Article de Haocheng Yang (MS EnvIM 2023-24)

Introduction

Over the past 50 years, China has been through a remarkable economic expansion along with population growth from 0.6 billion to 1.4 billion. Such a dramatic increase has brought tremendous pressure on agriculture and food supply. As Lester Brown pointed out, China has to feed over 20% of the world population with less than 10% of the world’s farmland, and thus has a potential food crisis that might result in social and economic instability (Brown 1995).

Even though that worst scenario has not occurred by now, the worldwide problem of water scarcity is a significant threat to China’s domestic food supply. Exacerbated by climate change and population growth, it could greatly impact agriculture and thus lead to a food shortage.

The Northern China Plain (NCP), defined as the basin of the Yellow, Huai, and Hai rivers, is the center of agriculture and one of the most populated regions in China, which makes it extremely vulnerable to, and has already suffered from water scarcity (Pan 2020). This opinion paper will address the drivers of water scarcity in this region, the potential problems, and possible solutions that might be taken to prevent future water crisis.

Drivers of Water Scarcity

The first and foremost reason for water scarcity in NCP is the lack of fresh water resource. Even though the amount of usable water resources in China is about the same as that in the US, the water resource per capita is within the scope of water scarcity according to UN standards (UN 2018). In the NCP region, the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation makes the problem worse. Because of mountain ranges like Qinling that block steam from moving to the north, southern China can receive annual precipitation from 600 mm to 2500 mm, while the northern part can only have 600 mm to as low as 25 mm per year (Zheng 2008).

Besides the spatial difference, the precipitation in northern China also varies greatly in different seasons. More than 70% of rainfall happens during the monsoon season in summer, which might lead to flooding and waterlogging, and drought is likely to happen for the rest of the year (Yin 2020).

Besides low precipitation, the degradation of water quality worsens the shortage of water supply. The NCP region consists of several industrial cities such as Tianjin, Zhengzhou, and Taiyuan. Because of poor management and lack of appropriate regulation and supervising agencies, industrial wastewater has heavily polluted both surface and groundwater.

The runoff wastewater during monsoon seasons also brings nitrogen and phosphorus from local farms to rivers and ground waters. As a result, about 30% of surface water is considered as having poor quality, and 15% is identified as “not suitable for any use” (Ma 2020). For groundwater, over 80% is considered as not suitable for drinking (Wang 2020).

Even though there is a shortage in supply that results from low precipitation, heavy pollution, and might even be exacerbated by increasing evaporative demand due to climate change, the demand for water constantly increases in the NCP region nonetheless. The major driver of this increase is the growth of agriculture.

Even though the rate of expansion of irrigated regions has slowed down in recent years, which can be a result from already-existing water scarcity, it has increased from 16 million ha to 65 million ha since 1950, and the agricultural withdrawal has reached 387 millions cubic meters compared to 100 millions 60 years ago (NBSC 2015). Besides agriculture, NCP is also the economic and industrial center of northern China. With a constantly growing population and expanding industrial zones, the demand for municipal and industrial water is sure to increase as well.

Potential Problems

The potential problems of water scarcity can be described from economic and social perspectives. The economic sector that’s going to receive the greatest impact from the future water crisis in the CNP region is agriculture. With increasing water scarcity, it’s highly likely that the traditional irrigated areas would be forced to shift to rain-fed farms, which have lower productivity and are only suitable for certain crops.

The output of rice, a highly water-demanding crop, in the CNP region could decrease by 13% by 2030 (Wang 2017). The impact of such decrease can be great, for it affects not only the food supply in the CNP region, but the whole country and even world food supply as well. Both history and contemporary studies have shown that food shortage is often connected with political instability, internal conflicts, and even external conflicts, which would have further devastating outcomes for economics.

Water scarcity can also generate social problems such as environmental justice. When facing a water crisis, water is often reallocated throughout different water-demanding sectors based on how much water they use and possible profits, and historically, the Chinese government tends to put priority on industrial water usage over agricultural, while municipal usage receives the highest priority (Liu 2005). This tendency can be explained by the way government works in China. Promotions of Chinese governors are closely connected to political performance assessments done within the government, in which GDP growth receives a large portion.

To secure GDP growth under a water crisis, it is reasonable that these governors would tend to allocate water to municipal and industrial users that has a higher expectation of benefits instead of water-demanding agriculture. The result is that farmers, an already disadvantaged community that benefits the least from the recent economic growth of China, receive less water supply even though they need more water than others (Wang 2017).

The unfair reallocation, which secures the continuing growth of the population in urban areas and the development of industry in the near future, would only worsen the problem and make a vicious cycle. The long-term result can be a domestic food shortage or a conflict between rural and urban areas, both of which can threaten social stability.

Possible Solutions

One solution to the problem can be using engineering approaches to increase the water supply of the region, which the Chinese government has already done. A South-North Water Transfer Project was constructed to mitigate the uneven distribution of water resources in southern and northern China. The project was the largest water diversion project globally.

However, debates on the negative impact of this project never stop. For example, there are ecological concerns about whether the construction of canals can prevent the migration of certain animals, social equity concerns about relocating local communities (Liu 1998), and engineering concerns about the vulnerability of earthquakes of the project.

Nevertheless, the project finished on time and is now transferring over 45 billion cubic meters of water and generating 77 billion USD of Eco-economic benefits per year (UN 2018). Another engineering approach that can be applied here is the concept of the sponge city. Briefly speaking, a sponge city is an urban area with carefully designed flood management to alleviate flooding in the monsoon season and provide extra water supply by harvesting rainwater for irrigation and municipal usage.

The Chinese government has already put building sponge cities into the national agenda, and more than 130 cities have formulated plans to transform themselves into sponge cities (Liu 2017). If major cities in the CNP region, such as Tianjin and Taiyuan, can successfully transform themselves into sponge cities, the water scarcity in non-monsoon seasons could be alleviated.

What the Chinese government has done so far mostly focuses on increasing the water supply to match the increasing demand. However, research has shown that merely increasing the supply would result in inefficient water use and heavier water pollution (Xie 2009). As a result, demand management is also necessary. First, governments can use political and legal tools such as regulations on industrial water use and wastewater management to decrease industrial demand and alleviate pollution.

An effective supervising agency that enforces those regulations is also needed. This can be done by giving out certificates for water discharge, as what EPA does in the States. Second, the government can reform the water pricing system, making it a tiered pricing system based on the amount of usage in order to encourage citizens or factories to use less water. To minimize impact on disadvantaged communities’ income, different pricing systems can be used in different sectors of industry.

For agriculture, the problem is more complicated. The conflict exists within the three premises: food output must remain stable to secure a stable economic and social environment, farmers’ profit from growing crops is relatively low, and most Chinese farmers have received little formal education. Without external help from the government, a policy change would likely result in either a significant decrease in crop productivity or a much lower income for farmers because they don’t know how to adapt to the new policies.

To avoid this environmental justice problem, the government can provide financial help to farmers by subsidies for water costs. It can also provide technical support and education on helping farmers to transform their traditional irrigating methods into new systems, such as drip irrigation, to both decrease water demand and prevent water runoff pollution.

Finally, there is still high potential for water-saving technologies in both agriculture and energy sectors. High-efficiency irrigation methods, including micro-irrigation, sprinkling, and pipe irrigation, have the potential to substantially reduce water consumption in agriculture, which is the largest water-consuming sector in the region. In parallel, drought-resistant cultivation practices, such as soil deep tillage, organic fertilizer application, and the use of drought-tolerant crop varieties, could further enhance the efficiency of water use and ensure agricultural productivity under constrained water availability​ (Han et al. 2021).

In the energy sector, improving water-use efficiency remains imperative, particularly in the context of coal and thermal power production, which account for significant water footprints. Adopting air-cooling technologies for thermal power units, implementing water recycling systems in coal mines, and ensuring zero-discharge wastewater policies are critical steps. Furthermore, transitioning towards cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar power, which are less water-intensive, would align with broader sustainability goals while addressing water scarcity​.

Conclusion

The northern China plain, given its importance in agriculture, economy, and industry, suffers water shortages which might turn into a water crisis in the near future. The shortage results from the geological position, water pollution, climate change, and overly increasing demand. It can prevent future agricultural output and economic growth, diminish social stability and bring out environmental justice problems.

In addressing this, besides the South-North Water Transport Project and sponge cities, the government should also lower future water demand, which can be done by reforming the water pricing system, having stricter regulations, providing necessary help to farmers, and deploying water-saving technologies.

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