
gent protection zone, while specified business, sewage treat-
ment plants and transport routes can be established according
to the provisions in lesser degree of protection areas; however,
gas stations and chemical warehouses which shall be harmful
to the water sources are not allowed to be constructed and
operated (DVGW 1975a,b). For example, in order to protect
Bodensee, German local government established water con-
servation areas around the lake to prevent water pollution and
damage of water quality, and formulated regulations for pro-
tection areas to specify the list of activities permitted and
prohibited in the protection zone.
Effective alternative measures for IBTs
Developing water cycle and improving water use
efficiency
As to the concept of development, first of all, applicable
cutting-edge technologies should be integrated with measures
like safe use of water, wastewater treatment and recycling,
energy recovery and utilization, and rainwater harvesting
and recycling, etc. Secondly, we should transform from
large-scale transfer and drainage to ecological restoration, as
well as from water transfer for flushing and diluting pollution
to restoration of the local water self-purification function and
the water ecology. Thirdly, we should transform from the for-
mer unscientific mode of water use (demand-decided model)
to the water-saving mode (supply-decided model). Lastly, we
should transform from extensive development to healthy
recycling of water resources.
New York was in severe shortage of water resources in the
1960s. The initial solution was to transfer water from New
Jersey. The project budget exceeded USD$10 billion.
Considering such enormous investment and the disagreement
of New Jersey residents on the water transfer solution to New
York, this project was not executed. As New York was stuck
in this predicament, experts in the field of urban drainage put
Environ Sci Pollut Res
forward a piece of advice—replacing all the old flush toilets in
New York with water-saving flush toilets (6 L/flush) and pro-
viding subsidy of 20 % of the replacement costs for each toilet
by the government. This proposal was adopted by New York.
After all the toilets were replaced in 11 years with a total
investment less than USD$300 million, the daily water con-
sumption per capita dropped by 14 %. Finally, the water crisis
was solved with results that could not be realized by the
USD$10 billion water transfer project (Qiu, 2014).
Rainwater outflow restraining technology has a promising
future. A key reason for water shortage is the extremely unbal-
anced space-time distribution of water resources. In many re-
gions a large amount of fresh water flows to the sea in the wet
season owing to the absence of sufficient storage facilities, and
even causes urban flooding. Therefore, it will be a develop-
ment direction for the study of water issues in cities by utilizing
the underground storage facilities to store water resources and
rainwater and regulating rainwater, in addition to the storage
by rivers and reservoirs. For example, Japan has built under-
ground artificial rivers and reservoirs in many metropolises for
the purpose of regulating the rainwater outflow and storing the
excess natural rainfall in wet seasons for the use of dry seasons
and improving the situation of water shortage (An et al., 2015;
Imteaz et al., 2015;SteandKordan,2015).
Sea water desalination
Sea water desalination has a promising future. The coastal
regions and islands in serious shortage of water may take
advantage of membrane technology to desalinate sea water
and thus solve the problem of water source. The desalinated
sea water can be used in municipal water supply and industrial
water use, particularly for the electronics industry with high
demand for water quality. Good benefits have been obtained.
However, comparing with wastewater recycling, sea water
desalination has evident drawbacks. Firstly, the range of ap-
plication is small. Secondly, the construction and operation
costs are more than two times of that of the wastewater
recycling. Thirdly, the application region is limited. It is only
suitable for coastal regions, but wastewater recycling almost
has no geographic restrictions.
These are still large issues that are provoked by IBTs. This
article would not perhaps answer all of the questions. What it
will do is to critically review some approaches that have been
proposed for the integrated or holistic assessment of such large
man-made projects.
Conclusions
In general, each way of water transfer will quickly change the
water-deficient situation, improve the geological environ-
ment, and facilitate social and economic development in the
recipient basin. That is what people expect, regardless of the
negative impacts, which may be ignored. Although large-scale
long-distance IBTs do not affect the entire hydrosphere and its
interchange of material and energy flow with the atmosphere,
biosphere, and lithosphere, but it will affect the regional, ter-
ritorial ones and break the original relative balances and es-
tablish new relative balances. Moreover, the longer the dis-
tance and the larger the scale of water transfer projects are, the
heavier the influence will be. And the influence factors are
more complex, comprehensive, and ecological. Despite that
it is still not clear about the effect and impacts of most water
transfer projects on the geological environment and relative
balance so far, we should not treat it lightly.
Essentially, water transfer is to Brob Peter to pay Paul^—an
Baddition^of water resources between different regions, while
water recycling is a Bmultiplication^. Through water
recycling, a substantial amount of long-distance water projects
can be replaced effectively. Plus sea water desalination, rain-
water harvesting and utilization of other non-traditional water
resources, a majority of cities in the world are capable of
solving their own problem of water shortage. Therefore, dur-
ing planning and design of IBTs, we should fully consider
impacts of the project on the society, economy and ecological
environment, and conduct overall planning so as to realize the
maximum comprehensive benefits. Otherwise, another way
should be taken.
Acknowledgments This study was co-supported by the Natural
Science Foundation of Shandong Province, China (ZR2014DP005) and
the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Zaozhuang University,
China (2014BS11). I appreciate the Editor Dr. Philippe Garrigues and
anonymous referees, whose constructive comments allowed me to im-
prove the manuscript. My sincere gratitude also goes to my wife Qian
Wang who did a lot of the translation work for the manuscript.
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