China Water Resources

A new concept of flood governance and management: logical evolution and practical considerations

In recent years, under the influence of global climate change, China has faced increased risks of flood disasters, along with amplified overlapping and spillover effects of such disasters. How to balance the relationship between humans and floods, and better adapt to changing environments, has become an urgent question requiring a new answer. Facing new situations, challenges, and problems and building on a deeper understanding of flood patterns, China has further developed a tripartite perception of floods, recognizing their destructiveness, resource potential, and functional roles. This has gradually led to the emergence of a new concept of flood governance and management that integrates flood control, flood utilization, and flood shaping. This concept is the inevitable outcome of historical, theoretical, and practical developments, offering a fresh perspective for addressing flood disaster risks in a changing environment and enhancing water security capabilities. China has actively explored and implemented this new concept of flood governance and management, continuously strengthening flood risk prevention and control while balancing the resource attributes and functional value of floods through scientific utilization. These efforts have promoted harmonious coexistence between humans and water, achieving notable governance results. Flood control, flood utilization, and flood shaping form a deeply interconnected and complex systemic project. Constructing a systematic solution for these elements requires high levels of foresight and precision in regulation. This necessitates coordinating “hard investments” in engineering with “soft development” in management to establish an efficient and robust support system.

Twenty years of flood resource utilization in China: progress and prospects

Flood resource utilization serves as a significant approach to realizing simultaneous drought and flood mitigation and enhancing comprehensive water security. Over the past two decades since 2000, China has achieved important progress in theoretical research, technological innovation, and practical exploration in this field. The advancements in fundamental theory are primarily reflected in a renewed understanding of the resource attributes and ecological functions of flood, clarifying the basic concepts of flood resource utilization and establishing an evaluation system for its effectiveness. Key technological breakthroughs have been made in flood forecasting, dynamic control of reservoir flood limit water levels, and joint utilization of surface and groundwater during floods. In terms of practical implementation, flood resource utilization has been incorporated as a fundamental requirement in the flood control planning of China's seven major river basins, with numerous successful cases emerging in major water conservancy projects, basin-wide initiatives, and inter-basin applications. This paper further outlined the main constraints facing flood resource utilization in China and provided an outlook on its future development. Finally, suggestions were proposed to promote the development of flood resource utilization to a higher level, focusing on overcoming institutional barriers, strengthening engineering systems, enhancing information support, and accelerating technological innovation.

Discussion on utilization of flood resources from perspective of national water network

Based on a profound understanding of the long-term history of water management and the practices in the new era, China has proposed three flood governance models: flood control, flood utilization, and flood shaping. Against the backdrop of intensified weather system evolution due to global climate change and the increasing frequency of extreme precipitation events in China, enhancing the resource utilization of floods is a crucial aspect of flood management, holding significant importance for alleviating the imbalance between water supply and demand in the country. From the macro perspective of the basic water situation in China and national water network construction, it is necessary and feasible to carry out large-scale spatio-temporal flood resource utilization. To promote the utilization of flood resources based on the national water network, it is first necessary to quantitatively assess flood resource potential for utilization on large spatio-temporal scales, clarifying the baseline. Secondly, it is essential to construct a national water network simulator based on the natural-artificial dualistic water cycle, so as to achieve “forecasting, early-warning, rehearsal, and contingency planning” for flood resource utilization. Finally, it is important to consider multiple objectives, such as flood control and water supply, and fully leverage the comprehensive function of the national water network to balance water resources with population and economic layout and support high-quality economic and social development.

Approach to flood disaster prevention, control, and resource utilization under modern water network engineering system

Under the context of global climate change, extreme precipitation events have become more frequent and intense in China, leading to increasing abruptness, extremity, and uncertainty in flood disasters. The uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water resources, along with the persistent contradiction between water supply and demand, remains a prominent issue. The intertwined challenges of “water disasters” and “water utilization” pose severe challenges to traditional flood management approaches. As a comprehensive infrastructure system integrating flood control and disaster reduction, water resource allocation, and ecological protection, the modern water network provides a physical carrier for the coordinated resolution of flood disaster prevention and resource utilization. Based on a tripartite understanding of the hazardous, resource-based, and functional attributes of floods, this paper elucidates the theoretical foundation of “regulation and storage as foundation, equal emphasis on prevention and utilization” within the framework of modern water network engineering. It proposes a system optimization approach structured around the “outline, mesh, and knot” framework. On this basis, an intelligent collaborative regulation system based on the “four pre”(forecasting, early warning, rehearsal, and contingency plan) is constructed, and institutional safeguards, including the improvement of coordination systems and the refinement of regulatory and technical standards, are explored. The study suggests that the modern water network provides an engineering foundation for achieving a leap in flood management capabilities from “control” to “utilization” and further to “shaping”. There is an urgent need to systematically advance conceptual renewal, engineering optimization, smart dispatching, and institutional innovation to accelerate the establishment of a modern flood governance paradigm centered on regulation and storage, with synergistic coordination between flood control and resource utilization. This will provide theoretical support and practical pathways for enhancing national water security capabilities.

Research on evolution, practice, and supporting system of paradigm of flood governance and management in China

Due to its unique physical geography and climatic conditions, China is one of the countries most severely affected by frequent and intense flood and drought disasters in the world. Against the backdrop of global climate change, flood disasters in China have exhibited new characteristics, becoming more extreme, abrupt, and abnormal. Traditional understandings of flood attributes suffer from limitations, often overemphasizing their hazardous nature while underestimating their role as resources and, even more so, their functional aspects. This perspective is increasingly inadequate for addressing the new circumstances. Concurrently, China faces inherent water resource shortages and a highly uneven spatiotemporal distribution, leading to sharp conflicts between flood control and beneficial utilization, frequent alternations between drought and flood, and escalating pressures from ecological degradation. Conventional governance and management models struggle to balance the multiple objectives of flood disaster prevention, flood resource utilization, and water ecological restoration. This paper adopted a philosophical perspective on human-water relationships to review the history of flood governance and management in China. It analyzed the three-dimensional attributes of floods, namely hazards, resources, and functions and elaborated on the concept and connotation of a new paradigm for flood governance and management, termed the “three floods” approach(namely flood control, flood utilization, and flood shaping). The paper summarized China's practical explorations regarding this new paradigm, proposed a supporting system for it, and discussed its application prospects. The research findings aim to provide a reference for deepening the understanding of flood attributes and accelerating the development of a governance and management system based on the “three floods” concept.

Pilot studies and reflections on deep groundwater recharge and restoration in North China

Overdraft of confined deep groundwater remains a serious issue in North China, where natural recovery is difficult due to limited recharge and slow renewal of deep aquifers. This has led to the long-term existence of groundwater depression cones, further triggering a series of ecological damages and geological hazards such as ground subsidence and seawater intrusion, exerting ongoing impacts on regional production, livelihoods, and ecological security. To address the groundwater depletion caused by long-term overdraft, a coordinated “point-line-area” approach and a comprehensive governance and restoration model integrating “suppression, recharge, and reinjection” have been proposed. This paper introduces the conditions and progress of recharge experiments conducted at four established pilot sites, and summarizes the findings and outcomes of a series of thematic studies carried out in conjunction with these recharge trials. Existing challenges of the pilot projects are identified, including short experimental durations,insufficient research, unoptimized water sources, and the need for improved test site conditions. In response, several targeted recommendations are proposed: extending the duration and depth of experimental studies, optimizing recharge areas and water sources, advancing research on anti-blocking and permeability-enhancement technologies,strengthening scientific and technical support, evaluating recharge effectiveness, improving research platform infrastructure, and increasing dedicated financial support, aiming to provide experiences for systematic recharge and restoration of deep groundwater and ensure sustainable utilization of groundwater resources.

Safety of river courses of middle and lower mainstreams of the Yangtze River and measure study

Safety of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River relates directly to flood control, water supply, navigation and ecology of the basin. After years of practices, great achievements have been made in improving river regime, flood control safety, ecology and navigation. Key issues were examined including failure to ciontrol high flood peak due to insufficient storage and discharge capacity, unstable conditions of local rivers and mainstreams caused by erosion and sedimentation, water level drops during dry seasons, and degradation of water environment that fail to meet the water quality requirements specified for water function zones. New situations in the new stage and under new water-sediment condition are examined. First, highquality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt makes new and higher requirements for the safety of the river. Second, erosion and sedimentation of the middle and lower reaches and the relationship between river and lake have undergone changes and will continue to be adjusted in the long term in the future. Further analysis was conducted on the characteristics of water and sediment change since the operation of the Three Gorges Dam and the evolution pattern and impact of different river type. Future trend of water and sediment and changes of river lake relationship were analyzed. In response to the existing problems, fully considering the trend of strategic adjustments in the new period, and focusing on the multi-objective synergy needs, a series of main measures have been implemented to ensure river safety, including formulating relevant laws and plans, upgrading river and canal regulation and dredging projects, improving the river lake administration and supervision system, strengthening the coordinated operation of reservoir groups, and promoting the construction of digital twin Yangtze River.

Speech at the Symposium on Ecological Protection and High-quality Development of the Yellow River Basin

Water Rights and Water Markets: Discussing Economic Means for Achieving Optimal Allocation of Water Resources

This article serves as a speech outline prepared for the 2000 annual conference of the China Institute of Water Resources. On March 30, 1999, during the Seventh National Congress of the China Institute of Water Resources, I presented the viewpoint of "transitioning from engineering water resources to resource-based water resources." That speech cannot be considered a purely academic theoretical article; rather, it was a set of requirements for water resources work based on the practical development of water resources. It aimed to initiate a major discussion on "how China's water resources should face the 21st century" and fulfilled my responsibilities as a leader. Similarly, "Water Rights and Water Markets", although discussing issues of water economics, does not make me an expert in this field. Instead, the urgent demand for the reform and development of water resources in China requires us to research and address such topics. I have merely laid the groundwork to draw attention to this issue.

The Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan(2021—2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 of P. R. China

Analysis of Water Supply and Demand in 21st Century China: Ecological Water Conservancy Research

Facing the resource and environmental challenges in 21st-century China, the issue of water is particularly severe. Scarcity and wastage coexist; abundance and ecological imbalance coexist; contamination and poor management coexist. In fact, there are interconnected and transformative relationships among water resources, water disasters, and water environments. Water, as a core element of ecology and the environment, has positive effects when utilized efficiently as a water resource. However, fluctuations in its abundance and scarcity can lead to water-related disasters, while its quality evolution is closely related to water management and environmental protection efforts...

River health connotation

River health, as one of the river assessment tools, rather than a strictly scientific concept performs a well function in setting up relative bench mark and evaluable criterion, Based on it , river ecosystem states , which varies under double actions of nature force and human activity, could be dynamically monitored and evaluated in order to predict its revolution trend through research and prompt its well development through management. The river health assessment should exhibit the balance between development and protection, the benefit coordinating among correlatively interested individuals and groups. Since water pollution becomes the severest threat to river health in our country, so at present stage of our ecologic environmental construction , its control and treatment should be put in the first place.

A preliminary discussion of the engineering ethics and advanced cultural in Dujiang Weir

The Chinese people has thousands years of history for water governance.The practices of water governance,utilization and management of successive dynasties have left us with rich material,institutional and spiritual wealth.In order to explore the multiple values of this world cultural heritage,discussions are made on the contribution of those outstanding water projects represented by Dujiang Weir,so that Chinese wisdom and China's plan can be developed to address issues of imbalance between water supply and demand and other water crisis.Eco-friendly water project construction in the new age should be led by advanced water culture,with learning from good practices of Dujiang Weir from conservation and cultural prospective,so as to build a society with harmony of man and water and water structures in a modernized and eco-friendly ways.

Human activity and the global climate change and its impact on water resources

In understanding the effect of human activity on the global climate change for recent 100 years, IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has played a key role. During 17 years from 1990, IPCC has continuously gained insight into better understanding on the global climate change during the recent 100 years mainly caused by human activity, with its four assessment reports. This achievement has been made with provision of three aspects of evidences: (1) rapid increase in greenhouse gases since preindustrial era (after 1750); (2) temperature rise or warning of surface, tropospospere and oceans; (3) 100-yr climate simulations since 1900 for detection and attribution of the past climate change. These results have shown that recent 100-yr warming is jointly caused by natural climate fluctuation and anthropogenic activity, but most of recent 50-yr climate change is caused by the authropogenic activity. The present paper has first reviewed this issue. Then, the debates and uncenrtainties of global climate change issue have been discussed. The global climate change has had a significant impact on global water resources and management. This issue is further discussed based on changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level rise and evapotranspiration, which may be a necessary scientific basis for adaptation.

Discussions on key issues of water ecological civilization construction

How to understand water ecological civilization construction? On the basis of the interpretation of the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,this paper analyses and discusses several key issues of water ecological civilization as follows.First,the definition and connotation of water ecological civilization are given and the links between water ecological civilization construction and ecological civilization construction proposed by the state are elaborated.In addition,this paper analyses the crucial issues which should be paid attention to during the process of advancing water ecological civilization,and proposes specific recommendations to help to make the 5 goals of water ecological civilization come to be realized.

Speech at the Symposium on Ecological Protection and High-quality Development of the Yellow River Basin

Thought of ancient "sponge city" : experiences of applying water-adaptive landscape

"Sponge city" is regarded as a new approach to deal with serious ecological and environmental problems under the process of fast urbanization at present. In ancient times, we have accumulated valuable experiences of building adaptive landscapes in the process of water resources management over a long period of time and fighting against various water disasters, such as selection of site of settlement, water resources management in cities and formation of cities. This approach has reflected the thought of "sponge city" that has great significance to the design of city landscape. Research and studies on adaptive landscape in ancient cities by academic field both home and abroad in recent decades are introduced, among which the study results from the Middle East, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and ancient mayan civilization are plenty and most of the studies focus on water diversion and storage works. The contents and type of adaptive landscape are affected by precipitation and landscape characters. The key areas of current studies have transformed from single factors such as flood control or drought relief into comprehensive research including examining complex structure and complicated functions of water landscape. Along with development of modern technology, how to improve theories of "sponge city" construction and practice has become a key subject for modern landscape design, facing the increasingly degradation of water environment and ecosystem and the fact of heritages of water landscape in ancient cities have been damaged and disappeared with each passing day.