Governmental Efforts

Start-up Efforts towards Water Conservation

China’s central government’s ideology towards water conservation has driven the development of water conservancy projects, spurring massive constructions of water-related facilities. Small and medium sized dams and fast expansion of irrigated land between the 1950s and the 1970s was experienced, and the investment in these projects had accounted for 8 to 10 per cent of the total national capital construction investment.

From the early 1980s to the end of last century, the government has placed importance on water conservancy as a foundation and safeguard, to sustain the swift growth of the Chinese economy, and fast growth of large-sized dams with higher capacities of reservoir storage and hydropower generation, as well as construction of water diversion projects was implemented. Irrigated areas had also expanded during the period, coupled with increases in investment by 5.6 times. With the first decade of the twenty-first century being characterised by constant increases in large-sized dams, reservoir capacity, hydropower generation and water diversion, there has also been a decline in water used for irrigation while irrigated areas increased at a slower rate. This has resulted from the competition for water between urban and rural sectors, and also from the implementation of water-saving measures in irrigation. One significant occurrence was the steep rise in investments of water conservancy projects and a falling ratio of this investment and total capital construction investments, due to even greater increases in other infrastructure investments in the Chinese economy with an annual growth rate of 10%.


 

Management Efforts

Before 1990
China’s water conservancy system was regulated by the ‘hard-path approach’, emphasising on the construction of massive infrastructure and increases in water supply.

1949 – 1956
The New China that had been established after long term wars had a main national focus to recover economic production and secure social life. The focus of water conservancy was then to repair river embankments, dredge flood channels, and release flood disasters.

1957 – 1979
This period had been characterised by the balanced emphasis on disaster protection as well as comprehensive utilisation of water resources. With the occurrence of major flood disasters, flood control was brought to the attention of the government.

1980 – 1989
The economic reform and open-door policy brought about fast socioeconomic development, with the focus of water conservancy shifting from flood control and irrigation to supporting all-round national economic development. Water allocation, water resources protection and water pollution control was highlighted.

1990 – 2010
A transition from hard-path to soft-path approach, which emphasised economic and institutional measures to manage water rescues and improve water use efficiency. Instead of achieving water conservation through tangible methods, the opposite approach of implementing economic instructions like water pricing to curb demand, was used. The increasing water scarcity and water pollution has driven the transition, and the disastrous floods in 1998 taught water managers about the importance of ecological roles of natural ecosystems.

On the other hand, water-related laws and regulations had been passed, and building a water-saving society was first written in China’s Water Law. Despite the efforts in promoting the soft-path approach, the enforcement is much lagged due to various obstacles. China’s water conservancy is becoming increasingly difficult to meet the demand to support the continuous economic development.