Water Management - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies

5/20/22, 5:23 PM Water Management - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies
Water Management
James E. Nickum
LAST MODIFIED: 24 APRIL 2019

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199920082-0174
Introduction
Nature did China few favors in its allocation of water, either spatially or seasonally. The South has abundant water but little land that is easy
to cultivate, while the much drier North and Northwest have extensive plains but limited rainfall, which when it comes is concentrated
strongly in the summer months, followed by long dry winters. Under these circumstances, water management in China is a holding
company of wicked problems, including floods, droughts, pollution, climate impacts, hydropower development, environmental degradation,
urbanization on an unprecedented scale, and, recently, international waters. It is fair to conclude that the nature and fate of the Chinese
state has been linked in large degree to extensive and continuous intervention in the hydraulic cycle, both to prevent harm (shuihai 水害)
and to make beneficial use of water (shuili水利). Methods adopted for that intervention, discussed in separate entries in this chapter, have
included dikes, irrigation, dams, interbasin transfers from water-abundant to water-scarce areas, and institutional reform. Attempts at
institutional reform can themselves confront wicked problems of implementation in a polity of the size and complexity of China, with a
governing system that, while changing in many ways under the People’s Republic, and especially in the recent reform period, remains one
that is perhaps best characterized as one of “fragmented authoritarianism.” In the 21st century, the water needs of a globalized market
economy and the growth of megacities, the exploitation of international waters (notably for hydropower), gigantic interbasin transfers, and
water pollution have added to the complexity of water management, and to a fragmentation of scholarship on what falls under the
expanding rubric of water management. An entrée to this expanding literature may be found in the individual sections of this bibliography.
General Overview
Ball 2016 provides a readable overview of the centrality of water in Chinese history, politics, and culture. The three volume set Zhongguo
shuili shigao is a good introduction to the evolution of critical water management problems over time and how they were addressed, with a
focus on the engineering. Nearly all discussions of the relationship between water management and the nature of the state begin with
Wittfogel 1957 and its provocative assertion that the imperatives of the former determined the despotism of the latter. Later works, such as
Elvin 2004, have a more nuanced, and usually more dynamic (often “environmental”), take on the relationship between water management
and the imperial state. Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988 provided us with the influential lens of “fragmented authoritarianism” for viewing
post-1949 governance. For the current state of play, Magee 2013 provides a useful introduction the English-language political geography
literature on China’s water issues, and Moore 2014 is a good exploration of the enduring and perhaps intensifying dilemmas of trying to
address collective action problems plaguing water management in a centralized political system.
Ball, Phillip. The Water Kingdom. London: Bodley Head, 2016.

A well-regarded science writer finds water flows through everything Chinese, including history, religion, and fine arts. An engaging
overview, and a good place to start in understanding the centrality of water management in China.
Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
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Chapter 6, “Water and the Costs of System Sustainability” (pp. 115–164), finds hydraulic despotism “inadequate” in capturing “the unending
battle between natural and human forces” (p. 128). It provides detailed discussions of the Yellow River from the 12th to 19th centuries,
when it flowed south into the Huai River basin, and how the evolution of Hangzhou Bay from the Tang era illustrates the unending battle.
Lieberthal, Kenneth, and Michel Oksenberg. Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1988.
A seminal study arguing that China’s policymaking process is “fragmented authoritarianism,” characterized not by totalitarianism but the
pursuit of self-interest by different political actors at different levels. Chapter 6, “The Three Gorges Dam” (pp. 269–338), focuses specifically
on hydropower, in particular the history of the debate from the 1950s to 1986 on whether to construct the dam.
Magee, Darrin. “The Politics of Water in Rural China: A Review of English-Language Scholarship.” Journal of Peasant Studies 40
(2013): 1189–1208.
A good introduction to selected recent literature on the topic, with insights from non-China political geography literature and an overview of
key problems, notably the South-North transfers, irrigation and drainage, hydropower, and industrial water pollution.
Moore, Scott. “Hydropolitics and Inter-jurisdictional Relationships in China: The Pursuit of Localized Preferences in a Centralized
System.” China Quarterly 219 (2014): 760–780.
Using three different domains (dam construction, water allocation, and pollution), stresses that the centralized nature of China’s political
system encourages strategic behavior on the part of local decision makers and makes interjurisdictional collective action problems, already
severe, increasingly challenging.
Wittfogel, Karl A. Oriental Despotism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957.
Elaborating Marx’s suggestion that there is an “Asiatic mode of production,” asserts that, at a certain level of economic development, a
“hydraulic society” such as found in the Mideast, India, and China is governed by a state with totalitarian control over that society.
Zhongguo shuili shigao (中国水利史稿). Beijing: Shuili Dianli Chubanshe (水利电力出版社), 1977–1989.
A well-illustrated, multiyear, multiauthor overview of water resources development, focusing on irrigation, river control, and canals, from the
beginnings to the founding of the People’s Republic. Vol. 1 (上冊), 1977; Vol. 2 (中冊), 1979; Vol. 3 (下冊), 1989. Vol. 1 (上冊) available
online.
Data Sources
There is a wealth of information from Chinese sources—in particular from the Shuilibu （水利部） and its press, Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian
Chubanshe (中国水利水电出版社)—on water management, and even more on hydrological and engineering data that frames, constrains,
and enables such management.
Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian Chubanshe (中国水利水电出版社).

Known in English as China Water and Power Press, this is the official publication arm of the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR). Its
publications provide a wealth of materials on water in China, from technical standards to hydrological engineering, statistical yearbooks,
policies, and history. The scope and nature of the coverage is constrained by the official nature and the competencies and concerns of the
ministry, but it is a very wide-mouthed silo.
Journals and Websites
A number of journals, both in Chinese and English, deal with contemporary issues in water management, including Zhongguo Shuili 中国水
利. The Ministry of Water Resources website (Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu) provides a plethora of current documents and useful
recent data archives. China Water Risk offers an excellent website with links to original documents and short summaries and analyses of
current developments. The Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs provides up-to-date maps of surface water and wastewater.
China Water Risk.

The website and newsletter of this Hong Kong–based initiative with links to investors and corporate, policy, and academic worlds is an
excellent one-stop-shop to the latest on water issues in China, including links to official documents. China Water Risk also provides
frequent excellent background analyses and reviews, and occasional in-depth collaborative reports with various institutions.
Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE).

The IPE provides an open, comprehensive, nationwide, and real-time environmental database, drawing upon governmental sources at
various levels and data released by corporate enterprises. Of particular interest for water management are the maps of surface water and
wastewater. Unfortunately, it does not yet include groundwater (as of August 2017). Also available in English.
Zhongguo Shuili 中国水利.

The official journal of the MWR, now issued twice a month, China Water Resources has been published since 1950 and is a good
repository of documents, speeches, reports, and brief articles on contemporary issues of the day at national, provincial, basin, and project
level. The annual index in the last issue of the year is useful for identifying articles of interest. The website is more real-time than the
journal.
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu中华人民共和国水利部.

The Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) website and that of its think tank, the Fazhan Yanjiu Zhongxin发展研究中心 (Development
Research Center) contain a great deal of useful material on policy, statistical bulletins, and the like.
Statistical Compendia
The various water statistical yearbooks at national and lower levels are a major source of data and policy information. Foremost among
them for statistics is the Zhongguo Shuili Tongji Nianjian (中国水利统计年鉴). These yearbooks are augmented by reports and bulletins with
key data, such as Quanguo Shuili Fazhan Tongji Gongbao (全国水利发展统计公报) and Zhongguo Shui Ziyuan Gongbao (中国水资源公报),
usually available online. For irrigation related figures, from another statistical reporting system, Zhongguo Nongye Nianjian (中国农业年鉴),
the yearbooks of the Ministry of Agriculture, are useful.
Quanguo Shuili Fazhan Tongji Gongbao 全国水利发展统计公报. Edited and compiled by Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu中
华人民共和国水利部.
Published annually, provides a relatively brief overview of key governance and management statistics from each year, often available online
and in English as Statistic Bulletin on China Water Activities.
Zhongguo Nongye Nianjian 中国农业年鉴. Edited and compiled by Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Nongye Bu 中华人民共和国农业
部.
The yearbook of the Ministry of Agriculture, including water statistics related to agriculture, such as irrigated area, as reported in the
agricultural statistical system.
Zhongguo Shui Ziyuan Gongbao 中国水资源公报. Edited and compiled by Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu 中华人民共和国
水利部.
An annual summary of the significant hydrological events of each year.
Zhongguo Shuili Tongji Nianjian 中国水利统计年鉴. Edited and compiled by Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu 中华人民共和
国水利部. Published annually by Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian Chubanshe.
A comprehensive yearbook of statistics reported in the water statistical system. Recently available with English headings as well as
Chinese, but without the policy documents, local reports, significant events, and the like of relevance to the Shuilibu Ministry of Water
Resources that were in earlier editions.
China’s Water Management through Time
An enduring question, at least since Wittfogel 1957 (cited under General Overview), building on the author’s work since the early 1930s, is
the relationship between water management and the nature of the Chinese state. Recent concerns focus on the capacity and limitations of
the state in dealing with a growing proliferation of water-related problems.
Water Management in Imperial Times
The relationship between water management and the Chinese state has been one of the themes of the extensive Japanese scholarship on
historical water management cited in Elvin, et al. 1994. Chi 1936 viewed the surplus arising from the development of a water-based
economy, especially irrigation, as the basis of regional powers that founded China’s early dynasties. More recently, historical works—from
Flessel 1974 and Zhang 2016 for the Northern Song, to Will 1980 for the Ming, to Perdue 1987 for the Ming and Ching, to Leonard 1998
and Li 2007 for the Qing—have focused on the limitations placed on the state as one element in a complex dynamic interplay of nature,
society, and the economy that periodically spins out of control. For historical water management, Elvin, et al. 1994 (in General Overview)
provides a compilation of the extensive Japanese work on the topic.
Chi, Chao Ting [Ji Chaoding 冀朝鼎]. Key Economic Areas in Chinese History, as Revealed in the Development of Public Works
for Water-Control. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1936.
A geographically focused approach to the hydraulic society, arguing that key economic areas, based in large part on irrigated agriculture,
formed the regional power base of historical dynasties through the Tang.
Elvin, Mark, Hiroaki Nishioka, Keiko Tamura, and Joan Kwek. Japanese Studies on the History of Water Control in China: A
Selected Bibliography. Canberra: Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, 1994.
A valuable guide to the extensive literature in Japanese on historical water control in China. The introduction by Mark Elvin is an excellent
overview in English. Some of the scholars find close links between hydraulic works and state power at certain times and in certain places,
but not as universal or rigid as Wittfogel’s despotism. Published in conjunction with the Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies (Tokyo) for
UNESCO.
Flessel, Klaus. Der Huang-Ho und die historische Hydrotechnik in China. Tübingen, Germany: Klaus Flessel, 1974.
A meticulous, well-illustrated monograph on the technologies, organizational change, growing professionalization, and policy debates over
the control of the Huang He (Yellow River) in the Northern Song (960–1126). Wang Anshi, Su Dongpo, and Sima Guang were all engaged
in the river control issue. In the end, the river won.
Leonard, Jane Kate. Controlling from Afar. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998.
An excellent overview of the history and technology of Grand Canal maintenance, and of results-oriented public administration in the late
Qing dynasty. Focus on how the Daoguang Emperor addressed the concatenation of flood/siltation/grain transport crises that occurred at
the (then) confluence of the Grand Canal and the Huang He in 1824–1826.
Li, Lillian M. Fighting Famine in North China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Chapter 2 (pp. 38–73) of this volume focuses on the role of the Qing emperors in controlling the rivers in the Hai River region around the
capital, a very time- and resource-consuming activity.
Perdue, Peter C. Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.
Considers the continuously changing dynamics between state and local power holders in the lake area of Hunan in the course of the Ming
and Qing dynasties. Chapters 6 and 7 focus specifically on dikes and lake reclamation, where central state intervention was often
necessary to offset corruption by entrenched local power-holders that attenuated the capacity of cooperative institutions to address flood
risk.
Will, Pierre-Etienne. “Un cycle hydraulique en Chine: La province du Hubei du XVIe au XIXe siècles.” Bulletin de l’Ecole française
d’Extrême-Orient 68 (1980): 261–287.
A rich historical study of the “hydraulic cycle,” with particular focus on Jiangling, Hubei, along the middle Chang Jiang (Yangtze River),
emphasizing the dynamic interactions between engineering choices, hydrology, population and settlement trends, and economic change
from the late Ming (16th century) to the late Qing (19th century).
Zhang, Ling. The River, the Plain, and the State: An Environmental Drama in Northern Song China, 1048–1128. Cambridge UK:
Cambridge University Press, 2016.
A more recent study of the subsequent trauma ensuring the 1048 shift of the Huang He’s course northward, devastating the Hebei plain for
eighty years and causing lasting environmental damage. Zhang posits a “hydraulic mode of consumption” wherein dysfunctional
interactions between state, society, and the environment spiral out of control.
Twentieth-Century Water Management
Pietz 2002 shows how 20th-century technology, primarily the construction of large dams, became associated with state building as early as
the Nationalist period. Chi 1965 and Oksenberg 1969 carry this into the Maoist period, when the mass mobilization of labor was used as a
substitute for capital in building large water projects. In the 1980s, attention shifted to managing and funding the stock of constructed works
and to institutional (including legal) and management reform. Varley 2005 assesses the financial and technical assistance from the World
Bank that was an important factor in this period. Nonetheless, despite the turn to institutional reform, McCormack 2001, among others,
finds that the “modernist” engineering legacy continues to weigh heavily.
Boxer, Baruch. “Contradictions and Challenges in China’s Water Policy Development.” Water International 26 (2001): 335–341.
Argues that efforts to address China’s water problems need to be sensitive to legacy-related “contradictions and challenges in water policy”
in four key areas: the implementation of the 1988 Water Law, the shift in emphasis from engineering solutions to “resource” water
management, the lingering importance of traditional and Marxist perspectives, and the weight of indigenous water science and engineering.
Chi, Wen-shun. “Water Conservancy in Communist China.” China Quarterly 23 (1965): 37–54.
One of the few relatively accessible pieces surveying water policy in the first decade of the People’s Republic. The limitations of data
accessibility are palpable, as is the polemical nature of much Cold War scholarship.
McCormack, Gavan. “Water Margins—Competing Paradigms in China.” Critical Asian Studies 33.1 (2001): 5–30.
Argues that for historical and institutional reasons, China has persisted in holding to a “modern” project-oriented paradigm of water
resource management that is being abandoned in the developed world in favor of sustainability and accommodation to nature. Focus is
primarily on the hydropower projects being built in southern China.
Oksenberg, Michel. “Policy Formulation in Communist China: The Case of the Mass Irrigation Campaign, 1957–58.” PhD diss.,
Columbia University, 1969.
A thorough study of the decision-making process of one of the major policies of the mass mobilization that accompanied collectivization
and foreshadowed the Great Leap Forward, directed at converting farm labor directly into fixed capital, in this case irrigation and drainage
facilities, including numerous large dams.
Pietz, David A. Engineering the State: The Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist China, 1927–1937. New York: Routledge,
2002.
A study of the bureaucratic politics of modern large-scale hydrological engineering that was already initiated in the Nationalist period,
directed at the critical and very complex Huai River basin.
Qian Zhengying 钱正英, ed. Zhongguo Shuili (中国水利). Beijing: Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian Chubanshe, 1991.
The eighteen thematic chapters of this volume, by leading specialists at the time, provide a good overview of the state of the water sector
and of thinking about it over the first forty years of the People’s Republic. Reflecting the orientation of the Ministry of Water Resources, it
has a geographical and engineering focus.
Varley R. C. G. The World Bank’s Assistance for Water Resources Management in China. Washington, DC: World Bank
Operations Evaluation Department, 2005.
A critical review of operations of the World Bank, a key external player in China’s water resources sector, including management reform,
from 1985 until the turn of the century, assessing their strengths and weaknesses in terms framed by the Bank.
Twenty-First-Century Water Management
In the present century, the number of challenges has proliferated with unsustainable abstraction and use of certain sources such as
groundwater, conflicts between uses and across borders, adapting to climate change, recognition of environmental and social effects of
large projects, extending safe drinking water to rural communities, and, perhaps most of all, the need to address problems of water quality
and environmental degradation. Liu and Yang 2012 provides an overview of water quality investments and water transfer projects, and Liu,
et al. 2013 looks over the gamut of New Age concerns, from ecological values, to climate change, to the need to take green water into
account. A common theme both inside China and from the outside (here represented by Jia and Liu 2014 and Gleick 2008, respectively) is
that the key to solving China’s water problems lies in the political, management, and governance realms. Sun, et al. 2010 provides a nice
detailing of management structures in the context of their adequacy for introducing innovations such as entitlements and water trading.
Magee 2013 (cited under General Overview) provides a good overview of the rural sector. Nickum 2003 focuses on the numbers, showing
notorious weaknesses in self-reported data, a problem not exclusive to China, but perhaps more pervasive there.
Gleick, Peter H. “China and Water.” In The World’s Water, 2008–2009: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. By Peter H.
Gleick with Heather Cooley, Michael Cohen, Mari Morikawa, Jason Morrison, and Meena Palaniappan, 79–100. Washington, DC:
Island Press, 2008.
Although it relies heavily on Chinese press reports from 2007, and therefore is somewhat dated in the specific cases cited, this overview by
one of the world’s leading water analysts remains a good introduction to the critical water management issues that continue to face
contemporary China, beginning significantly with quality issues, accentuated by the leaders’ continued adherence to a “hard path” approach
to water.
Jia Shaofeng 贾绍凤 and Liu Jun 刘俊. Daguo shuiqing (大国水情). Wuhan, China: Huazhong Kexue Daxue Chubanshe, 2014.
An informative overview of water problems besetting China and policies adopted for addressing those problems, written for the educated
general public. Includes sections on water resources, droughts and floods, environmental degradation, international rivers, and
management.
Liu, Jianguo, and Wu Yang. “Water Sustainability for China and Beyond.” Science 337 (2012): 649–650.
A short but informative overview of water quality–oriented investment needs and plans, with a focus on institutional constraints. The
appendix includes a relatively comprehensive list of major water transfer projects, and of nine central agencies with water related portfolios.
Includes supplementary materials.
Liu, Junguo, Chuanfu Zang, Shiying Tian, et al. “Water Conservancy Projects in China: Achievements, Challenges and Way
Forward.” Global Environmental Change 23 (2013): 633–643.
A brief and recent overview by some of China’s leading scholars of the status, benefits, and environmental, ecological, and human impacts
(“challenges”) of China’s water projects, divided into flood control (mainly dams and reservoirs), irrigation, and transfer projects. Political will
is seen as lacking to make necessary paradigm shifts to recognize ecosystem values, invest in conservation, explicitly consider climate
change, address aging facilities, and recognize the importance of green water (soil moisture from precipitation rather than irrigation).
Nickum, James E. “Irrigated Area Figures as Bureaucratic Constructions of Knowledge: The Case of China.” International Journal
of Water Resources Development 19 (2003): 249–262.
An assemblage of irrigated area figures compiled by competing statistical systems in various categories at the provincial and national
levels, together with an exploration of the intrinsic problems of measuring the area under irrigation, and more generally the biases that are
inherent in data reported by agencies with a stake in decisions made on the basis of that data.
Sun, Xuetao, Robert Speed, and Dajun Shen, eds. Water Resources Management in the People’s Republic of China. London and
New York: Routledge, 2010.
The product of an Australia-China collaboration to review water entitlements and trading, the papers in this volume provide a good,
relatively recent overview of water management and allocation structures, and exploration of environmental flows.
Water Policy and Governance
A constant feature of China’s water policy is its efforts to reform governance, in particular to address implementation failures. Open issues
include the extent to which these failures are structural, the extent to which reform is possible, and even if possible how much reform can
keep pace with rapid social and economic change.
Structural Weaknesses in Water Governance
Enduring structural weaknesses in China’s water governance are commonly attributed to one variant or another of “fragmented
authoritarianism,” first posited by Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988 (cited under General Overview). Recently, studies such as Li, et al. 2011
and Moore 2014 (under General Overview) have increasingly used concepts from institutional theory to explain why central policies fail to
be implemented, or elicit perverse behavior, at the local levels. Shen 2009 provides a less theoretical rundown on problems as seen from
within the system.
Li, Wei, Melanie Beresford, and Guojun Song. “Market Failure or Governmental Failure? A Study of China’s Water Abstraction
Policies.” China Quarterly 208 (2011): 951–969.
Identifies institutional factors that explain why market-based instruments fail to be adopted by local governments: low charge levels, poor
monitoring and sanctioning, weak incentives to collect, and impacted information.
Shen, Dajun. “River Basin Water Resources Management in China: A Legal and Institutional Assessment.” Water International 34
(2009): 484–496.
A survey of the water conditions in the principal river basins in China and the problems confronting the river basin organizations: conflicts
with provinces, appropriate scale, capacity, weak participation, overlap of regulatory, management and operational functions, and
inappropriate interpretation of integrated management as centralized rather than coordinated.
Reform Efforts in the 21st Century
The last two decades may be characterized by more of everything: institutional reform, megaprojects and expansion of the objectives of
water management to include climate change (see Climate Change), water pollution and environmental degradation (see Water Pollution
and Environmental Degradation), and water supply and sanitation. Efforts at reform since the turn of the century focused initially on market
measures such as water prices (Shen and Wu 2016) and establishing (perhaps) tradable water rights (Wang, et al. 2007; Calow, et al.
2009; Jia, et al. 2012). Since 2011, more traditional administrative measures, epitomized by the Three Red Lines (Zhonggong Zhongyang
Guowuyuan guanyu jiakuai shuili gaige fazhan de jueding 2010), have sought to control water use and degradation through targets
implemented via the cadre incentive system. Nickum, et al. 2017 looks critically at the implementation of the Red Lines. Water quality and
environmental degradation have risen on the agenda. At the same time, engineering has, if anything, scaled up, with a resurgence in the
construction of large dams (see Dams and Displacements) and interbasin transfers (see Interbasin Transfers).
Calow, Roger C., Simon E. Howarth, and Jinxia Wang. “Irrigation Development and Water Rights Reform in China.” International
Journal of Water Resources Development 25 (2009): 227–248.
Provides useful detail on the operation of agricultural water institutions, especially in northern China, including both the administrative
structure and the introduction of water rights and rights allocations systems. Argues for expansion of economic incentives, clearer definition
of water rights, and exploration, with eyes wide open, of water trading. Groundwater management in particular is identified as critical but
challenging.
Jia Shaofeng 贾绍凤, Zhang Liheng 张丽珩, Cao Yue 曹月, Yan Huayun 燕华云, Li Jianping 李建平, and James Nickum. Zhongguo
shuiquan jinxingshi: Geermu anli yanjiu (中国水权进行时: 格尔木案例研究). Beijing: Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian Chubanshe, 2012.
Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Chinese policy and literature on water rights; Chapters 4 and 5 introduce the most significant local
examples of water rights reform in China; and the final five chapters detail a proposal to introduce water rights to Golmud, the third most
populous city on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, with a complex mix of water uses under marginal climatic conditions.
Nickum, James E, Shaofeng Jia, and Scott Moore. “The Three Red Lines and China’s Water Resources Policy in the Twenty-First
Century.” In Routledge Handbook of Environmental Policy in China. Edited by Eva Sternfeld, 71–82. London and New York:
Routledge, 2017.
A critical overview of the Three Red Lines, the operational component of the Strictest Water Resources Management System proposed in
2009, that sets specific targets for total water use, water use rates in industry and agriculture, and selected indicators of ambient water
quality for the years 2015, 2020, and 2030.
Shen, Dajun, and Juan Wu. “State of the Art Review: Water Pricing Reform in China.” International Journal of Water Resources
Development 33 (2016): 198–232.
Excellent overview of water pricing reforms since 1980 in various domains, primarily urban. Argues that they reflect a process of trial and
error that tends to oscillate among economic, social, and environmental targets, and that there are many “contradictions” in the
implementation of water pricing policy.
Wang Xiaodong 王晓东, Liu Wen 刘文, and Huang He 黄河, eds. Zhongguo shuiquan zhidu yanjiu (中国水权制度研究) Zhengzhou,
China: Huanghe Shuili Chubanshe, 2007.
In the first decade of the millennium, reform discussions centered on adopting water rights. This survey has chapters on the theory of water
rights; their practice abroad; feasibility of introduction into China; initial entitlements and transfer rights; and principles, objectives, and
framework for a Chinese water rights system, together with extensive background reports on contemporary practice and considerations.
Zhonggong Zhongyang Guowuyuan guanyu jiakuai shuili gaige fazhan de jueding (中共中央国务院关于加快水利改革发展的决定).
No. 1 Central Document for 2011. Beijing: Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 2010.
The key document underpinning the Strictest Water Resources Management System and the Three Red Lines. It also provides the basis
for the “River Chief System” (Hezhang zhi, 河长制) that makes local leaders accountable for meeting these water targets. Also available in
English.
Legacy Water Management Problems
Today, as throughout history, water management focuses first on flood management (river control) and then on making productive use of
water through irrigation and drainage. Another significant management concern of imperial governments, water transportation via the
Grand Canal, has been long replaced by other means of shipping and is not mentioned here.
Flood Control
From the Great Yu who controlled the waters (Da Yu zhi shui 大禹治水) to the present, the first order of hydraulic business of a Chinese
regime is the prevention of water disasters (shuizai 水灾), primarily floods. Wu 1989 provides details on how cities have historically been a
particular site of flood protection efforts, given their concentration of population and economic value. The Huang He (Yellow River) plays a
leading role in this drama—see Huang He (Yellow River). As in other areas of water management, recent policy on floods has maintained
the engineering focus of the past, but with greater attention to addressing flood hazards in ways other than bigger, thicker, and less
permeable dikes (Cheng 2005, Kobayashi and Porter 2012). One of these ways is through recognizing and, where possible, reversing the
shrinking of major lakes due to watershed degradation and reclamation. Zhao, et al. 2005 describes the poster tragedy of Dongting Hu,
once China’s largest lake. Moore 2017 shows that the usual institutional barriers continue to confront efforts at policy reform in flood control.
Cheng, Xiaotao. “Changes of Flood Control Situations and Adjustments of Flood Management Strategies in China.” Water
International 30 (2005): 108–113.
A brief but useful overview of the urbanization in recent decades of the hazard from flood disasters, with implications for necessary
adjustments in flood management strategies, including more but not necessarily exclusive focus on non-engineering approaches.
Kobayashi, Yoshiaki, and John W. Porter. Flood Risk Management in the People’s Republic of China: Learning to Live with Flood
Risk. Manila, The Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2012.
An ADB report that provides a good overview of post-1998 flood control policy, describes the different kinds of flood hazards, and proposes
a strategy for risk management that goes beyond engineering works.
Moore, Scott. “The Political Economy of Flood Management Reform in China.” International Journal of Water Resources
Development 33 (2017): 566–577.
Introduces recent reforms aimed at improved, integrated flood risk management and the institutional barriers they encounter. These
barriers include contentious politics at the local level, interjurisdictional and intersectoral disjunctures, and the lack of stakeholder
participation.
Wu, Qingzhou. “The Protection of China’s Ancient Cities from Flood Damage.” Disasters 13 (1989): 193–227.
Describes how mitigation and adaptation to flood risk affected the design of China’s cities and architecture historically, as well as
nonstructural measures such as warning and evacuation systems that were adopted. Amply illustrated with figures from historical
chronicles of the layouts of a number of cities and structures.
Zhao, Shuqing, Jingyun Fang, Shili Miao, et al. “The 7-Decade Degradation of a Large Freshwater Lake in Central Yangtze River,
China.” Environmental Science & Technology 39 (2005): 431–436.
A study combining historical records, scientific observations, and description of policy and behavior to show how Dongting Hu, not long ago
China’s largest freshwater lake, shrank due to reclamation over the centuries, but especially in recent decades, and the environmental
consequences, including, most notably, a decreased ability to regulate floods.
Irrigation Management
For a Chinese regime, after preventing water disasters, the priority is making beneficial use of water (shuili 水利), primarily through irrigated
agriculture. With a few exceptions, such as Ju, et al. 2017, most of the literature on irrigation focuses on north and northwest China, where
dryland crops other than rice dominate. North China has become the grain belt of the country, relying on an unsustainable withdrawal of
groundwater. Wang, et al. 2016 compiles decades of collaborative studies on water management and policy in this region by a very
productive team of US and Chinese scholars. One of the most cited works of this team, Huang, et al. 2006, shows the importance of
irrigation to the farm sector. Kendy, et al. 2003 and Yang, et al. 2003 raise important criticisms of water-saving agricultural technology and
water pricing, two pillars of state policy for reducing excessive use of water. Institutional reform at the farm level has focused on the
creation of water users’ associations. Wang, et al. 2016 and Zhang, et al. 2013 look at how they operate in practice.
https://www-oxfordbibliographies-com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0174.xml?rskey=ci8TXd&r… 10/24
Huang, Qiuqiong, Scott Rozelle, Brian Lohmar, Jikun Huang, and Jinxia Wang. “Irrigation, Agricultural Performance and Poverty
Reduction in China.” Food Policy 31.1 (2006): 30–52.
Using microlevel sampling data, this much-cited article shows a strong effect of irrigation on crop yields and incomes in areas both rich and
poor that is not picked up in studies using more aggregated statistics.
Ju Hongrun, Zhang Zengxiang, Wen Qingke, Wang Jiao, Zhong Lijin, and Zuo Lijun. “Spatial Patterns of Irrigation Water
Withdrawals and Implications for Water Saving.” Chinese Geographical Science 27 (2017): 362–373.
Looks at irrigation water withdrawals and water stress (not always the same thing) at the prefectural level in 2001 and 2010, with maps, and
draws out policy implications for different combinations of water withdrawals and water stress. A rare nationwide analysis at the
subprovincial level.
Kendy, Eloise, David J. Molden, Tammo S. Steenhuis, Changming Liu, and Jinxia Wang. Policies Drain the North China Plain:
Agricultural Policy and Groundwater Depletion in Luancheng County, 1949–2000. IWMI Research Report 71. Colombo, Sri Lanka:
International Water Management Institute, 2003.
Using a water balance approach and an intensive look at the situation in a county near Shijiazhuang, argues that groundwater overuse is
directly related to the spread of irrigated agriculture, and that water-saving efforts are self-defeating. Proposes that reducing the irrigated
area is critical to halting aquifer depletion.
Wang, Jinxia, Qiuqiong Huang, Jikun Huang, and Scott Rozelle. Managing Water on China’s Farms: Institutions, Policies and the
Transformation of Irrigation under Scarcity. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press, 2016.
A very useful compilation in fourteen chapters of the work of a very productive team on reform and practice of institutions and policy of
water in China, with focus on the North China Plain, on groundwater, and on the introduction of water users’ associations (WUAs), based
on considerable field study.
Yang Hong, Zhang Xiaohe, and Alexander J. B. Zehnder. “Water Scarcity, Pricing Mechanism and Institutional Reform in Northern
China Irrigated Agriculture.” Agricultural Water Management 61 (2003): 143–161.
A comprehensive overview of pricing, institutions, and farmer behavior in northern China, based on a 2001 survey of five irrigation districts
in Henan, Ningxia, and Hebei, but with wider implications. Of particular interest is its exploration of why a significant increase in water price
did not reduce water use.
Zhang, L., N. Heerink, L. Dries, and X. P. Shi. Water Users Associations and Irrigation Water Productivity in Northern China.
Ecological Economics 95 (2013): 128–136.
A later, more micro study from a common pool resources perspective, based on a 2010 survey of twenty-one water user associations in
Gansu, that finds group size and number and the degree of water scarcity explain differences in water productivity.
Modern Water Management Problems
In addition to the traditional concerns of floods and drought (Legacy Water Management Problems), total water uses have increased in the
past half century to come perilously close to the total renewable freshwater available, leading to concerns that a general “water crisis” is
close upon China. Climate change only intensifies the concern. Large dams, made possible with modern engineering, have made more
water available, as well as, increasingly, hydropower, but they invoke concerns over their environmental effects and the people they
displace. China’s growing megacities rely on water from elsewhere, either directly (see also Interbasin Transfers) or through purchasing
water-intensive products like grain from elsewhere—“virtual water.” Water pollution and environmental degradation are severe and to date
highly resistant to improvement.
Water Crisis
The most influential declarations of “water crisis” are by Ma 1999 and Brown and Halweil 1998. Ma, as a journalist, surveyed the pervasive
abuse of water and land across the country and saw the crisis as China’s domestic problem. Brown and Halweil, using less journalistic
terms such as “shortage” and “security,” looked at the threat rather as one for the rest of the world, as a wealthy, meat-eating, water-empty
China buys up the available global food supply. More recently, Zhuo, et al. 2016 (under Virtual Water and Water Footprints), using water
footprint/virtual water analysis, reinforced that the shift to a more carnivorous diet is a key driver in water stress. Nickum 1998 argues for a
more fine-grained look at the full panoply of water stressors, problems, and policies. Wu 2005 elaborates a common view that the real
problem is inefficiency of water use, but sees it as amenable to more enlightened engineering.
Brown, Lester, and Brian Halweil. “China’s Water Shortage Could Shake World Food Security.” World Watch 11 (1998): 10–20.
A follow-up to Brown’s 1995 book Who Will Feed China?, which was centered on the impact on global food markets of changes in diet as
China prospered. This time he focuses on the supply side, explicitly addressing the crisis drivers seen in the water sector.
Ma Jun 马军. Zhongguo shui weiji (中国水危机). Beijing: China Environment Press, 1999.
A comprehensive survey of China’s major river basins and regions by an environmental journalist, describing the different clusters of water
crises that have arisen with population and economic stressors and China’s 5,000-year addiction to engineering solutions. The Chinese
version is more accurate than the English interpretation, China’s Water Crisis (Norwalk, CT: EastBridge, 2004).
Nickum, James E. “Is China Living on the Water Margin?” China Quarterly 156 (1998): 156–174.
Calls for a more fine-grained approach to viewing China’s water stresses, including awareness of geographical variation, hopeful signs, and
approaches to solutions. This is the best benchmark of the period, and it offers a good baseline that subsequent analyses can be compared
against.
Wu Jisong 吴季松. Zhongguo keyi bu queshui (中国可以不缺水). Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 2005.
A top Ministry of Water Resources official argues that with proper application of natural systems engineering, water shortages in different
parts of China can be overcome in a relatively short time, due to inefficiencies in use compared to world standards.
Climate Change
With growing awareness of the potential impacts of climate change on the hydraulic cycle, the specific manifestations of a looming “crisis”
have been better specified and pinpointed. Sall 2013 provides a good overview of climate change impacts, and Disanci qihou bianhua
guojia pinggu (2015) reports on the latest in-depth review of the state of knowledge. Xia 2012 contains studies of those impacts in terms of
currently popular frames of water security and adaptive management.
Disanci qihou bianhua guojia pinggu (第三次气候变化国家评估报告). Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 2015.
The most recent official assessment report, with newer information than available to Sall, and much more detail (900 pages). A
fundamental document for research on the topic.
Sall, Chris. Climate Trends and Impacts in China. Working Paper 17558. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2013.
A good summary of the status and current projections of climate change and its effects, including extreme events such as floods and
droughts, based largely on the extensive research carried out in China and elsewhere, copiously cited in the reference section.
Xia, Jun, ed. Special Issue: Climate Change Impact on Water Security & Adaptive Management in China. Water International 42
(2012).
A set of seven studies by China’s leading hydrologists, projecting increased demand for an already tight resource and vulnerability to
climate change in critical areas of North China and the Chang Jiang basin, including the source regions for the South-North transfers (see
Interbasin Transfers).
Dams and Displacements
For the past century, the “modernist” engineering approach to river control (see Twentieth-Century Water Management), and to low-carbon
power generation (see Hydropower), has been epitomized worldwide by the large dam. Seeger 2014 provides an overview of how the
discourse supporting this approach has played out in three different eras of contemporary China. Webber 2012 and, before that, Sanjuan
and Béreau 2001 provide critical perspectives on the largest and perhaps most controversial of these engineering works, the Three Gorges
Dam, focusing on its interrelationship with the nature of the state and, for Webber, the contingency of specific leaders and events. Shi, et al.
2012 provides an overview of official policy on displaced populations in general, and of “reservoir migrants” in particular. Li, et al. 2001 and
Wilmsen 2016 provide useful perspectives, before and after, on the record-setting displacement of 1.4 million people for the Three Gorges
Dam. Mertha 2008 and Habich 2016 focus on the subnational politics of displacement by hydropower dams.
Habich, Sabrina. Dams, Migration and Authoritarianism in China: The Local State in Yunnan. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Based on fieldwork with constrained local cadres and displaced people who negotiated the implementation of changing resettlement
policies in the course of the construction of the Nuozhadu Dam on the Lancang River in Yunnan, in a framework of “fragmented mediation
under hierarchy.”
Li, Heming, Paul Waley, and Phil Rees. “Reservoir Resettlement in China: Past Experience and the Three Gorges Dam.”
Geographical Journal 167 (2001): 195–212.
Reviews the history of populations displaced by reservoir construction in China, with particular focus on strategies adopted in the case of
the Three Gorges Dam. It links these “reservoir migrants” to the much larger wave of rural-urban migrants in that both populations receive
short shrift in national policies.
Mertha, Andrew C. China’s Water Warriors: Citizen Action and Policy Change. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.
The classic statement of “hydropower politics,” arguing that with the rise of grassroots activism, nongovernmental organizations, and media
scrutiny, fragmented authoritarianism, while dominant, has evolved into a more inclusive system. At the same time, the key to success is to
gain access to state power rather than to engage in direct confrontation.
Sanjuan, Thierry, and Rémi Béreau. “The Three Gorges Dam: Between State Power, Technical Immensity, and Regional
Implications.” Hérodote 102 (2001): 19–56.
The English translation of “Le barrage des Trois Gorges: Entre pouvoir d’État, gigantisme technique et incidences régionales,” provided by
the same source. A good overview of the Three Gorges Dam from a political geography perspective. It argues that the primary objective of
the project was “to build the largest dam in the world.”
Seeger, Miriam. Zāhmung der Flüsse, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2014.

A wide-ranging discussion of largely official discourse on water and nature, and the creation of “productive landscapes,” looking at historical
antecedents such as shuili and focusing on the evolution of that discourse through three cases: the Republican Era plans for the Three
Gorges Dam, the Sanmenxia Dam in the early Communist era, and the contemporary debates over the Nujiang.
Shi, Guoqing, Jian Zhou, and Qingnian Yu. “Resettlement in China.” In Impact of Large Dams: A Global Assessment. Edited by
Cecilia Tortajada, Dogan Altinbilek, and Asit K. Biswas, 219–241. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2012.
Presents the laws and policies related to resettlement, with particular focus on those displaced by large-scale dams. Shi directs the
National Research Center for Resettlement at Hohai University.
Webber, Michael. “The Political Economy of the Three Gorges Dam Project.” Geographical Research 50 (2012): 154–165.
Argues that the decision to construct the Three Gorges Dam was not an expression of a modernist approach or the imperatives of capital,
but was contingent upon certain individuals and events, such as the Tiananmen incident. Nonetheless, the effects of the Three Gorges
Dam on the structure of power have resonated in subsequent dam building.
Wilmsen, Brooke. “After the Deluge: A Longitudinal Study of Resettlement at the Three Gorges Dam, China.” World Development
84 (2016): 41–54.
A nuanced view of resettlement, based on a longitudinal study of 521 households displaced by the Three Gorges Dam. On average,
respondents suffered severe deprivation in the initial years following displacement, but with government stimulation of the regional
economy, their livelihoods improved.
Hydropower
One reason for growing salience of China’s international rivers is their development for power generation. Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988
(cited under General Overview) examined the politics of hydropower for the Three Gorges Dam, a megaproject with exclusively domestic
impact. More recently, China’s southern flowing transboundary rivers have been the site of major hydropower dams, and the topic of a
distinct literature on impacts on local, largely minority, populations (Tilt 2015) and domestic but transboundary “powersheds” (Magee 2006).
Middleton and Allouche 2016 extend the powershed framework to international flows. Increasingly, Chinese companies have engaged in
the construction of hydropower dams abroad, many of them accompanied by social and environmental problems (McDonald, et al. 2009).
One lively issue is whether these companies act on their own or as instruments of Chinese foreign policy. Freeman 2017 makes a good
case that profits are their primary motive.
Freeman, Carla P. “Dam Diplomacy? China’s New Neighbourhood Policy and Chinese Dam-Building Companies.” Water
International (2017): 187–206.
Finds that China’s state-owned dam-building enterprises abroad are principally profit-seeking and do not serve the strategic interests of the
Chinese state.
Magee, Darren. “Powershed Politics: Yunnan Hydropower under Great Western Development.” China Quarterly 185 (2006): 23–41.
Introduces the concept of “powershed politics” to describe the polycentric nature of large-scale hydropower development, which serves to
strengthen linkages between producer and user provinces (in this case, Yunnan and Guangdong), without necessarily empowering the
central state.
McDonald, Kristen, Peter Bosshard, and Nicole Brewer. “Exporting Dams: China’s Hydropower Industry Goes Global.” Journal of
Environmental Management 90 (2009): S294–S302.
Good background on the expansion of Chinese dam building overseas, with a comprehensive list of projects (at the time), description of the
range of governmental bodies involved, and presentation of a case study (Merowe Dam in Sudan) with apparent problems of dispossession
and environmental damage.
Middleton, Carl, and Jeremy Allouche. “Water Shed or Powershed? Critical Hydropolitics, China and the ‘Lancang-Mekong
Cooperation Framework.’” International Spectator 51 (2016): 100–117.
Compares three interlaced transnational “powersheds” involving both public and private agents connecting dams along the Lancang-
Mekong with major power markets in China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Considers the impact of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation initiated in
2014 by China as an alternative to the Western-funded Mekong River Commission.
Tilt, Bryan. Dams and Development in China: The Moral Economy of Water and Power. New York: Columbia University Press,
2015.
An anthropologist with extensive experience in China in interdisciplinary projects considers the development of hydropower dams in
Yunnan from the perspectives of the different “moral visions” of key constituent groups. In so doing, he implicitly indicates many limitations
that have constrained informed decision making on dams to date, and hopes for better conditions as the Lancang (upper Mekong) and Nu
(upper Salween) are dammed.
Urban Water
Most Chinese now live in cities, somehow defined. Urban water management is quite complex and involves a number of frequently
competing sectors, both within municipal boundaries and outside those boundaries, between the city and more distant upstream and
transbasin water sources and between the city and users downstream affected by reduction or degradation of their water supply. Cosier
and Shen 2010 provides a basic overview of the institutions of urban water management. Browder, et al. 2007 diagnoses the performance
of urban water utilities. There are similarities between China’s major cities, but each has its story, in part due to differing geographical
circumstances. Nickum and Lee 2006 contrasts cities on the North China Plain and the Pearl River Delta. Only a few cities have received
much individual attention in the literature, however. Sternfeld 1997 is a good place to start in understanding Beijing. Bai and Imura 2001 is
brief, but it is one of the few available overviews of Tianjin, which has had the misfortune of being downstream from Beijing. Lee and Moss
2014 looks at power asymmetries in the basin of the Dongjiang River, which flows through many of the growing cities of the “world’s
factory” in the Pearl River Delta. Huang and Xu 2017 also looks at interjurisdictional power, but with a focus on interscalar complexities of
Shanghai’s water quality. Finlayson, et al. 2013 explores Shanghai’s vulnerabilities to external complexities on a grand scale.
Bai, Xuemei, and Hidefumi Imura. “Towards Sustainable Urban Water Resource Management: A Case Study in Tianjin, China.”
Sustainable Development 9 (2001): 24–35.
A rare discussion of the evolution of the water sector in Tianjin, downstream from Beijing, and the complexity of its interactions with its
periphery, much of it in Hebei.
Browder, Greg J., with Shiqing Xie, Yoohnee Kim, Lixin Gu, Mingyuan Fan, and David Ehrhardt. Stepping Up: Improving the
Performance of China’s Urban Water Utilities. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2007.
This diagnostic overview of China’s urban water utilities provides a review of performance and challenges, followed by proposals for
improving sector governance, improving cost recovery and finance, enhancing private sector involvement, and improving capital planning.
Cosier, Martin, and Dajun Shen. “Urban Water Management in China.” In Water Resources Management in the People’s Republic
of China. Edited by Xuetao Sun, Robert Speed, and Dajun Shen, 61–80. London and New York: Routledge, 2010.
A discussion of the laws, policies, and institutional arrangements managing the supply of water to China’s urban areas, with case studies of
Beijing, Shanghai, and Shaoxing Prefecture (Zhejiang). The authors find that while there is a comprehensive management framework,
communication and implementation remain poor.
Finlayson, Brian L., Jon Barnett, Taoyuan Wei, et al. “The Drivers of Risk to Water Security in Shanghai.” Regional Environmental
Change 13 (2013): 329–340.
Considers a wide range of risks to Shanghai’s water supply, including changes in headwater glaciers, climate, and land use; dams; and
water diversions. Authors find that diversions and sea level rise due to climate change create the greatest risk as well as that of saline
incursion, which also affects the siting of the city’s intake.
Huang, Qidong, and Jiajun Xu. “Scales of Power in Water Governance in China: Examples from the Yangtze River Basin.” Society
& Natural Resources 30 (2017): 421–435.
Using recent geographical constructs, explores the fluidity of water governance among various levels (“scalar configurations of power”) in
addressing trans-jurisdictional water pollution, both continuous (Type I) and in surges due to accidents (Type II), with a specific focus on
Shanghai. Finds current water institutions inadequate in addressing this fluidity.
Lee, Frederick, and Timothy Moss. “Spatial Fit and Water Politics: Managing Asymmetries in the Dongjiang River Basin.”
International Journal of River Basin Management 12 (2014): 329–339.
Takes a geographical approach to consider upstream-downstream conflicts in terms of power asymmetries and spatial (mis)fit in the
Dongjiang River, which flows from Jiangxi through the “world’s factory” in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong and is the source of an
interbasin transfer to Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Nickum, James E., and Yok-shiu F. Lee. “Same Longitude, Different Latitudes: Institutional Change in Urban Water in China, North
and South.” Environmental Politics 15 (2006): 231–247.
Compares institutions in rapidly growing urban areas in water-short Beijing and the water-rich Pearl River Delta, with a focus on cross-
boundary interactions, water pricing, and water services bureaus. Conflicts in the North tend to be interjurisdictional, while in the South they
are more likely to be interagency. Finds the political system to be a drag on institutional change.
Sternfeld, Eva. Beijing: Stadtentwicklung und Wasserwirtschaft. Berliner Beitrāge zu Umwelt und Entwicklung 15. Berlin:
Technische Universitāt Berlin, 1997.
A comprehensive review of the water conditions of Beijing Municipality as of the 1990s. Sternfeld focuses on the ecological, economic, and
institutional drivers behind the “water crisis” in Beijing, and on institutional shortcomings that both magnified and perpetuated stresses in
the water sector.
Virtual Water and Water Footprints
Local deficits in water supply, as is the case in most large cities, can be compensated for by trade, using water embedded in products from
more water-abundant areas. Although it remains primarily an academic pursuit, a large and continuously expanding literature looks at
China’s international, interregional, and interprovincial trade through “virtual water” and related “water footprint” lenses. Dalin, et al. 2014 is
the most comprehensive, linking provincial and international trade, with good graphics. Zhuo, et al. 2016 considers the effect of virtual
water in avoiding a water crisis. Wang and Wang 2009 and Ma, et al. 2015 both look at structural changes in Beijing’s economy over time
from the perspective of virtual water; the former is more comprehensive, while the latter is more recent. One surprising but commonly
accepted conclusion by Deines, et al. 2016 is that water-short northern China, now the country’s grain belt, exports virtual water to the
South. Zhao, et al. 2016 extends the footprint analysis to Shanghai’s outsourcing its water pollution. Zhuo, et al. 2016 links water footprint
analysis to excessive water use in agriculture, linked to management, policy, and dietary failures.
Dalin, Carole, Naota Hanasaki, Huangguang Qiu, Denise L. Mauzerall, and Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe. “Water Resources Transfers
through Chinese Interprovincial and Foreign Food Trade.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111 (2014): 9774–
9779.
Combines a hydrological model with a trade model, including both direct precipitation (green water) and irrigation (blue water). Interesting
graphs showing virtual water trade between provinces and between them and the rest of the world, with resulting water saving. Importing
soybeans provides considerable water savings.
Deines, Jillian M., Xiao Liu, and Jianguo Liu. “Telecoupling in Urban Water Systems: An Examination of Beijing’s Imported Water
Supply.” Water International 41 (2016): 251–270.
Considers the full panoply of water imports into Beijing and their implications for water source regions from the standpoint of relative
vulnerability. Such imports and “couplings” include not only interbasin transfers but also virtual water imports and payments for ecosystem
services in nearby watersheds. Concludes that North China exports more virtual water to South China than it imports directly in transfers
(see Interbasin Transfers).
Ma, Dongchun, Chaofan Xian, Jing Zhang, Ruochen Zhang, and Zhiyuan Ouyang. “The Evaluation of Water Footprints and
Sustainable Water Utilization in Beijing.” Sustainability 7 (2015): 13206–13221.
Similar to Wang and Wang 2009 and more up-to-date, using a water footprint analysis, but limited to comparing 2007 and 2010. Includes
breakdown by economic subsectors.
Wang, Hongrui, and Yan Wang. “An Input-Output Analysis of Virtual Water Uses of the Three Economic Sectors in Beijing.” Water
International 34 (2009): 451–467.
Estimates real and virtual water use by Beijing from 1990 to 2007 by economic sector. Secondary industry (manufacturing) virtual water use
has grown, while tertiary (services) is strongly negative, nearly balancing primary (agriculture). A good source of summary data for real
(measured) water uses for Beijing.
Zhao, Xu, Junguo Liu, Hong Yang, Rosa Duarte, Martin R. Tillotson, and Klaus Hubacek. “Burden Shifting of Water Quantity and
Quality Stress from Megacity Shanghai.” Water Resources Research 52.9 (2016): 6916–6927.
An application of virtual water analysis to water quality, arguing that Shanghai, through interprovincial import of goods and services,
offloads its water pollution to nineteen provinces already suffering from poor water quality.
Zhuo, La, Mestin Merga Mekonnen, and Arlen Y. Hoekstra. Water Footprint and Virtual Water Trade of China: Past and Future.
Value of Water Research Report Series 60. Delft, The Netherlands: UNESCO-IHE Institute for Higher Education, 2016.
Applies virtual water and water footprint analyses to the 1978–2008 period and to scenarios up to 2030 and 2050, projecting that a water
crisis stemming from an increase in agricultural water use is not inevitable with good management, effective policies, and a dietary shift
away from meat. Hoekstra is the originator of water footprint analysis.
Water Pollution and Environmental Degradation
Water quality, even in a natural state, varies widely. Different uses of water, including environmental, have different quality demands, as
indicated by China’s six-tiered quality grading system. Pollution moves water quality from one status to another, less usable one, thereby
effectively reducing the water supply for more demanding uses. Ongley 2004 provides a good overview of the governance of pollution
control as of the turn of the century. Qu and Fan 2010 presents the state of water degradation a little later, and gives an overview of the
state of technology available to managers to address pollution. Economy 2010 is an influential book that, despite its title, links
environmental degradation well beyond the water sector to the nature of the state, and ties prospects for its control to the way the political
system evolves. An, et al. 2007 focuses more cautiously and more specifically on the natural wetlands that provide most ecosystem
services. Jiang, et al. 2010 illustrates the difficult problem of estimating just how much water should be left for the environment, even if it
were to have an effective constituency. Wang, et al. 2016 surveys the payments for ecosystems (PES) schemes to compensate one
hopefully effective constituency, upstream governments, for not degrading the water.
An, Shuqing, Harbin Li, Baohua Guan, et al. “China’s Natural Wetlands: Past Problems, Current Status, and Future Challenges.”
Ambio 36 (2007): 335–342.
Overview of natural wetlands, which provide the majority of ecosystem services, and that have been degraded historically and with
“misguided policies” since 1949, and are now a target of rehabilitation.
Economy, Elizabeth C. The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future. 2d ed. Ithaca NY: Cornell
University Press, 2010.
Sees environmental degradation, including water pollution, as a challenge to the Chinese state, which has responded vigorously but is
confronted with difficult challenges, some of them structural. Claims that the ability to succeed will depend in large part on how the political
system evolves.
Jiang, Xiaohui, Angela Arthington, and Liu Changming. “Environmental Flow Requirements of Fish in the Lower Reach of the
Yellow River.” Water International 35 (2010): 381–396.
An estimate of the water discharges necessary to maintain ecosystems (environmental flows), in this case certain species of fish, in the
lower Huang He, along the way indicating the challenges of data, uncertain cause-effect relations, and delineation of ecosystems that make
it difficult to determine how much water should be reserved for the environment.
Ongley, Edwin D., ed. Special Section: Issues in Governance in Water Pollution Management in China. Water International 29
(2004): 269–306.
A set of four articles authored or coauthored by Ongley, focused on the governance framework that seeks to address water pollution,
including in particular transjurisdictional disputes; cases from the Huang and Huai Rivers; and parallels between non-point source concerns
in North America in the 1970s and China thirty years later.
Qu, Jiuhui, and Maohong Fan. “The Current State of Water Quality and Technology Development for Water Pollution Control in
China.” Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology 40 (2010): 519–560.
An extensive and relatively technical overview of the range of water quality degradations in China and of technologies available for
remediation.
Wang, Hujie, Zhanfeng Dong, Yuan Xu, and Chazong Ge. “Eco-Compensation for Watershed Services in China.” Water
International 41 (2016): 271–289.
Informative overview of the seventeen pilot schemes for paying upstream governments to implement environmental laws, a Chinese
adaptation of payments for ecosystem services (PES).
River Basins
The Huang He (Yellow River) is the “cradle of Chinese civilization,” as well as “China’s sorrow,” and is the most studied river basin in China.
While organizationally there are seven river basins under the Ministry of Water Resources, aside from the nearby Huai, whose fate is
closely linked with that of the Huang, most of the literature focuses on specific issues within a given basin rather than at the basin level.
Interbasin transfers, however, especially the South-North Water Transfer Project, are well studied and argued over, as increasingly are
China’s international rivers.
The Huang He (Yellow River)
The Huang He is not the most abundant major flow in China in terms of water, but it carries one of the world’s heaviest silt loads. It flows
through Chinese history, as the site of the early dynasties and, as Flessel 1974 and Zhang 2016 (both cited under Water Management in
Imperial Times) indicate, as a focus of imperial concern, especially over its periodic switching of course. It is given its own section here, as
no other major river receives as much attention in the management literature. Greer 1979, Pietz and Giordano 2009, and Pietz 2015
provide good historical overviews of the management problems of the Yellow River and its silt load. Yu 2006 gives a readable overview of
technical and management issues of siltation in the lower reaches in recent times, especially since the construction of a number of large
dams on the main stem. Chang 2001 and Nickum 2004 look at implications of the regular flow stoppages that occurred in the 1990s on,
respectively, the potential of institutional approaches such as water rights, pricing and markets in addressing misallocations; and what the
stoppages indicate about tensions between upstream and downstream users of the river. Ringler, et al. 2012 focuses on the implications of
the Huang He’s oversubscribed water for agriculture and poverty. Liu 2016 is an exhaustive study of the dramatic decline in silt load and
significant but less dramatic fall in runoff since the beginning of the millennium.
Chang Yunkun 常云昆. Huanghe duanliu yu Huanghe shui quan zhidu yanjiu (黄河断流与黄河水权制度研究). Beijing: Zhongguo
Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2001.
A good exploration of water rights, with a specific focus on the Huang He (Yellow River), and leading off with the traumatic flow cessations
of the 1990s. Surveys historical water rights in the Yellow River basin and practice and theory abroad. Links water rights to pricing and
water markets.
Greer, Charles. Water Management in the Yellow River Basin of China. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979.
A historical overview emphasizing the agencies, personalities, and philosophies engaged in river management in Imperial times. Three
core chapters cover “modern” river management from the 19th century through the First Five Year Plan period in the 1950s (notably dealing
with the Sanmen Gorge Dam) and the labor-intensive constructions of the Great Leap and its aftermath.
Liu Xiaoyan 刘晓燕. Huanghe jinnian shuisha ruijian chengyin 黄河近年水沙锐减成因. Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 2016.
A comprehensive report on the dramatic changes in the Yellow River’s silt load and runoff in the 21st century, based on a massive four-year
study involving many of China’s top water experts.
Nickum, James E. “Water and Regional Development in the Yellow River Basin.” In Water as a Focus for Regional Development.
Edited by Asit K. Biswas, Olcay Unver, and Cecilia Tortajada, 114–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
An overview of the inherent conflict between upstream and downstream areas of the Yellow River and how it was manifested and
addressed in the face of stresses such as the flow cessation of the 1990s.
Pietz, David A. The Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
A long-sweep environmental history of water management in the Yellow River and, more generally, in North China. After an overview of
water challenges in China, two chapters are on pre-1949 China, and three on the People’s Republic period. Written in a very accessible
manner.
Pietz, David, and Mark Giordano. “Managing the Yellow River: Continuity and Change.” In River Basin Trajectories: Societies,
Environments and Development. Edited by François Molle and Philippus Wester, 99–122. Wallingford, UK: CABI Press, 2009.
Similar to Seeger 2014 (cited under Dams and Displacements) for the Three Gorges Dam, Pietz and Giordano argue that Yellow River
management is best understood in terms of its long-term trajectory, especially the modernizing imperatives of post-Imperial governments of
the 20th century.
Ringler, Claudia, Ximing Cai, Jinxia Wang, et al. “Yellow River Basin: Living with Scarcity.” In Water, Food and Poverty in River
Basins: Defining the Limits. Edited by Myles Fisher and Simon Cook, 218–238. London and New York: Routledge, 2012.
A collaborative product of the Chinese component of a multinational project on water, food, and poverty in river basins, this chapter focuses
on the implications of the lack of unclaimed new sources of water in the Huang He basin on its farm sector and poverty.
Yu Liansheng. “The Huanghe (Yellow) River: Recent Changes and Its Countermeasures.” Continental Shelf Research 26 (2006):
2281–2298.
Useful and readable technical background on the problem of siltation in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, the impact of reservoirs
constructed since the 1960s, and current thinking on technical management approaches.
Interbasin Transfers
There is a large and rapidly growing literature on the topic of the South-North and other transfers, of which there are many, but none as
gigantic. The selection here focuses on assessments over time, and on readings that provide background on the specifics of the projects,
what they are intended to do, and Chinese perspectives on the transfer, as well as a sampling of the range of criticisms from a variety of
disciplinary perspectives. Biswas, et al. 1983 provides an early hard look, primarily by Chinese hydrologists, at the South-North transfers
when they were at a proposal stage. Berkoff 2003 and Yang and Zehnder 2005 focuses on economic and environmental concerns once
construction was under way. Liu, et al. 2013 provides a good description of the intended uses of the water in the Middle and Eastern routes
now that they have been built. Crow-Miller 2015 and Rogers, et al. 2016 resonate with the Wittfogel problematic in linking the construction
of the South-North Water Transfer Project to the nature of the state. Nanshui beidiao yu shiili keji 南水北调与水利科技 is a journal devoted
to the many technical issues involved with the South-North transfers.
Berkoff, Jeremy. “China: The South-North Water Transfer Project—Is It Justified?” Water Policy 5 (2003): 1–28.
Writing at the time the decision was made to go ahead on the Middle and Eastern routes of the South-North Water Transfer Project, Berkoff
argues that economic or food security concerns, while extant, are less compelling arguments for the projects than “political and pragmatic”
ones facing otherwise necessary reallocation from irrigation to non-agricultural uses on the North China Plain.
Biswas, Asit K., Zuo Dakang, James E. Nickum, and Liu Changming, eds. Long Distance Water Transfer. Dublin, Ireland: Tycooly
International, 1983.
Product of a 1980 collaboration between the United Nations University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, consisting of 21 chapters by
Chinese hydrologic geographers introducing the transfer proposals and analyzing water conditions in the source and transfer regions, as
well as 8 chapters by members of the UNU delegation, 6 of the latter on water transfers elsewhere. Also published in Chinese as Yuan juli
diaoshui (元距离调水) (Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 1983).
Cai, Ximing. “Water Stress, Water Transfer and Social Equity in Northern China: Implications for Policy Reforms.” Human
Development Report Office Occasional Paper 2006/37. New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2006.
An overview of the political and policy options, in addition to mass water transfer, to alleviate water stress in North China, including higher
technical efficiency, increasing farmer incomes, providing mechanisms to allow exchange of water, and delineation of water rights. Good set
of references to relevant literature up to that date.
Crow-Miller, Britt. “Discourses of Deflection: The Politics of Framing China’s South-North Water Transfer Project.” Water
Alternatives 8 (2015): 173–192.
Argues that the Chinese government resorts to “discourses of deflection” by presenting the South-North Water Transfer Project as
responding to water scarcity and providing ecological benefits rather than dealing with the underlying drivers of water stress, such as rapid
economic growth and urbanization, as to do so may undermine state legitimacy.
Liu Jianhua 刘建华, Zhao Jianshi 赵建世， Li Haihong 李海红, Zhao Yong 赵勇， Peng Shaoming彭少明 and Sang Xuefeng 桑学峰,
eds. Nanshui Beidiao: Shui ziyuan zonghe peizhi yanjiu (南水北调: 水资源综合配置研究). Beijing: Kexue Chubanshe, 2013.
Sixteen chapters, describing current and projected (to 2030) conditions in the receiving area, and on plans, both in general and quite
specific by region and sector, for allocating the water of the South-North transfer across northern China. A good source for understanding in
detail the nature and complexity of uses of and claims to the imported water.
Nanshui beidiao yu shiili keji 南水北调与水利科技.

A bimonthly journal (South-to-North Water Transfer and Water Science & Technology), freely accessible online, primarily devoted to
technical papers on the diversions and water conditions in the areas affected.
Rogers, Sarah, Jon Barnett, Michael Webber, Brian Finlayson, and Mark Wang. “Governmentality and the Conduct of Water:
China’s South-North Water Transfer Project.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 41.4 (2016): 429–441.
Uses a Foucauldian lens of governmentality to observe the South-North Water Transfer Project in order to decenter the problem of the
state and consider the politics of water, with its challenges as an “unruly resource,” and more generally to inspect the nature of Chinese
governmentalities. Finds ambiguity and imperfect accountability rather than a hydraulic state.
Yang, Hong, and Alexander J. B. Zehnder. “The South-North Water Transfer Project in China.” Water International 30 (2005): 339–
349.
A presentation of the evolution of arguments and counterarguments on the construction of the South-North water transfers, focusing on the
uncertainty of demand projections, lower cost alternatives for providing water, the decisive role of environmental arguments, and the
likelihood that the projects will not cover costs from user charges.
International Waters
Even though China shares rivers with nearly all of its numerous neighbors, those flows have historically been of little interest to
policymakers. For the most part, they are remote from the settled parts of the country, and, as Nickum 2008 points out, they almost all flow
out of China, so downstream effects are of little intrinsic concern, especially in the south-flowing rivers such as the Lancang (Mekong),
Yarlong Cangpo (Brahmaputra) and Nu (Salween). As China has begun to develop the upstream portions of these rivers for its own uses,
especially hydropower (see Hydropower), water has become an international relations concern. The papers in Wouters, et al. 2018 look at
these issues primarily but not exclusively from an international law perspective. Vinogradov and Wouters 2013 focuses on the legal
frameworks of the little-studied northwestern transboundary rivers shared with Russia. Middleton and Allouche 2016 (cited under
Hydropower) provides a good recent discussion of two competing international frameworks (one China-led, one not) for the Lancang
(Mekong). Ho 2017 argues cautiously that linkage effects in other aspects of bilateral cooperation can have a positive effect on shared
waters. He, et al. 2014, arguing from a domestic position within China, hopefully links ecological science, river policy, and economic
compensation as a means of smoothing conflict.
He, Daming, Ruidong Wu, Yan Feng, et al. “China’s Transboundary Waters: New Paradigms for Water and Ecological Security
through Applied Ecology.” Journal of Applied Ecology 51 (2014): 1159–1168.
An argument by researchers at the Yunnan Key Laboratory of International Rivers and Transboundary Eco-Security that science-based
policy using applied ecology would reduce transboundary conflicts through known mitigation measures and a transboundary environmental
compensation mechanism.
Ho, Selina. “China’s Transboundary River Policies towards Kazakhstan: Issue-Linkages and Incentives for Cooperation.” Water
International 42 (2017): 142–162.
Focuses on the two largest rivers (Irtysh and Ili) shared by China and Kazakhstan. Argues that interdependence between the two countries
in other areas facilitates accommodation on water, although China retains the upper hand and is reluctant to bring in other concerned
parties, such as Russia.
Nickum, James E. “The Upstream Superpower: China’s International Rivers.” In Management of Transboundary Rivers and
Lakes. Edited by Olli Varis, Cecilia Tortajada, and Asit K. Biswas, 227–242. Berlin: Springer, 2008.
Argues that the nature of international cooperation or conflict on China’s northern and western rivers depends on the type of development,
whether the river is boundary or cross-border, and on the nature of Han-minority relationships in the border region.
Vinogradov, Sergei, and Patricia Wouters. Sino-Russian Transboundary Waters: A Legal Perspective on Cooperation. Stockholm-
Nacka, Sweden: Institute for Security & Development Policy, 2013.
Reviews the evolution of the status of numerous waters shared by China and Russia, and sometimes other countries (North Korea,
Mongolia, Kazakhstan), the legal frameworks currently governing those flows, and the potential of international law for addressing
remaining concerns. While it takes a critical view, it is hopeful that cooperation is possible.
Wouters, Patricia, Huiping Chen, and James E. Nickum. eds. Transboundary Water Cooperation: Principles, Practice and
Prospects for China and its Neighbours. Abingdon UK: Routledge, 2018.
A collection of twenty-three chapters focusing primarily on legal aspects of transboundary waters, both in general and specific to China,
with a number of interesting contributions by China’s nascent international water law community.
A Wider Lens
“Greater China” here refers to the former colonies and currently separate “systems” of Hong Kong and Macau and independently governed
Taiwan. All of these have their own corpus of literature on water management. Comparative studies are also made explicitly with India as
the other large Asian country with a traditional hydraulic society (refer to Wittfogel 1957 in General Overview), and increasingly with
developed economies such as the European Union and Australia. Singapore provides an example of an authoritarian Confucian system
that does not appear to suffer from many of the governance failures of China, perhaps because of size and the lack of an agricultural
sector.
Greater China
Hong Kong and Macau are former European colonies, now “special administrative regions” of China, with growing dependence on water
from Guangdong operating within distinctive transboundary arrangements (Lee 2014). Hong Kong has retained a public management
system, while Macau’s has privatized. Chan, et al. 2005 claims that the latter is more efficiently operated. He 2001 provides a detailed
history of water policy and governance in Hong Kong under the British. Taiwan is often cited as a model for self-governing irrigation
districts. Lam 1996 and Lam and Chiu 2016 provide some healthy nuance on how that system has evolved over the past two decades.
Chan, Yue-Cheong, Pun-Lee Lam, and Ka-Fu Wong. A Tale of Two Cities: Water Supply in Hong Kong and Macau. Hong Kong:
University of Hong Kong Asia Case Research Centre, 2005.
Contrasts water supply sector performance at the turn of the millennium between Hong Kong’s publicly operated Water Supplies
Department and the more efficiently operated Macau Water, managed by a private consortium led by a French water company.
He, Peiran. Water for a Barren Rock: 150 Years of Water Supply in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 2001.
A commissioned study of the Department of Water Supply, this is an abundantly documented and illustrated history of the development of
the water supply system of Hong Kong under the British.
Lam, Wai Fung. “Institutional Design of Public Agencies and Coproduction: A Study of Irrigation Associations in Taiwan.” World
Development 24 (1996): 1039–1054.
Taiwan’s irrigation associations have long been viewed as rare successes, despite their hierarchical organization. Using institutional theory,
Lam delineates the principles of institutional design that overcame asymmetries of authority.
Lam, Wai Fung, and Chung Yuan Chiu. “Institutional Nesting and Robustness of Self-Governance: The Adaptation of Irrigation
Systems in Taiwan.” International Journal of the Commons 10 (2016): 953–981.
A later, more fine-grained analysis of how self-governing irrigation systems in Taiwan have adapted to rapid social and economic change,
based on field studies of four systems with different settings.
Lee, Nelson K. “The Changing Nature of Border, Scale and the Production of Hong Kong’s Water Supply System since 1959.”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38 (2014): 903–921.
Traces the shift in Hong Kong’s water strategy from one of striving for greater self-sufficiency from 1959 to 1978, to one of living with
increasing reliance on water from the Dongjiang in Guangdong after 1979, when it became evident that British colonial rule would not be
sustained.
China’s Water Management in Comparative Perspective
Wittfogel 1957 (cited under General Overview) placed China’s historical water management into a comparative perspective as a case of the
Asiatic mode of production. More recent comparative studies, such as Shah, et al. 2004, or those in Araral and Wu 2016, also focus on
comparisons with India, the other Asian giant, as the comparator, although increasingly there are comparisons with river basin
management in particular in economically developed countries, including EU-China River Basin Management Programme 2011 for the
European Union or Sun, et al. 2010 (cited under Twenty-First-Century Water Management) for Australia. Although the comparison is not
made explicit in Tortajada, et al. 2013, Singapore is increasingly seen as a best-practice case of soft authoritarian Chinese water
management.
Araral, Eduardo, and Xun Wu, eds. Special Issue: Comparing Water Resources Management in China and India: Policy Design,
Institutional Structure and Governance. Water Policy 18 (2016).
Nine papers plus an introduction comparing water management in China and India, including transboundary river policies, water rights
entitlements, urban domestic water pricing, the state-user interface in surface irrigation, water pricing, river pollution policy and strategies,
sustainability of the Yellow and Ganges, and public-private partnerships in water and sanitation.
EU-China River Basin Management Programme. RiBaGo Exchange Report. Beijing: Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of
Environmental Protection, December 2011.
A report on exchange visits between European Union and Chinese scholars to compare river basin management, in order to assess the
usefulness to China of European experience.
Shah, Tushaar, Mark Giordano, and Jinxia Wang. “Irrigation Institutions in a Dynamic Economy: What Is China Doing Differently
to India?” Economic and Political Weekly 39 (2004): 3452–3461.
Examines China’s water reforms at field level in 2002–2003, with an emphasis on similarity of conditions but different approaches
compared to India. Finds that while far from perfect, China’s management approach is more dynamic, and in particular has developed a
more effective water-energy nexus for tube wells.
Tortajada, Cecilia, Yugal Kishore Joshi, and Asit Biswas. The Singapore Water Story: Sustainable Development in an Urban City-
State. London and New York: Routledge, 2013.
A success story, carried out with access to the archives of the Public Utilities Bureau, of the strategic role of water in Singapore’s
development, and the city-state’s integrated and methodical approach to improved self-sufficiency of water supply under the leadership of
Lee Kwan-yew.
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5/20/22, 5:23 PM Water Management - Chinese Studies - Oxford Bibliographies

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Ball, Phillip. The Water Kingdom. London: Bodley Head, 2016.

Zhongguo Shuili Shuidian Chubanshe (中国水利水电出版社).

Journals and Websites

China Water Risk.

Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE).

Zhongguo Shuili 中国水利.

Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Shuilibu中华人民共和国水利部.

China’s Water Management through Time

Water Management in Imperial Times

Twentieth-Century Water Management

Twenty-First-Century Water Management

Water Policy and Governance

Structural Weaknesses in Water Governance

Reform Efforts in the 21st Century

Legacy Water Management Problems

Modern Water Management Problems

Dams and Displacements

Seeger, Miriam. Zāhmung der Flüsse, Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2014.

Virtual Water and Water Footprints

Water Pollution and Environmental Degradation

The Huang He (Yellow River)

Nanshui beidiao yu shiili keji 南水北调与水利科技.

China’s Water Management in Comparative Perspective

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