Evaluate China’s Policy To Cope With Challenges In Water Management With Reference To Water Shortage

Evaluate China s policy to cope with challenges in water management with reference to water shortage

China faces huge disparities in the distribution of water throughout the country. This essay will assess how successful China s policies have been in tackling this uneven distribution of water that can lead to water shortages. Booming economic growth, rapid urbanisation and an ever-increasing population that demands exponential increases in its standard of living have heaped increasing pressure on China s water resources (He et al., 2003). Per capita, availability of water is just a quarter of the global mean (World Bank, 2001). However, northern China has comparable water access to that of Morocco, therefore forty-two per cent of the total population has access to only fourteen per cent of the total available water (Tianle, 2006).

This essay will look at policies that have tried to address this fundamental disparity between water access in the northern parts of China that are generally considered to be the Haihe, Huaihe, Huanghe basins and the northern parts of the inland river basins (Shao et al., 2003) and the southern parts of China. The essay will look water transfer schemes including those designed specifically for the Olympics. A case study from Tianjin will be used to illustrate a city with a burgeoning population and one option that could improve water availability. The governmental bodies responsible for implementing all of these policies will also be assessed in terms of their long and short term goals.

The northern China plain (Huang, Huai and Hai provinces) contains forty per cent of China s farmland and produces one third of its GDP (Nickum, 2006) and eighty per cent of its grain production depends on irrigation (Cann et al., 2005). It was these similar statistics that led the Chairman Mao to first raise the idea in 1952 of the south lending the north some of its water and it ignited the idea of scientism. This was Mao s vision that technology would be developed in the future that would solve the long-term problems created by the short to medium term gains that he would provide. The South-North Water Transfer Project SNWTP involves three eastern, central and western routes that all transfer water between different rivers, reservoirs and provinces. It is hoped that the central route that diverts water from the Danjiangkou reservoir on the Han River to Beijing will be ready for the Olympics when water demand will increase significantly. However, flow levels on the Han can be highly irregular between wet and dry seasons, which could lead to eutrophication and problems with navigation (Nickum, 2006). This could be an example of China acknowledging that, in the short-term at least, it is impossible for it to have free-flowing healthy rivers, sufficient water supplies for all its citizens and for it to be able to stage the Olympics.

Diverting water from the Yangtze River basin could benefit 300 million people in northern China (Berkoff, 2003) however it remains to be seen if the necessary infrastructure will be built to deliver the water once it has been transferred to the areas that need it most (U.S. Beijing Embassy, 2003). It has also been argued that China has pressed ahead with the SNWTP partly for political reasons. The government advocates that farmers in the north, who make up a significant proportion of its traditional support, will benefit from increased immigration but only two billion yuan of the thirty billion yuan RMB per annum that the SNWTP will provide in benefits will go towards irrigation. The vast majority of the rest goes to heavily populated urban areas (Nickum, 2006) that are vital to maintain the country s booming economy. However, it could be argued that allocating benefits in this way is entirely reasonable due to the high value of heavy industry in urban areas. Shanxi is an arid but water-intensive province due it being one of the largest coal and electricity producers. Water shortages there previously cost the economy 13.8 billion yuan per annum.

Another area that has been prioritised for receiving transferred water is Beijing and, more specifically the Olympics that take place there during the summer of 2008. In order to make Beijing more presentable, fountains and polluted waterways are being supplied with water from surrounding reservoirs (Watts, 2008). This has meant that nearby provinces such as Hebei are receiving less water despite the fact that the province is suffering from drought (BBC News Online, 2008). This is also an example of short-term prioritising by the government and could be a result of the numerous Five-Year-Plans (FYPs) that encourage short-term thinking by their very nature. As a result, farmers in Hebei are being told to corn or wheat instead of water-intensive rice (Watts, 2008). It could be argued that this is a convenient way for the government to force those farmers to switch to less water-intensive crops because if the switch was made permanent, it could be part of a sustainable solution to a more efficient use of China s water.

It is evident that the vast majority of China s policies are centred around the aim of increasing the availability of water. Until recently there has not been as much consideration as to how efficiently it is used. For farmers to use water as efficiently as possible, they need to be encouraged to do so. This needs to be through a combination of enforcement and education. Regulations regarding irrigation systems to be designed to as efficiently as possible must be strongly enforced and farmers need to be educated about the benefits of efficient irrigation so they demand high standards from irrigation suppliers (Zhou, 2003 cited in Deng at al., 2006). Then natural market forces will improve the efficiency standards of irrigation.

Yet, if farmers are to want to benefit from efficiency, there needs to be a price incentive. Currently, only three per cent of irrigated areas in China use the more efficient sprinkler or drip methods that use nearly fifty per cent less water (Jin and Young, 2001 cited in Deng at al., 2006). In 2002 water markets were institutionalised. This led to water being perceived as a commodity that cost money just like every other agricultural input, rather than a public good (Shao et al., 2003). The Water Law of 2002 prevented people extracting as much water as they wished to from water courses. Water quotas were set at levels dependent on local conditions and there were exponential fines for exceeding those limits. This provided the price incentive for farmers (Cann et al., 2005) and was, therefore, a big step towards improving water efficiency. However, farmers will not be willing to save water if they feel that they are not getting value for money. Water that has been transferred or water that is fed through more efficient irrigation systems has a higher economic value (Briscoe, 1997 cited in Cai, 2008). This higher economic value must be reflected in high standards of irrigation systems (Cai, 2008). Farmers cannot afford the current economic value of water, therefore, the issue of agricultural water efficiency is a socio-economic problem. To address this the government has got rid of agricultural taxes. This is a positive move that will enable farmers to pay the higher water prices so that those prices can be used to improve efficiency and, therefore, reduce the overall water shortage.

An alternative way to increase water availability is to reuse the water that is already available. A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) was aimed at the Tianjin Wastewater Reuse Policy (TWRP). The SEA indicated that there is a large untapped potential for reusing wastewater in Tianjin. Not only does it help to alleviate the problem of water scarcity, it also helps reduce the burden for the infrastructure that has to dispose of wastewater, thereby reducing water pollution (He et al., 2003). One of the biggest beneficiaries is the agricultural sector because it has the highest water demands but the lowest water quality demands so secondarily treated wastewater can be used for irrigation. This makes it the most technologically feasible option (He et al., 2003). It is also cheaper than traditional water diversion projects and leaves fewer impurities than seawater desalinisation treatments (He et al., 2003). Most promising of all, it is the most sustainable option.

The SEA is an example of a scheme that the government should adopt widely. SEAs build upon the more widely used Environmental Impact Assessments EIAs. When assessing a project, SEAs consider views from actors from society, the economy and the environment. This allows the theme of sustainability to be passed down through the assessment (He et al., 2003). Whereas, EIAs only consider environmental viewpoints. This less holistic approach can reduce the chance of sustainable themes being built into projects because if China wants water polices that are sustainable, it needs to make decisions based on socio-economic and environmental grounds (Lee, 2006a).

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) that runs the EIAs is part of a fragmented, bureaucratic, centralised governmental structure that administers water-related policies. If the Ministry of Water resources wants to have a policy approved it needs to reach a consensus with nine other water-related ministries including the National Development and Reform Commission, SEPA and ministries responsible for construction, agriculture and forestry (Lee, 2006b). This can lead to centralised overlapping policies (Jiang et al., 2006) that are not focussed and, therefore, will not be as effective. This is particularly apparent when there is a lack of enforcement of new regulations.

Another example of a practise that should be adopted more widely is the involvement of NGOs and foreign investment. China does not possess the technical knowledge to solve all of its water shortage problems. One example concerns Integrated River Basin Management in Hubei Province (Lee, 2006a). This involved WWF China helping to remove a dyke to link an isolated lake to the Yangtze to improve water availability. This led to a forum that involved national government ministries, provincial governments, river authorities and national research bodies where non-traditional management practises for the river and lake were discussed to, ultimately, improve water availability.

Conclusions

Overall, China s policies to deal with water shortages have been based around technocentrism. If completed, it will undoubtedly provide benefits to those provinces that are in desperate need of water and, therefore, could be deemed a success. However, to provide long-term sustainable benefits, China needs to use water more efficiently especially the agricultural sector. Otherwise, China will be potentially wasting vast amounts of water that it cannot afford to.

The forthcoming Olympics exacerbate the water shortage and, simultaneously, highlight the problem of China s belief in end-pipe solutions. The government cannot continue to shift water around provinces due to short-term increases in demand. In the big cities where increasing standards of living have led to a sustained increase in water demand, long term policies for increasing water efficiency and availability need to be established. The Water Law of 2002 is an excellent basis from which to establish more policies based around the polluter pays principle where users are punished financially for excessive water consumption. To establish these policies, the governmental structure needs to be decentralised, SEAs need to become widespread and national and international NGOs need to become involved.

Considering that the Chinese government is having to address water shortage problems that have been left to accumulate over the last fifty years, it is not surprising that difficulties are being encountered. Even though the foundations for success have been established, further policy changes are required to make serious progress on the problem of water shortage.

Word count: 1918.

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