Topic:Water

China is facing a myriad of water crises throughout the country including chronic shortages in the north that drive growing desertification, severe pollution in all major rivers that threatens human health and is causing red tides along the coast, and flooding on major rivers due to destruction of wetlands and lakes. To address water shortage problems, the Chinese government still relies heavily on supply management strategies. For example, in 2002, China launched its south-north water diversion project (Nanshui Beidiao), initially costing $15 billion, to direct water from the wet Yangtze River region to the parched areas around Beijing. Conservation efforts are difficult due to continued under pricing of water and unclear water rights regime. Over 700 million people drink water that is at least partially polluted and only six of the twenty-seven largest cities supply drinking water that meets government standards. Similar to other water-stressed countries, China is facing a growing number of water conflicts, particularly around relocations for large dam and water diversion projects, water shortages, and water pollution incidents. Between 1990 and 2002 over 120,000 water quantity conflicts were reported to the Ministry of Water Resources. Between 1991 and 1993, one-third of complaints reaching environmental bureaus were related to lack of access to clean water. Dam building and blasting to create shipping routes in the Chinese portion of the Mekong River has become the source of growing international tensions since such activity destroys the natural flow of the river and disrupts fishing and irrigation in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Video: Dr. Jennifer Turner's Interview with Circle of Blue:
"When the water's gone, life is gone."


Two Special CEF Water Initiatives:
Navigating Peace: Forging New Water Partnerships (7/2002-7/2006)—CEF received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to create a water working group to study and compare water conflict resolution challenges in the United States and China. This water working group brought together eight (four from each country) U.S. and Chinese environmental policy practitioners, water resource researchers, NGO activists, and natural resource law experts to explore how to develop institutions for preventing and resolving domestic water conflicts. Following three study tours (Tucson, Beijing, and Washington, DC) the group in pairs wrote comparative research papers that was published in early 2006 along with a short CEF brief on water conflict resolution.

Crafting Japan-U.S. Water Partnerships: Promoting Sustainable River Basin Governance in China (12/2003-11/2005)—In partnership with the Chiba, Japan based Institute of Developing Economies (IDE), this project created a tri-national working group (Japan, the United States, China) to develop proposals for joint U.S.-Japan efforts to enhance river basin governance systems in China. Two publications from this project include: The IDE Spot Survey (April 2005) of research papers written by the study tour members and a trilingual CEF report (February 2006) outlining the opportunities that exist for U.S. and Japanese cooperation in promoting sustainable river basin governance in China.

China Environment Forum
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