Innovative strategies essential for a sustainable water future in China

Water has been getting more attention in China as it becomes scarcer due to the growing demand and the recent droughts that have affected the southwestern provinces and the downstream Yangtze River, "wet areas" in common perception.

Indeed, such attention is well deserved. In Yunnan province alone, the direct economic loss due to drought accounted for more than 9 percent of the province's GDP in 2010. In the same year, more than 13 million hectares of crops were affected by drought in China.

The drought damages are just part of the water problems that challenge a sustainable water future for China. Despite huge achievements in water development, China faces a number of water problems that may unfavorably affect its socioeconomic development, if not addressed properly and timely. For instance, in the North China Plain, the breadbasket of China, the overdraft of groundwater keeps lowering the water table over large continuous areas, by as much as 1 meter a year in certain areas, with deep cones of depression forming under several cities.

Similar groundwater depletion situations exist in several other areas in northern China, which not only increases the cost of groundwater extraction and causes land subsidence, but also jeopardizes the buffer capacity of aquifers as a reliable source of water supply in future prolonged droughts.

Besides, there are other problems affecting irrigated agriculture. Much rural water infrastructure was built before the rural reform in the early 1980s. Most of the aged irrigation and drainage systems do not function well today due to lack of maintenance, causing low water use efficiency and hindering agricultural productivity growth.

In addition, as new sources of water supply become more costly and harder to find, cities and industries gradually divert water from agriculture thanks to the priorities of the local officials and the significantly higher willingness-to-pay for water.

Besides water scarcity issues, water quality and flooding are the other two aspects concerning water sustainability. While public health effects of water pollution are emerging, an overall reversal of water pollution in rivers and lakes has not yet happened.

To deal with these water problems, various measures have been undertaken in China. And the central government has given high priority to water resource development and management including significantly increasing investment in water sector in the coming decade, as reflected in the government's No 1 Document of 2011.

Two changes are essential for ensuring a sustainable water future for China. First, most of the previous water resources development efforts were focused on hardware such as construction of hydraulic structures. But in the future, more efforts should be directed toward the improvement of water management institutions. Sound water policy and regulations can create incentives for users to save water and protect the environment.

Second, most of the previous water management methods largely depended on supply augmentation to meet increasing demand. Future water management should rely more on managing water demand to avoid uncontrolled growth and promote water saving through properly designed policies.

It is also important to think beyond the "water box". Nowadays many decisions made outside of the water sector actually drive future water uses. Agricultural input and commodity markets affect farmers' planting decisions, which are the main driver of agricultural water demand. Such influences cannot be overstated given that irrigation is still the largest single water user in China.

Urban planning and industrial deployment largely determine regional, domestic and industrial water demand growth. New crop varieties and new industrial technologies may significantly increase water use efficiency and hence reduce water consumption. These essentially call for a water policymaking and planning paradigm that goes beyond the traditional way of thinking.

The author is a senior researcher in environment and production technology at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

(China Daily 03/09/2012 page7)