Quenching Thirst

Quenching Thirst

China adopts strict water management measures to prevent an acute water shortage By Li Li

Recent headlines concerning water have raised concern about an impending water shortage in China. A lingering drought in southwest China’s Yunnan Province has left 3.19 million people and 1.58 million livestock short of drinking water, the provincial government said on February 27. In January, a cadmium spill from a mining firm in south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region contaminated a 300-km section of the Liujiang River, killed fish and prompted panic buying of bottled water in downstream cities. Earlier in February, a phenol spill allegedly by a South Korean cargo ship contaminated the drinking water source of Zhenjiang, a city downstream on the Yangtze River, China’s longest waterway.

While these maybe a series of isolated incidents, analysis of the country’s overall water situation makes for even grimmer reading. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, the water availability per person per year in China is only 2,100 cubic meters, or about 28 percent of the world’s average level.

With a population of 1.3 billion people, China now consumes more than 600 billion cubic meters of water a year, or about three quarters of its exploitable water resources.

“About two thirds of Chinese cities are already classified as ‘water-needy,’ while nearly 300 million rural residents lack access to safe drinking water, leading to a nationwide water shortage of over 50 billion cubic meters on average every year,” said Hu Siyi, Vice Minister of Water Resources, at a press conference on February 16.

According to 2010 figures released by the Ministry of Water Resources, 40 percent of Chinese rivers were considered seriously polluted and unfit for use as sources of drinking water.

Moreover, about one fifth of rivers in China are so polluted that their water quality is rated as “worse than Category V.” China measures water quality from Category I: river sources and water in nature reserves, to Category V: water suitable for agricultural irrigation and landscapes. Water rated “worse than Category V” is too toxic even to touch. Meanwhile, as water is essential for all living organisms, the overexploitation of water resources in all of China’s major river basins has severely damaged the country’s natural environment.

Overexploitation of groundwater can also cause land subsidence, a threat to public safety. Between 75 and 80 percent of the water supply in the North China Plain comes from groundwater. Wu Aimin, a researcher with the China Geological Environmental Monitoring Institute, said that it will take the natural circulation system more than 10,000 years to replenish the 100 billion cubic meters of groundwater that has been taken for the region.

Adding to the country’s water safety pressure are ambitious development plans announced by local governments this year, which experts say will inevitably increase water demand for industrial and residential use.

Making it enforceable

To address the problem, the State Council, China’s cabinet, unveiled a guideline on February 16 to regulate the use of water under“the strictest criteria,” capping the maximum volume of water use at 700 billion cubic meters by the end of 2030. Other regulatory targets include raising China’s water use efficiency to levels seen in advanced countries by 2030 and strictly controlling the total amount of pollutants discharged into rivers and lakes.

According to the guideline, China will work to keep its total volume of water use below 670 billion cubic meters in 2020.

Also, the government will tighten its supervision of ground water extraction and further protect sources of drinking water, and restore the aquatic ecological system by introducing water-use licenses and other measures.

The Central Government has planned an investment of 4 trillion yuan ($634.9 billion) in water resource conservation projects over the next 10 years, of which 1.8 trillion yuan ($285.7 billion) will be spent by the end of 2015.

“Unless we take decisive and compulsory measures to stop overexploitation, the water shortage will get worse in the future,” Hu said.

Shen Dajun, a professor at the School of Environment and Natural Resources of the Renmin University of China in Beijing, participated in the preparatory surveys for the drafting of the new State Council water policies. He said that the most groundbreaking clause is the one that annotates the performance evaluation of local government officials with the realization of water management goals, and hoped that local government heads would then be better motivated to monitor issues related to water resources.

South China’s Guangdong Province has issued a local regulation on the implementation of the guideline. Mayors of the 21 largest cities in Guangdong will be evaluated on nine indicators of water management under three main categories—water use, water use efficiency and wastewater discharge.

But many environmentalists still feared that the new water policies would have only a limited impact, since local officials in China have long prized GDP growth over meeting environmental targets.

Ma Jun, founder of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based environmental NGO, believes holding local governmental officials accountable for water resource issues is a step in the right direction while his main concern is that local governments might doctor figures simply to make themselves look better.

Ma said that he appreciated the last line of the new water policy that underlines the importance of inviting the public to participate in water resources management and increasing the transparency of decision-making.

He suggests that as the first step, environment and water resources authorities should publicize all the current statistics regarding total water use, water use efficiency and wastewater discharge for different sectors. Moreover, at the beginning of each year, water resources authorities should also publicize annual water use plans with quotas for different companies. “Thus the public can clearly identify which companies are the biggest water users and wasters,” Ma said.

Where to push

China’s total water use topped the benchmark of 600 billion cubic meters in 2010, five years earlier than originally planned. While the massive rise in water consumption has a lot to do with the country’s rapid industrialization and urbanization, enormous waste by water-intensive industries means that there is considerable scope for conservation.

According to theChina Youth Daily, Beijing has around 60 18-hole golf courses, which utilize large amounts of water for daily maintenance. Meanwhile, Beijing’s average annual water availability is merely 100 cubic meters per capita, about one third of that of Israel, which is among the driest countries in the world.

China’s water conservation potential is also enormous in the agricultural irrigation and industrial production sectors. Jiang Wenlai, a water expert from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that China’s agricultural water use efficiency is 20-30 percent lower than that of developed countries while its water use per 10,000 yuan ($1,583) of industrial added value is three times higher than the average level of developed countries.

In February, the tap water company of Guangzhou City filed an application to raise the price of water for residential use from 1.3 yuan ($0.21) to 2.02 yuan ($0.32) per cubic meter. A three-tiered progressive pricing system is also proposed, under which residential consumers who use a lot of water need to pay twice the base price for their extra consumption. A public hearing on water price adjustments was held on February 29, where most representatives agreed on the necessity of raising water prices to promote more conservation. After Xi’an in northwestern Shaanxi Province and Changsha in central Hunan Province, Guangzhou is about to become another large Chinese city that will use water price hikes to send a strong signal of conservation to its residents.

However, at the press conference on February 16, Zhou Xuewen, chief planner with the Ministry of Water Resources, said that the adoption of stricter water management policies would not limit water for residential use while domestic water conservation methods and equipment will be promoted.

Water experts also called on local authorities to be prudent in raising water prices.

Shen said that according to his research, most urban families with three members in China consume only 12 cubic meters of water per month and many families had already adopted conservation tips. He believes that as most ordinary families only tend to use only as much water as they need, price rises wouldn’t lead to significant conservation benefits. “Higher water prices should be charged on water-intensive sectors, such as the papermaking industry, thermal power plants, ski resorts with artificial snow and golf facilities,”he said.

Ma said that while water price hikes could stimulate conservation, residents who pay higher prices need to know for sure that their money is used to protect water resources instead of simply going to tap water companies’“windfall profits.”

Residents have complained that at public hearings on water price adjustments in many cities, tap water companies failed to produce convincing accounting records to justify their demands for an increase.

“More expensive water should be for a better environment. For example, the public needs to know that the sewage treatment surcharge, which is part of the water price, is used for its purpose,” Ma said. “Otherwise, they won’t support a rise.”