Water Development and Management Strategy of China

Transcription

1 Water Development and Management Strategy of China Li Yuanyuan Deputy Chief Engineer, General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design General Institute, MWR Abstract: Water is not only the key element of natural resources and environment, but also the best active factor of basic condition and healthy environment on which the human beings rely on existence and development. Restricted by natural conditions and pressure of great population, China is one of the most water-deficient countries in the world. Meanwhile, because of the vast territory, varied topography and climate, frequent drought and flood disasters have always threaten the existence and development of Chinese nation. The increase of population and the development of economy lead to great need of water, and water has become one of the key factors of sustainable development in China. Based on the analysis to the conditions and present situation of the development and utilization of water resources, this paper proposes related counter-measures for sustainable utilization of water resources in view of the challenges and opportunities of utilization of water resources in China. 1. Nature Conditions The People s Republic of China is located at the eastern part of the Asia continent. The country has a land territory of 9.6 million km2, equivalent to about 1/5 of the world total, ranking third among all countries in the world. China borders more than ten countries with the total length of land boundaries being more than 2000 km. China has a sea area of about 3 million km2, and more than 5400 islands of various sizes, in which Taiwan is the largest. The total length of coastal lines of the mainland and islands is km, in which the coastal line of the mainland occupies km. 1.1 Topography China s topography declines progressively from east to west, gradually descending in elevation from the west towards the east to form three steps. The highest step is the

2 Qinghai-Tibentan Plateau with the elevation being generally more than 4000 m above sea level, hence known as "the roof of the world". To the east of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is the second step with much lower elevations, ranging between 1000 m and 2000 m and alternating with huge basins. The third step stretches from the line in the west composed of Mounts Daxing'an, Taihang, Wu and the eastern rim of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau to the coast in the east, and embraces alternating hills and plains, and there are large areas of low mountains and hills at elevations of less than 500 m above sea level with only a few peaks being at 2000 m, and the elevation of plains is all less than 200 m. The plains are distributed in the north to south direction, including Northeast Plain, North China Plain, Middle to Lower Yangtze Plain and Pearl River Delta Plain, being important industrial and agricultural bases and economic centers of China. Classified according to types of topography, mountains account for 33.3% of the national land area, plateaus 26.0%, basins 18.8%, hills 9.9% and plains 12.0%. Mountains, hills and rugged plateaus, which are customarily called mountainous areas, totally account for 2/3 of the national land area. 1.2 Climate As affected by the vast area and complex topography, China's climate is endowed with a feature of complex types. China is subject to strong monsoon climate and most of the areas are under the impacts of the southeastern and southwestern monsoons, thus making the southeastern China wet and the northwestern China dry. The precipitation varies greatly from year to year and from season to season. As affected by monsoon and topography, China becomes one of the countries with most frequent drought, flood and waterlogging hazards in the world. 2. Water Resources of China 2.1 Quantity of Water Resources Total water resources are referred to the total yield of surface water and groundwater formed by local precipitation. With billion m 3 of annual river runoff, billion m 3 of annual groundwater resources and billion m 3 of overlapping volume between them, the volume of total water resources in China is billion m 3.

3 2. 2 Characteristics of Water Resources in China (1)Low per capita volume The total volume of water resources in China ranks sixth among all the countries in the world, but, because of the huge population, the per capita volume of water resources is small, about 2200 m 3, only equivalent to 28% of the world average. Particularly, in the Haihe, Huaihe and Yellow river basins the per capita volumes of water resources are only 293 m 3, 457 m 3 and 647 m 3, respectively. The small per capita volume of water resources decides that stress on water will be long lasting in some areas. (2) Distributed unevenly in space The regional distribution of precipitation is very uneven, showing a general trend of gradually descending in magnitude from the southeastern coastline to the northwestern hinterlands. The annual precipitation in the southeastern coastal areas and parts of the southwestern areas is more than 2000 mm, but that in the northwestern China is usually less than 200 mm, and 50 mm in the Tarim and Turpan basins in Xinjiang and Chaidamu Basin in Qinghai, etc, even less than 25 mm at centers of those basins. The depth of natural river runoff, which depends on precipitation and conditions of watersheds, gradually descends in magnitude from the southeast towards the northwest, having values of more than 1000 mm in some southeastern areas and values of less than 10 mm in some western areas. The total volume of river runoff in the six northern river basins account for less than 20% of the national total, but the four southern river basins account for more than 80% of the national total. (3)Great inter- and intra-year variation of river runoff The river runoff varies greatly from year to year with the ratio of maximum annual runoff to minimum exceeding more than 10 in some areas. In addition, some major rivers have seen consecutive dry years and wet years. For example, the Yellow River once saw a low flow span of 11 years from 1922 to 1932 with an average annual flow 24% less than the normal one. The river runoff is also unevenly distributed within the year. Those variation causes for the frequent occurrence of drought, flood and waterlogging hazards, hence unstable agricultural production and serious imbalance between water supply and demand.

4 (4)Inconsistency between distributions of water resources and productivity over regions The water resources in China are distributed unevenly in space, rich in the southern areas and poor in the northern areas, which is inconsistent with the distribution of population, farmland and economy. The six northern river basins account for 46% of the national population, 44% of the national GDP, more than 60% of the national farmland, but less than 20% of the national water resources and the per capita volume of water resources is only 1/3 of that in the southern river basins. The plain areas in the lower reaches of the Yellow, Huaihe and Haihe rivers account for 1/3 of the national GDP and industrial output, but only 7.0% of the national water resources, while the Southwestern Rivers accounts for 20.3% of the national water resources, but only 0.7% of the national GDP and industrial output. 3. Water Resources Development and Utilization Since the foundation of People s Republic of China in 1949, the development of water resources has brought about an advance in the development of national economy and society, and basically guaranteed the improvement of people s living standards and economic development. 3.1 Water resources development The country has constructed 85,000 reservoirs with combined storage capacity at billion cubic meters; water storage projects regulate 22% of the total surface runoff across the country. China has also built 1.06 million water diversion projects, 30,000 water diversion sluice and 435,000 water pumping projects, including 54 large-scale water-pumping projects million wells have been drilled to extract groundwater. 3.2 water resources supply The total amount of water supply nationwide in 2004 was billion m 3, accounting for 23% of the total water resources in the year, of which surface water supply accounted for 81.2%, groundwater supply accounted for 18.5% and the others accounted for 0.3%. The water supply in southern administrative regions was mainly from surface water, which accounted for 90% of the total water supply in the regions;

5 while the groundwater supply occupied a greater portion in the water supply in northern administrative regions, where Hebei, Beijing, Henan, Shandong, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia occupied a portion of over 50% of the total water supply. In billion m 3 of surface water supply, there was 33.0% from storage works, 37.7% from diversion works, 26.9% from lift works and 2.4% from trans-basin water diversion.in addition, the amount of direct utilization of seawater was 23.4 billion m 3, which was mainly used as cooling water in thermal power plants. 3.3 water resources utilization The total amount of water use all over the country in 2004 was billion m 3, of which domestic water use accounted for 11.7%, industrial water use accounted for 22.2%, agricultural water use accounted for 64.6%, ecological water use (only including the urban environmental water and supplementary water for partial rivers and wetlands through artificial measures) accounted for 1.5%. 4. The challenges of sustainable water resources development of China The pressure of the great needs for the food supply, the development of economy and the raise of the living standards will inevitably be transmitted to water resources due to the sustained growth of population and the rapid development of economy. China will be in a crucial time of the most serious water crisis and the bearing of the greatest population in the history in future, and will face some severe challenges as follows: 4.1 Sustained growth of population China s population has been 1.3 billion in 2004, it is estimated that 1.5 billion in Water resources have become to a major concern for 1.5 billion people s existence in future. If take 500 m 3 as per capita water consumption as assumption, which is the international minimum standard of water consumption per capita for modernization, the water supply when the peak amount of national population will be 720~800 billion m 3, which is a severe challenge to the supply of China s fresh water resources. 4.2 Limited cultivated land resources and food security The situation of China s food supply and consumption is still severe. Because of the

6 in-coordination of water/land resources distribution and the restriction of cultivated land resources, agricultural production greatly depends on water resources. The grain outputs from irrigated areas are about 80% of the national total grain outputs. With the sustained growth of population, the continuous raising of living standards and the occupancy of present cultivated lands by industrial and urban development, agriculture resources with water/land as the core will reach to the critical condition of its bearing capacity. Therefore the rational development and efficient utilization of water resources will be the core of sustained development of agriculture and food supply. According to the conditions of China s water/land resources, there are still 17 million ha. cultivated lands available for new irrigation development, but most of which distribute in the comparatively water-deficient northern areas, with the difficult for development. At present the amount of agricultural water deficiency is 30 billion m 3 and there are 7 million ha. irrigation area cannot be irrigated due to water shortage, where more than half of the middle- and low-output cultivated area (about 20 million ha.) are resulted from water deficiency. It is a most severe challenge for the sustained development of economy and to ensure the food security of 1.5 billion people in future. 4.3 The rapid industrialization and urbanization resulted from the economic development Industrialization and urbanization are the signs of economic development, and also the driving forces of the development of water resources in the future. Since China adopted the policy of reform and opening to the outside world in 1978, the country s economy has developed at an annual growth rate of 8%,and the urbanization rate has increased from 18% to 36%. It is estimated that the GDP increase speed will keep 6~8% in the next 30 years and the urbanization rate will reach 50%. At present there are 400 cities among all of the 660 cities suffering water shortage 660 cities in the country. The rapid industrialization and urbanization will impose huge pressure on water supply. 4.4 Environmental problems are increasingly conspicuous Environmental problems are increasingly serious, such as water pollution, destruction of vegetation cover, soil erosion loss, river and lake dried up setting off, overdraft of underground pollution of pesticide and fertilization, with such ecological and environmental problems as sedimentation, desertification, salinization, ground

7 surface subsidence, and sea-water intrusion, consequently result great economic losses. With the development of China s economy and the accelerated process of industrialization and urbanization, water environment problems will become one of the severe challenges for the sustained development of economy in the future. 5. Opportunities and counter-measures of the sustainable development Facing those challenges, MWR proposed new theory of tackling water-related problems. The understanding of water conservancy shifts from using engineering projects to tackle water-caused problems to treating water as a resource, which means a paradigm shift from traditional water conservancy perspectives to modernized water conservancy and sustainable development of our economy and society with the sustainable solution of water resources utilization. 5.1 Strengthen legislation and implement water resources management by law The revised Water Law was issued in 2002 and clearly provides adoption of a system of water administration based on combined river basin administration and administrative division administration; and provides the systems of water resources planning, river flow allocation, water function zoning and management of total pollutant discharge, water abstraction permitting, paid use of water resources, water saving, progressive pricing for above-norm uses, and supervision and monitoring of law enforcement, etc. 5.2 Establishing a water conservation society To alleviate the conflict between the increasing water demand and the deficiency of water resources, establish water conservation society is the ultimate measure. In order to advance the development of a water conservation society in China, MWR started implement pilots of water saving society for the country. According to the unified arrangement by MWR, the pilots will be implemented in two steps in the period from 2001 to The first step is to implement pilots in areas with serious water shortage, water pollution, hence suitable for the demonstrative purpose. The second step is to implement pilots on provincial and river basin basis to set up demonstrative areas of water conservation society for provinces and river basins. It is expected that a complete set of theories and experiences will be worked out to provide the basis for the development of water conservation society in the whole country.

8 5.3 Strengthen water resources planning The aim of water resources planning is provide the basis for integrated water resources management and sustainable utilization. In 2003, the national integrated water resources planning started with the main contents including water resources assessment, investigation and evaluation of development and utilization of water resources, water demand forecasting, water saving, water resources protection, water supply forecasting, water resources allocation, overall layout and implementation planning of water resources engineering, evaluation of plan implementation, etc. Efforts are also being made on formulation of other special plans. 5.4 Water pollution control and water reuse With the growth of industrial and domestic water consumption, the amount of effluent has been increased rapidly, therefore, there must be efficient control of water pollution to guarantee the sustained development of national economy. It is estimated that at present the total amount of effluent of industrial and domestic sewage is 68 billion m 3 annually. Wastewater treatment and reuse will improve the environment and created more water sources for agricultural and other uses. Besides, the utilization of salt water of coastland and the brackish water resources in the northern areas will also somehow alleviate water crisis in the region. 5.5 Unified operation of water resources In recent years the Chinese government has implemented unified operation and allocation of water resources for the Tarim, Heihe and Yellow rivers, which have serious water scarcity and a deteriorating ecology, and thus has effectively solved the drying up of lower reaches of those rivers as caused by excessive exploitation of water resources and improved the ecology. The operation covered more than ten provinces, municipalities and prefectures, used tens of thousands of persons, and affected a total land area of about 2 million km2, and the total length of channels for water delivery was more than 2000 km. No drying up has occurred to the Yellow River for four years since then; water allocation has been successfully made for the Heihe River for four years to deliver water to the terminal lakes East Juyanhai and West Juyanhai; and emergent water delivery has been made for the Tarim River for five times and water has been

9 delivered to the terminal lake Taitema. MWR already proposed to the State Council to include the Regulation for the Unified Operation of Water Resources for the Yellow River in the legislation program of the State Council in The project for harnessing the Heihe with a total investment of 2.35 billion yuan and that for harnessing the Tarim with a total investment of 10.7 billion yuan are being implemented. 5.6 Allocation water resources rationally It is inconsistent between China s water resources and land, especially in the northern areas where natural resources have been inclining to exhaust, in order to guarantee the sustainable development, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project already started in order to alleviate water shortage in the northern part of China. Which will contributed to optimize the distribution of resources and minimize the unfavorable impacts to the ecological environment. 5.7 Enhance water resources management Water system is complex, dynamic and semi-structured system, concerning the development and changes of society, economy and natural conditions. Efficient management is the essential to rational development and efficient water utilization in China. The problems of sustainable utilization of water resources of China in can be solved only through the enhancement of integrated management of water resources, the improvement of management s hard- and soft-ware environment, and the transform from the extensive water use to intensive water use.