China's Water Shortage: Policy Recommendations and Analysis

Introduction

China faces a major water shortage, and this issue must be resolved in the coming years or the twelve northern provinces that have very little water, scarce amounts of water, or no water at all will cease to be able to harbor life. The problem is not that China lacks water as a country. The problem is that 80% of its water supply is in the south, which leaves very little for the north — where 41% of the nation's population lives. Moreover, the northern provinces account for 38% of China's agriculture, 46% of its industry, and approximately half of the country's power generation (Parton, 2018). Water is needed for all of these activities.

While the 2,000 cubic meters per person of water that China has are well above the internationally recognized level of water stress (which begins at 1,700 cubic meters per person, followed by a scarcity level at 1,000 cubic meters per person and acute water scarcity at 500 cubic meters), the country does not have a solution in place to address growing water demand and the increasing water shortage in the north (Parton, 2018). This paper discusses this issue, describes its legal, economic, and ecological implications, identifies relevant national constitutional protections, assesses relevant UN environmental treaties, analyzes whether China has committed violations of its national or international obligations, and concludes with recommendations for what government officials, citizens, and international actors should do in light of these findings.

China's Water Shortages

As Cheng, Hu, and Zhao (2009) point out, China suffers simply from having too much water in the wrong place and not enough in the right place. For example, the North China Plain holds a third of China's population but has access to only 7.7% of the nation's water supply. During China's monsoon season, water scarcity in the north can turn into flooding and crop devastation (Cheng et al., 2009). Moreover, much of the water available for public consumption and agriculture — including groundwater, river water, reservoir water, and lake water — is contaminated. Pollution is so severe that even in the south, where water is abundant, shortages occur because the water supply there is also contaminated (Cheng et al., 2009).

In 2014, China completed the South-to-North Water Diversion (SNWD) project, the largest inter-basin water transfer system in the world, with the capacity to move 25 billion cubic meters of fresh water from the Yangtze River approximately 1,000 miles in two directions to the north, intersecting cities, provinces, river basins, and hundreds of millions of both water users and water polluters (Barnett, Rogers, Webber, Finlayson, & Wang, 2015). However, completing the project cost China more than $80 billion and displaced hundreds of thousands of people — and there has been a negative environmental toll as well, with pollution rising and maintenance causing ecological disruptions. The project has been largely misguided: as Barnett et al. (2015) point out, there is no need for such a large water transfer because the water already in the north could be sufficient if adequate pollution controls and a better irrigation infrastructure were in place.

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