Water policy: implementation, impact and effectiveness

Editor's note 20Mar14: Source D142-7.

The Water Act is based on Article 26 of the Constitution, which requires the State to "protect and improve the living environment and ecological environment" (1982). The Water Act was formulated in 1987, but its implementation has been challenged by competing economic demands, despite the fact that enforcement of the Water Law are incorporated into the Environmental Protection Act.

The Ministry of Water Resources is the most senior legal water administrative department, which is responsible for the formulation and implementation of national water conservation, management, and development policies. It is also responsible for policies related to aspects of approval and supervision. The country is divided into seven major river basins. The Department of Water Resources is the regional level of water administration, which can be viewed as a special government department with authority to develop and implement water management plans.

The regional water allocation plan is jointly developed by the water authority and water companies. The agricultural water rationing program is prepared by the Water Authority Irrigation Department.

The construction of sewage treatment plan was developed by the local Bureau, Water Department, and EPA.

The main instruments of water policy, include:

• watershed management plan;
• water environment monitoring infrastructure;
• water pollution prevention program;
• water distribution plan;
• development permit and quality control of water conservancy.

The water use and project approval system are the primary administrative instruments. The distribution of water resources is extremely uneven in China. Several large industrial cities upstream have strong demand for water causing severe shortages downstream. Therefore, a unified water allocation system has become very important.

It should be noted that the widespread presence of mine drainage in northern China was once practiced without strict supervision. The large number of unrecorded small coal mining wells had depleted aquifers, making the original shallow groundwater, that was available and supervised, disappear. Local government acquiesced to the practice for economic development, and the MWR had no authority to close the small coal mines. The number of such "illegal” coal mines was over four thousand in West Shanxi.

In this case, even if interventions in local water resources management could be made, water administration has limited available options such as penalties or compensation of affected residents

Local authorities are active in checking the sewage pollution of enterprises, publishing regular surface water quality monitoring bulletins, publishing source water quality (2013) and publicizing emission standard rates of corporations. The above methods are dependent on the State's expectations for sustainable economic development.

Implementation, impact and effectiveness

The main participants in water policy are the MWR and NDRC. Aside from the impact of the Three Gorges Project, water itself is an important resource to farmers’ activities. The Zigui Water Authority is the regional administrative authority responsible for the deployment of regional water resources and water quality monitoring, especially from the time that the Three Gorges Project began storing water. The importance of water quality monitoring and water storage capacity is rising year by year. Simultaneously, the lack of regional waterworks design in Zigui has led to the Zigui Water Authority naturally assuming the regional water policy advisory role.

The water department is responsible for the construction of irrigation facilities, which are organized under the framework of the Water Authority. These projects are overseen and approved by the NDRC, also active in the process of constructing the pipe network for water supply in Zigui. This is because the establishment of a water supply network not only means converting the water from natural water into rough water, but also ensuring that urban sewage water does not affect water quality and safety: in some areas clean water is unavailable. The increasing price of water is also disaffecting residents.

Water policy is a command-and-control policy, and it is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the most important and widely used policies in China’s water pollution control and management. The main water policy instruments are water monitoring, issuing water permits and controlling reservoir construction. Standards, environmental standards and targets related to water have not yet passed through legislation. Permits, registration and annual emissions reporting lacks coercive power. Despite instructions by the State Environmental Protection Administration and the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, cooperation between industrial/commercial administrative departments and environmental protection departments is weak. The latter department also unable to intervene for a business license or annual emissions permit.

The Zigui administration has increased its water pollution information disclosure in recent years, and there was also increasing public participation in water governance. Environmental information, however, is ad hoc and public participation in oversight mechanisms very limited. Government investigations and civil litigation mechanisms are largely absent.

Water policy tools are similar to environmental, agricultural, and other policy tools, and can even be considered to be the same type of policy instruments. However, the special status of water relates to the determination that water shortages will directly affect the implementation of other policies. Although water policy holds a subordinate position in the policy scheme, water shortages directly affect the development of agriculture and industry.

The public water administration is understandably strong: tourism and agro-industry are the local government’s main source of income and lack of water will affect the revenue of both industries. However, a severe drought in 2011 exposed the vulnerability of the local government with respect to ensuring water resources. Importance was attached to the construction of new pipelines but was not attached to maintenance of the old pipelines.

As in environmental policies, local authorities may fear the implementation of water policy for fear of loss of fiscal revenue. Simultaneously, Government’s indifference to farmland infrastructure maintenance has weakened farmland water supply and affected food production.

• < Prev
• Next >