Water Conservation and Efficiency

Agricultural water

65% of China’s water is used in agriculture and this means that shortages in vital grain producing areas threaten the food security of the nation (BBC news, 2014). To address this issue there has been a great deal of investment into new technologies to enhance the efficiency of irrigation techniques. There were also a number of reforms in water management and prices with an entirely new fee collection system having been implemented (Lohmar, et al, 2003). While there may have been significant progress made in China’s quest for water security, compared to other nations China’s agricultural water use efficiency is still considerably low.

Industrial water

Over the last thirty years China has experienced extremely high rates of economic and industrial growth, this growth has led to a significantly larger portion of China’s water being allocated to the industrial sector: increasing from 10% to 23.2% between 1980 and 2006 (Wang, et al, 2009). China’s response has been to push forward the implementation of new technologies to increase industrial water, recycling, conversion and reuse. However China’s efforts thus far seem ineffective as reports suggest that industrial water use remains highly inefficient (Wang, et al, 2009). 

Household water

Supplying adequate water in terms of quantity and quality for households is where China faces its toughest challenge. Of China’s 660 cities almost 67% of them face water shortages and 108 cities are classified as being in severe water distress (Cheng et al, 2009). The key to satisfying China’s household water demands lies in water conservation. The Chinese government has undergone a process of strengthening its regulations on water use. They have implemented a quota system in certain cities to reduce water stresses as well as reforming water pricing in an attempt to encourage more sustainable water use in households (Cheng et al, 2009).

Improving the situation

Enhancing water use efficiency has been the government’s primary way of addressing the countries water scarcity in the previous decade. A comprehensive policy program was set forth in 2005 in order to guide and protect the development and application of new conservation technologies as well as to improve the management of water resources in both administrative and legislative spheres (Cho, 2011). This seems to have had a significant effect as we can see from figure 1 that the water use in 2005 per 10,000 Yuan GDP was approximately 305m³. This figure is three times higher than the world average and six times higher than the U.S. (Gleick, 2013). The water use per 10,000 Yuan GDP has now fallen significantly over the period in which the governments new water conservation policies have been in place. The new figure of just 122m³ represents a vastly improved level of water efficiency and conservation, however it is still quite high in comparison to many other developed countries and is way above the Chinese target who believed they could be lower than 115m³ by the end of 2010 (Gleick, 2013). The new water-pricing scheme has been very successful as prices rise and fall depending on supply and cost of delivery. This has helped limit the extent of shortages in times of drought but has also raised issues of water inequalities as the rich can afford as much as possible with the poor suffering when resources are low. All major urban areas have now also been fitted with new water saving devices that have contributed significantly to China’s improved efficiency.

Figure 1: Water use per GDP in China from 2003 to 2013 (in cubic meters per 10,000 yuan) 

Source: Statista.com 

These improvements in water conservation, reuse and recycling represent the Chinese governments early attempts at addressing the issue of water scarcity, an issue that they had ignored for some time. These efforts still remain at the heart of Chinese water resource policies but more recently in an attempt to address the bad publicity from international media the government has begun to focus more time and resources on large-scale hard engineering technics. I will begin to discuss these large-scale projects next week, as they are vital to understanding China’s current and future approaches to water security.