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Water loss by evaporation from China's South-North Water Transfer Project
Abstract
China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is the longest and largest water transfer project in world history. However, the evaporative loss from SNWTP is still unclear. Here we estimated the water loss by evaporation from the open canal and reservoir of the Middle Route of SNWTP (MR-SNWTP), based on field experiments and three mathematical models (Penman equation, Penman-Monteith equation, and Priestley-Taylor equation). Results showed that the Penman equation was the most reliable model, thus it was used to evaluate the evaporative loss from MR-SNWTP. Under the original planned scenario, average annual evaporative loss from the open canal and accompanying reservoir of MR-SNWTP would be approximately 9.00 × 10 8 m 3 , of which 35.28% results directly from the construction of MR-SNWTP (3.34% of the planned total aqueduct diversion). However, during the first implement year of MR-SNWTP in 2015, the actual total water loss by evaporation was 6.43 × 10 8 m 3 , and the increased evaporative loss was 2.27 × 10 8 m 3 due to the construction of MR-SNWTP, accounting for 8.57% of the actual total aqueduct diversion. This implies that the efficiency of MR-SNWTP from the perspective of water loss would be improved in the future with more water being transferred. Our results demonstrate that there is a general balance between water evaporation and vertical precipitation supplement of MR-SNWTP.
... Since the start of its operation in December 2014, a total of 17.0 km 3 of water has been delivered to NCP (i.e., 2.3, 3.6, 4.8, and 6.3 km 3 /year in 2015-2018, respectively). The delivered volume is below the target of 9.5 km 3 /year, mainly due to the incompletion of certain ancillary delivery channels and facilities (Lei et al., 2018;Ma et al., 2016). The MRP-delivered water, except for partly compensating environmental flow, replenishing reservoirs, and recharging aquifers, was mainly used to replace the domestic and industrial consumption originally supplied by groundwater in NCP (Y. ...
... The water diversion (Q d ) is delivered along the MRP canal mainly by gravity force to NCP (Figure 1a). A small fraction of Q d is lost by channel evaporation, but it is compensated by precipitation and influent into the channels (Ma et al., 2016). Therefore, it can be reasonably assumed that the Q d from DR is approximately equal to the total water received in NCP (e.g., X. Y. Yang et al., 2012). ...
... The mean annual Q d from simulation is 7.0 km 3 /year, significantly larger than observation, but still smaller than the designed target. Except for the subjective reason that MRP is not in full operation (Lei et al., 2018;Ma et al., 2016), one compounding reason is that three out of 4 years during the 2015-2018 actual MRP operation period are dry years with significant Q in shortage (X. Liu et al., 2015;. ...
The South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Project (MRP), which started its operation in December 2014, was designed to transfer water from Danjiangkou Reservoir (DR) in Hanjiang River Basin to North China Plain (NCP) to alleviate water shortage and long-term groundwater depletion in the water-receiving region. This study investigates the effectiveness of actual MRP operation during 2015–2018 using the observed water budget data collected from DR and the groundwater level data from 559 monitoring wells. Assuming that MRP was in operation during 2005–2014, ensemble water diversion simulations were performed to study the sensitivity of MRP effectiveness to two important factors: the downstream water demand of DR (Dwd) and the ratio (Ir) of water diversion volume (Qd) replacing groundwater pumping in NCP. Even though the observed and simulated mean annual Qd during 2015–2018 (i.e., 4.3 and 7.0 km³/year, respectively) failed to meet the original water delivery target of 9.5 km³/year due to its short operation and the coincidence with a dry cycle, MRP is effective in groundwater recovery as an increasing trend (+0.3 km³/year) in groundwater storage (GWS) was observed in NCP during 2015–2018. MRP's effectiveness is sensitive to Dwd and Ir. Dwd should not exceed 23.0 km³/year to guarantee Qd reaching the original target, and Ir should not be less than 33% to guarantee GWS recovery. Those findings suggest that a reasonable decrease of Dwd and an increase of Ir are the recommended pathway to ensure the effectiveness of MRP in meeting both water delivery and groundwater recovery targets.
... The blue water, which includes fresh surface or groundwater refers to consumptive water use, includes all production related evaporation counts including water that evaporates during water storage, transport, processing and collection and disposal . The blue WF (WF blue ) estimated in this study takes into account the water consumption during water transfer process (Ma et al., 2016;Sun et al., 2016Sun et al., , 2013, in addition to water storage. The green water refers to rain on land that does not wash off or refill the ground water but is retained in the soil and remains temporarily on the surface or vegetation. ...
... The open water evaporation rate for the reservoir and canal was calculated using the Penman-Monteith equation (Ma et al., 2016), Penman equation; Shuttleworth modification (Valiantzas, 2006), seepage from the canal was estimated using the model proposed by Swamee et al. (2002), while evapotranspiration from the sugarcane field was estimated using the FAO CROPWAT 8.0 application (Swennenhuis, 2009) (Fig. 4). The functional unit for this study is defined as 1 ton of sugarcane at harvest gate, and covers a cropping seasonal period of approximately 12 months per cropping season from planting to harvest (Binbol et al., 2006). ...
... The Penman-Monteith model is the most easily applicable to a wide range of water bodies because of its finite empirical basis. The evaporation from the open water surface is therefore estimated using the Penman-Monteith equation (Ma et al., 2016). The equation is given as: ...
... WF showed high values or a significant increase in nine cities located at the northern part of the study area and showed an urgent demand for water supply from a long-distance water diversion (Figures 2 and 3). An increase in the amount of long-distance water diversion means an increase in the cost to the economy and water resources [45,46]. Therefore, it is not conducive to only rely on external water diversions in the study area for the target of sustainable development. ...
... WF showed high values or a significant increase in nine cities located at the northern part of the study area and showed an urgent demand for water supply from a longdistance water diversion (Figures 2 and 3). An increase in the amount of long-distance water diversion means an increase in the cost to the economy and water resources [45,46]. Therefore, it is not conducive to only rely on external water diversions in the study area for the target of sustainable development. ...
In order to continuously promote water conservation efforts to alleviate the pressure of water diversion, water footprint (WF) is used as an effective tool to measure water utilization in the water-receiving areas of the Middle Route and Eastern Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP). The tempo-spatial variations of WF and spatial equilibrium of water footprint intensity (WFI) in the study area are quantified using the Mann–Kandle trend test, Sen’s slope, and Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method for the years of 2005–2020. The results show that WF has a significant decreasing trend (Sen’s slop < 0, significant level < 0.05) in 17 cities in the study area, whereas WF shows a significant increasing trend (Sen’s slop > 0, significant level < 0.05) in 10 cities. Cities in the water-receiving areas are categorized into three types based on the contribution of the water utilization sector to changes in WF as follows: agriculture water-dominated city (AD), domestic and ecological water-dominated city (DED), and virtual water trade-dominated city (VWTD). Accordingly, targeted water conservation recommendations are made for these three kinds of cities, and it is suggested that AD, DED, and VWTD cities need to focus on advanced irrigation technologies, water reuse, and trade restructuring, respectively. The overall Gini coefficient of WFI fluctuates between 0.219 and 0.267 in the water-receiving areas of the Middle Route, which is dominated by the differences in city level. However, it fluctuates between 0.412 and 0.278 in the water-receiving areas of the Eastern Route, which is dominated by the differences in provincial level. Accordingly, water conservation hotspots are determined at the city level in the Middle Route and at the provincial level in the Eastern Route with different water management policies. These results provide a scientific support for water conservation management in the water-receiving areas of the SNWDP, as well as a methodological reference for the tempo-spatial characteristics of WF and their implications for water conservation.
... For example, the largest long-distance WDP worldwide, the middle line of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MLSNWDP), begins from the Taocha junction of the Danjiangkou Reservoir and runs through four provinces and cities, i.e., Henan, Hebei, Beijing, and Tianjin, with a total length of 1,432 km (Fig. 1). The designed annual water transport capacity is 9.5 × 10 9 m 3 (Ma et al., 2016), which has effectively alleviated the water crisis in North China, improved the water supply guarantee rate of all provinces and cities along the route , and stabilized the groundwater levels (Long et al., 2020). MLSNWDP is dominated by 1, 100 km open channels, with a total water surface area of 19.2 km 2 , which provides a good practical engineering condition for the development of WSPVs (Ye et al., 2021). ...
... The different time and space values generated by the reuse of the saved water have not been adequately quantified and evaluated. Ma et al. (2016) indicated that under the planned water diversion scenario, the average annual evaporation loss from the open channel of MLSNWDP and the supporting reservoirs would be approximately 9.00 × 10 8 m 3 . After the installation of WSPVs, water-saving would have multiple benefits. ...
As the world encounters insufficient fossil energy and worsening environmental pollution, the significant potential of water surface photovoltaic (WSPV) systems and the remarkable benefits are crucial to promoting cleaner production and sustainable development. This paper proposes installing overhead WSPVs along the open channels of long-distance water diversion projects (WDPs), creating new opportunities for the adaptive traceability and utilization of energy–water resources. A multi-objective decision model for the feasibility evaluation of WSPVs is presented and applied to typical WDPs in China to demonstrate the effects of this modeling framework and explore the co-benefits of WSPV systems. The results indicate that: (1) it is economically and technically feasible to install WSPVs over MLSNWDP with a suggested tilt angle range of 10°–12°; (2) the proposed WSPVs in the eight typical projects evaluated using the decision model with a capacity of 29,486 MW can convert 37,263 GWh of electricity at a 12° tilt angle while saving 3.19×10⁸ m³ of water annually; (3) the adaptive utilization of the saved water and electricity can increase the ecological water level guarantee rate of Baiyang Lake by 12.64%, alleviating potential eco-environmental problems. Moreover, a recommended coverage rate of 50% is proposed to inhibit algae outbreaks. Overall, this research demonstrates the technical and economic feasibility of the construction of WSPVs along WDPs and the co-benefits to address challenging research questions on the sustainable development of energy–water resources.
... The East Route diverts water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River near Yangzhou (Jiangsu Province) to end points at Weihai (Jiaodong Peninsula, Shandong Province) and Tianjin (Ma et al., 2015) ( Figure 1). The lower reaches of the Yangtze River span from Hukou, just downstream of the connection with Poyang Lake, to the estuary, with the intake point for the East Route located at roughly 60% of this distance ( Figure 1) (Fu, Wu, Chen, Wu, & Lei, 2003). ...
... Route intersects with or directly passes through five large freshwater lakes in Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces (S to N): Gaoyou Lake, Hongze Lake, Luoma Lake, Nansi Lake and Dongping Lake (Ma et al., 2015) (Figure 1). The infrastructure precursor to the East Route was the Northern Jiangsu Water Transfer Project (NJWT), which connected and occasionally transferred water between the three southern lakes from the 1960s to 2011, with three water transfers also going to lower Nansi Lake . ...
Inter‐basin water transfers create new pathways between previously disjunct systems and communities. If fish movement occurs, it can lead to invasion or altered regional connectivity patterns, which could induce biotic/genetic homogenisation or synchronisation. Understanding ecological factors promoting movement is critical for predicting potential impacts during project planning, to assess ongoing effects, and to develop mediation strategies. Potential characteristics influencing movement rates were reviewed, including intrinsic traits that increase passive entrainment or active dispersal rates, extrinsic traits of the connected environments and their interactions. In order to examine patterns among these potentially influencing characteristics, a trait‐based screening method for movement and invasion risk was developed to analyse linked communities in a database from a large‐scale inter‐basin water diversion in China. Groups of fishes that scored high in the risk assessment were compared with worldwide examples of entrainment in inter‐basin water transfer systems or smaller‐scale diversions to examine emergent patterns of shared ecological characteristics. Specific traits that were most often shared in these groups, indicating a higher likelihood of movement in water diversions, include the following: a smaller body size, high adult or larval abundance, migratory behaviour, generalist and pelagic habitat preferences, and a high reproductive output. The synthesis of factors identified in this research can be used to guide future empirical studies to fill knowledge gaps regarding ecological impacts of inter‐basin water transfers or other smaller‐scale diversions on local communities and ecosystems.
... Here we carry out such an integrative analysis, Figure 1. A sketch map of the South-North Water Transfer Project (modified from [12]). ...
... A sketch map of the South-North Water Transfer Project (modified from[12]). ...
China's South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) has the potential to transfer as much as 44.8 km³ year⁻¹ of water from the Yangtze River basin to the Yellow River basin. However, the SNWTP has not been assessed from a sustainability perspective. Thus, in this study we evaluated the SNWTP's economic, social, and environmental impacts by reviewing the English literature published in journals that are part of the Web of Science database. We then synthesized this literature using a Triple Bottom Line framework of sustainability assessment. Our study has led to three main findings: (1) whether the SNWTP is economically beneficial depends largely on model assumptions, meaning that economic gains at the regional and national level are uncertain; (2) the SNWTP requires the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of people and challenges existing water management institutions, suggesting possible social concerns beyond the short term; and (3) evidently large environmental costs in water-providing areas and uncertain environmental benefits in water-receiving areas together point to an uncertain environmental future for the geographic regions involved. Thus, the overall sustainability of SNWTP is seriously questionable. Although much work has been done studying individual aspects of SNWTP's sustainability, few studies have utilized the multi-scale, transdisciplinary approaches that such a project demands. To minimize environmental risks, ensure social equity, and sustain economic benefits, we suggest that the project be continuously monitored in all three dimensions, and that integrated sustainability assessments and policy improvements be carried out periodically.
... In 2014, the first phase of this route was commissioned, with an annual average water transfer capacity of 9.5 billion cubic meters. The west route (WR-SNWTP), which aims to deliver water from upper Yangtze River to Northwest China, is in the planning stages [14,17,18]. Despite the construction, a significant proportion of studies have focused primarily on the social, economic, and ecological impact of the water transfer project itself. ...
With a huge capital and labor input influx, inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects have been shown to effectively mitigate water stress and ensure the water demand for social and economic development in the receiving area. Whether they have promoted the improvement of regional water use efficiency (WUE) is crucial for sustainable management of regional water resources. Targeting the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), the largest and most ambitious inter-basin water transfer project in China, this study establishes quantitatively econometric models to analyze the impact of different water diversion projects, specifically the eastern route of the SNWTP (ER-SNWTP), middle route of the SNWTP (MR-SNWTP), and diversion from the main stream of the Yellow River (DYR), on the regional water consumption per unit of GDP; regional water stress, water use structure, economic structure, and urbanization level are used as control variables in different types of cities in the Yellow River Basin, and some intriguing results are found. While the overall water transfer project demonstrates a positive impact on water use efficiency, the effects of the three water transfer measures vary significantly. The ER-SNWTP does not exhibit a notable positive effect on regional water use efficiency, whereas the MR-SNWTP demonstrates a significant positive impact. Interestingly, the DYR has a notable negative influence on water use efficiency in developed cities. The water use structure, shaped by the pricing, scale, and policies of different projects, emerges as a pivotal factor in explaining these differences. Finally, this paper suggests that the impact of water transfer projects on the improvement of regional water use efficiency be viewed from a more comprehensive and developmental perspective.
... However, most of these studies use conventional water resources (surface water) as input conditions to establish the optimal allocation model of conventional water resources, and there is a lack of understanding of the concept of generalized water allocation, resulting in a significant lack of research on using unconventional and conventional water resources as input conditions to establish the optimal allocation model of generalized water resources. In addition, during the operation of IBWT projects, evaporation, seepage loss of water, and discarded water from the transferred lakes seriously reduce the efficiency of water resource allocation [31,32]. ...
For inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) projects, the conflict between social, economic, and ecological objectives makes water allocation processes more complex. Specific to the problem of water resource conflict in IBWT projects, we established an optimal allocation model of generalized (conventional) water resources (G (C) model) to demonstrate the advantages of the G model. The improved multi-objective cuckoo optimization algorithm (IMOCS) was applied to search the Pareto frontiers of the two models under normal, dry, and extremely dry conditions. The optimal allocation scheme set of generalized (conventional) water resources (G (C) scheme set) consists of ten Pareto optimal solutions with the minimum water shortage selected from the Pareto optimal solutions of the G (C) model. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) combined with criteria importance using the inter-criteria correlation (CRITIC) method was used to assign weights of evaluation indexes in the evaluation index system. The non-negative matrix method was employed to evaluate the G (C) scheme set to determine the best G (C) scheme for the Jiangsu section of the South-to-North Water Transfer (J-SNWT) Project. The results show that (1) the Pareto frontier of the G model is better than that of the C model, and (2) the best G scheme shows better index values compared to the best C scheme. The total water shortages are reduced by 254.2 million m3 and 827.9 million m3 under the dry condition, respectively, and the water losses are reduced by 145.1 million m3 and 141.1 million m3 under the extremely dry condition, respectively. These findings could not only provide J-SNWT Project managers with guidelines for water allocation under normal, dry, and extremely dry conditions but also demonstrate that the G model could achieve better water-allocation benefits than the C model for inter-basin water transfer projects.
... The middle route uses a new trunk canal to transport water to Beijing by diverting water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the middle and upper portions of the Han River, the major tributary of the Yangtze River. Due to topographic complexity and ecological concerns, the western route, which intends to bring water from the upper Yangtze River tributaries, is still in the design stages (Ma et al., 2016). The Yangtze, Huai, Yellow, and Hai rivers are all connected by the SNWTP, attempting to create a 'four-horizontal and three-long' water network in China. ...
China has implemented a series of water-saving policies in response to the growing threat of water shortages. However, it remains unclear whether these water-saving policies, which aim to reduce water-use intensity, will actually improve water-use technical efficiency. This study scrutinizes water-use technical efficiency within an extended human-environment framework by using the case of China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). An improved estimation method for water-use technical efficiency based on stochastic frontier analysis is adopted to empirically investigate the variations in water-use intensity and technical efficiency in the SNWTP's water-receiving cities. This study argues that there is no definitive link between improvements in water-use technical efficiency and decreases in water-use intensity, and thus water-saving policies oriented toward reducing water-use intensity do not necessarily increase water-use technical efficiency. In addition, achieving the goals of water-saving policies by reducing water use intensity alone remains challenging and requires improving the water-use technical efficiency caused by endogenous technological progress. Finally, setting a unified target to reduce water-use intensity leads to inequitable sharing of water-saving tasks between regions, resulting in conflicts of interest among government bureaucracies.
... Influenced by the complex climate and topography, the regional distribution of China's water resources is highly heterogeneous, generally high in the south and low in the north [7]. To redistribute water resources spatially, China implemented the worlds' largest cross-basin water transfer project, i.e., the SNWDP [8,9], aiming to relieve water pressure in North and Northwest China by transferring water from the Yangtze River. Danjiangkou reservoir area, as the water source of for the Central Line of SNWDP, has experienced frequent soil and water alternation and periodic artificial water storage during the construction of the project. ...
The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) is one of the largest cross-basin and cross-region water transfer projects in the world. The Danjiangkou reservoir area, a haven of diverse species, serves as a core water source for the Central Line of the SNWDP. Yet, less research has been conducted on changes in land use and ecosystem services (ESs) in the Danjiangkou reservoir area in the context of the implementation of the SNWDP and other national projects. In this study, we aim to reveal evolutions of land uses and ESs in the Danjiangkou reservoir area and the response of ESs to natural and socioeconomic factors. This is essential to enhance the regional sustainable management of the Danjiangkou reservoir area. Based on classified land use maps and the InVEST model, we first analyzed the land use changes and evaluated three typical types of ESs (i.e., water yield (WY), carbon storage (CS) and habitat quality (HQ)) in the Danjiangkou reservoir area during 2000 to 2018. Then, we detected the spatial clustering characteristics and tradeoffs and synergistic relationships of multiple ESs through hot spot analysis and correlation analysis. Finally, we adopt the geographical detector model (GDM) to identify key driving factors of ESs changes. The results show that: (1) During 2000-2018, the area of arable land and woodland decreased by 1.65% and 0.8%, respectively, while the proportion of construction land and water area increased by 1.31% and 1.39%, respectively. (2) The greatest decrease was in WY, decreasing by 59%, while the change in HQ was relatively stable, but showed spatial heterogeneity. (3) The northern, southern and western districts of the reservoir area showed mainly synergies among multiple ESs, while other regions showed mainly trade-offs. (4) Road network density, proportion of construction land and normalized difference vegetation index are the leading factors for ESs variations. These findings can provide reference for formulating more reasonable ecological protection strategies, so as to realize the sustainable management of SNWDP and its headwaters region.
... Other examples of projects that involve large-scale human-induced influences on the hydrologic environment, including resultant stress on biological and geochemical systems, include the complex and extensive interbasin water redistribution systems that supply large areas of the western United States including the Los Angeles megalopolis (Lehrman, 2018), the South-North Water Transfer Project in China (Y.-J. Ma et al., 2016), and the Tagus-Segura interbasin transfer in Spain (Rey et al., 2016). Although our research described herein does not directly assess the hydrologic (and associated biological, ecological, and geochemical) impacts of these anthrohydrology projects, we acknowledge that the human-hydrological nexus should be considered as one of the important puzzle pieces for designing effective water quality protection and restoration approaches in part to reconnect the broken bond between human and ecological receptors and the source of the water resources that these populations and communities rely on (D'Odorico et al., 2019). ...
The process of designing a remedy for contaminated groundwater historically has not commonly included climate-future, hydrologic, and biogeochemical aquifer characteristics. From experience, the remedy design process also has not consistently nor directly integrated or projected future hydrologic and biogeochemical effects of the human-induced or developed environment—aka the anthropogenic influence—on potential remedy performance. The apparent practice of (1) not regularly assessing anthro-influenced hydrological (termed here as anthrohydrology) or biogeochemical characteristics (collectively hydrobiogeochemistry) of a site and (2) rarely accounting for future climatic shifts as design factors in remedy design may be due, in part, to the general practice-level view that groundwater remediation systems (whether in situ or ex situ) have seldom been anticipated to last more than a few years (or one or two decades at the most). Second, methods to reliably and quantitatively estimate site-specific, climate-future shifts in groundwater conditions using global and/or regional climate models and the resultant impacts on contaminant plume characteristics have not been readily available. The authors here suggest that while the concept of remedy design resilience and durability, within an envelope of climate change and anthropogenic influence, has been discussed in some technical circles as a component of “sustainable remediation,” we have found that direct application of these technical concepts in quantifiable terms remains rare. By incorporating the potential influence of future hydrobiogeochemical scenarios into remedy design, however, the design process could account for reasonable climate-induced influence on the groundwater system for a given site. These scenarios could then be applied within the remedy selection process to assess performance durability under potentially changing hydrologic, biological, and chemical conditions.
... Thus, studies have shed light on the optimal operation of the SNWTP to improve its efficiency (Li et al., 2017;Ma et al., 2016;Yang et al., 2021) or reduce the negative impacts Peng et al., 2021;Wei et al., 2010;Zhou et al., 2017); however one of the key issues that remain underexplored is the energy cost of the project's operation. The high operational expenditure caused by pumping the water is one of the most challenging problems influencing the benefits of the SNWTP. ...
Energy efficiency plays an important role in the sustainable operation of the world's largest water transfer project, i.e., China's South-to-North Water Transfer Project, by reducing its energy-related operating costs. However, effective energy-saving measures are still under development for the project due to its huge scale and complexity. An optimized operational model was established in this study to reduce the energy use of the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project by optimally scheduling the water-pumping process of the different pumps along the transfer route in the context of hydrological variability. The optimized operational rules and recommended operational parameters were obtained. The results show that the proposed operational rules in the form of piecewise functions can reduce the water pumping of the project, thus providing a basis for reducing energy consumption. The energy use of the project's water pumping could also be reduced in the wet years by using the local water in midstream lakes along the transfer route rather than the pumped water from the Yangtze River at the southern terminus of the route. In addition, it was also found that the initial water storage of the lakes along the southern part of the route has a greater impact on the volume of the water pumping. Raising the water levels of these southern lakes using local runoff at the beginning of a year would help reduce the subsequent water pumping from the Yangtze River and the relative energy use of the project. In addition. the key areas for energy-saving along the eastern route of the South–North Water Transfer Project were identified, providing new insights for understanding the water-energy nexus behaviors of a long-distance water transfer project.
... At present, the second phase of SNWTP is still in preparation. The western route is planned to deliver water from the tributaries of the upper Yangtze River, but is still in the planning stage due to topographical complexities and ecological issues [38]. The entire SNWTP has a total investment of more than 240 billion yuan [39] and involves resettling more than 300,000 people [40]. ...
Based on a quasi-natural experiment in China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), this study adopts a difference-in-differences approach to scrutinise the effect of inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) policies on the water-use technical efficiency (WUTE). The findings show that IBWT can improve WUTE in water-receiving cities, but this is not related to the improvement in water endowment resulting from IBWT. Conversely, improvements in water endowment further decrease WUTE. Moreover, IBWT can improve the water-saving capacity and the intensity of environmental regulations in water-receiving cities, thus contributing to the sustainable improvement of WUTE from the input and the undesirable output. Finally, the effect of IBWT policies on WUTE is heterogeneous, depending on differences in economic and demographic elements. The WUTE estimation approach in this study contributes to an improved understanding of WUTE. This study also reveals a causal relationship between IBWT and WUTE, speaking to the ongoing debate on the relationship between IBWT, WUTE and water scarcity. Furthermore, this study adds to the understanding of the complex relationship between IBWT and WUTE, and provides insights into the internal mechanisms of IBWT affecting WUTE.
... The middle route draws water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir and delivers water to Beijing through a newly constructed canal (see Figure 1). The western route plans to transfer water from the upper tributary of the Yangtze River, but is still in the planning stage due to complex terrain and ecological issues (Ma et al., 2016). The first phases of the eastern and middle routes started construction in December 2002 and December 2003, respectively, and were completed in December 2013 and December 2014, respectively. ...
Inter-basin water transfer (IBWT) policies alter the spatial distribution of water endowments and trigger changes in environmental regulation policies, which may unintentionally impact the research and development (R&D) activities in IBWT water-receiving areas. However, the existing studies failed to examine the relationship between IBWT policies and corporate R&D activities, and lacked the exploration of the micro-mechanism of IBWT's unintended impact on corporate R&D activities. Through the water delivery of China's South-North Water Transfer Project as a quasi-natural experiment, this study adopts a difference-in-differences approach to scrutinise the unintended impact of IBWT policies on corporate R&D activities. The findings show that IBWT policies can make the water a ‘resource blessing’ by directly improving the water endowment in water-receiving areas, thereby promoting corporate R&D activities. In addition, IBWT policies can also indirectly encourage local governments in water-receiving areas to strengthen the intensity of environmental regulations, ultimately promoting companies to improve R&D activities. Finally, the impacts of IBWT policies on corporate R&D activities in water-receiving areas are heterogeneous. Overall, this study contributes to understanding the complicated relationship between IBWT policies and corporate R&D activities, and provides insights into how IBWT policies affect corporate R&D activities.
HIGHLIGHTS
The causal relationship between IBWT and R&D activities is examined.;
The micro-mechanisms that IBWT affects corporate R&D activities are explored.;
IBWT can improve water endowment, thereby promoting corporate R&D activities.;
IBWT strengthens environmental regulation, which improves corporate R&D activities.;
The impacts of IBWT on corporate R&D activities are heterogeneous.;
... Two of SNWTP's three planned routes began operation in December 2014. Another western route plans to transport water from tributaries of the upper Yangtze River, but it is still in the planning stage due to the complicated terrain and environment problems (Ma et al., 2016). The two routes currently in operation can provide 27.8 billion m 3 of fresh water per year from the Yangtze River basin to the arid North China Plain, with a total length of nearly 2900 km (Sheng and Webber, 2017). ...
The transboundary water pollution control is often complex and challenging due to the multiple jurisdictions or countries involved. However, current studies fail to comprehensively examine the issue of incentives in transboundary water pollution control, nor do they consider dynamic changes in the behavior of local actors. Multiple administrative boundaries and multiple actors are spanned in the middle route of China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP-MR) making it an ideal case for applying the theory of neoliberal environmentality to examine the governance of transboundary water pollution, as it provides a lens to carefully observe how incentive coordination as a techne of neoliberal environmentality shapes the behavior of local actors to improve water quality. By constructing a baseline scenario, an eco-compensation scenario, and an incentive-coordination scenario, this paper provides a differential game modeling approach to examine and compare the behavioral differences of local actors under different scenarios, and to understand the benefits distribution mechanism under Chinese non-democratic and non-western system. The findings demonstrate that incentive coordination for transboundary water pollution control has the same political and economic roots as neoliberal environmentality. Moreover, compared to eco-compensation modeled as a leader-follower game, incentive coordination as a social planner optimization makes local actors’ interests more compatible with improving water quality, and thus is more similar to the voluntary transactions envisaged by PES. Finally, the neoliberal incentive structure constructed by incentive coordination for transboundary water pollution control can help to improve the effectiveness of water pollution control under the existing eco-compensation systems that rely on command-and-control instruments.
... [43][44][45] For example, in China, water loss from the South-North Water Transfer Project was around 9 × 10 8 m 3 per year, furthermore, after the construction of the three Gorges Reservoir in 2003, the annual and seasonal evaporation demonstrated a significant increasing trend during the period 1958-2008. 46,47 The above-mentioned studies improved our understanding of the influence of climate change and human activities on runoff changes during the past decades regionally and globally which are necessary to plan for future water resource management and ecological restoration. In addressing these issues, several approaches have been applied to detect the impact of climatic factors and human activities on runoff changes, such as hydrological modeling, climate elasticity, the decomposition method, the hydrological sensitivity method and the time trend method. ...
The purpose of this study is disclosing water resources risk influenced by climate extremes and human activities and therefore to propose management strategy in river basins (Lancang river and Jinsha rivers) in Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China. In this study, the approach of slope changing ratio of cumulative quantity (SCRCQ) was introduced to separate the contributions of climate change and human activities to runoff change, and proposed a conceptual model to secure management strategy under implications of changing environment, based on those datasets including observation climate and runoff data, satellite remote sensing images (MODIS and Landsat) and observed land use data. Through this investigation, the following results were achieved. Firstly; the annual average runoff exhibited non-significant decreasing trend from upstream to downstream over Lancang and Jinsha rivers with change rate -26.3mm/10-year, the runoff had a sharp decrease in the droughted years especially in 1984, 2006 and 2009 by 26%, 28% and 24%, respectively in Jiajiu station. Secondly; the cropland decreased by 803 Km2 and forestland increased 423 Km2 which finally result in a significant decline on runoff by change rate was -15mm/year (4%) and -71mm/year (8%) over Lancang and Jinsha river basins, respectively from 2000 to 2010. Thirdly; the average observed runoff in “pre-dam” period (1980-1992) increased by 7% in “post-dam” period (1993-2015). Improving the weather modifications and water-saving technology can save the water resources in the rainy seasons to relief the drought in the dry seasons, further, applying a comprehensive assessment model to select the plant species in ecological restoration areas, which finally have implications for environmental protection, water resources management and ecological restoration in the southwest of China’s rivers.
... The Eastern (ER) and Middle (MR) routes were operating by December 2014. The Western Route (WR) is still being planned (Ma et al., 2016). The SNWTP connects the Yangtze, Huaihe, Yellow and Haihe river basins (Figure 1), and eventually form a water grid (Ministry of Water Resources, 2002). ...
China’s water governance not only involves highly technical interventions from the government but also reflects selected features of neoliberalization. Market and government interventions coexist, making the notion “authoritarian neoliberalization” a useful vantage point from which to understand water governance in China. Thus, this paper assesses the practices of water governance from the perspective of authoritarian neoliberalization by using the case of China’s South-North Water Transfer Project First, China’s water governance practices contain elements of neoliberalization, including marketization, commodification, and privatization. Second, China’s water governance also has authoritarian features that, combined with neoliberal elements, form an authoritarian neoliberalization that is a selective and adaptable expression of neoliberalism. Third, the Chinese Communist Party claims that effective water governance is a manifestation of its care for people’s well-being and is, therefore, a source of the political legitimacy of the Party. Nonetheless, authoritarian neoliberalization is officially regarded as merely a useful, practical instrument rather than an ideology to be pursued. The interpretation of authoritarian neoliberalization in this paper’s case study of water governance in China’s SNWTP expands existing understandings of variegated neoliberalization.
... [43][44][45] For example, in China, water loss from the South-North Water Transfer Project was around 9 × 10 8 m 3 per year, furthermore, after the construction of the three Gorges Reservoir in 2003, the annual and seasonal evaporation demonstrated a significant increasing trend during the period 1958-2008. 46,47 The above-mentioned studies improved our understanding of the influence of climate change and human activities on runoff changes during the past decades regionally and globally which are necessary to plan for future water resource management and ecological restoration. In addressing these issues, several approaches have been applied to detect the impact of climatic factors and human activities on runoff changes, such as hydrological modeling, climate elasticity, the decomposition method, the hydrological sensitivity method and the time trend method. ...
The purpose of this study is disclosing water resources risk influenced by climate extremes and human activities and therefore to propose management strategy in river basins (Lancang river and Jinsha rivers) in Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China. In this study, the approach of slope changing ratio of cumulative quantity (SCRCQ) was introduced to separate the contributions of climate change and human activities to runoff change, and proposed a conceptual model to secure management strategy under implications of changing environment, based on those datasets including observation climate and runoff data, satellite remote sensing images (MODIS and Landsat) and observed land use data. Through this investigation, the following results were achieved. Firstly; the annual average runoff exhibited non-significant decreasing trend from upstream to downstream over Lancang and Jinsha rivers with change rate -26.3mm/10-year, the runoff had a sharp decrease in the droughted years especially in 1984, 2006 and 2009 by 26%, 28% and 24%, respectively in Jiajiu station. Secondly; the cropland decreased by 803 Km2 and forestland increased 423 Km2 which finally result in a significant decline on runoff by change rate was -15mm/year (4%) and -71mm/year (8%) over Lancang and Jinsha river basins, respectively from 2000 to 2010. Thirdly; the average observed runoff in “pre-dam” period (1980-1992) increased by 7% in “post-dam” period (1993-2015). Improving the weather modifications and water-saving technology can save the water resources in the rainy seasons to relief the drought in the dry seasons, further, applying a comprehensive assessment model to select the plant species in ecological restoration areas, which finally have implications for environmental protection, water resources management and ecological restoration in the southwest of China’s rivers. Keywords: Water resources management, Climate change, Lancang river, Jinsha river, Human activities, Dam construction.
... While these studies do point to the far-reaching and unequal social, economic, political, and environmental effects of the SNWTP, particularly in source regions, their focus is the power struggles embedded in the SNWTP. The second line of enquiry concerns the SNWTP's physical impacts, primarily the modelling or direct measurement of hydrological impacts (see Ma et al., 2016;Webber et al., 2015;Yan et al., 2012;Ye et al., 2015) and pollution flows (Zhang et al., 2018). There is limited dialogue between those undertaking such approaches, and as a result, no integrated account of the geographic implications, both human and physical, of this massive interbasin transfer. ...
China's South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) is a vast and still expanding network of infrastructure and institutions that moves water from the Yangtze River and its tributaries to cities in North China. This article aims to assess the SNWTP's impacts by beginning to answer seven questions about the project: How is the management of the SNWTP evolving? What are the problems to be resolved when managing SNWTP water within jurisdictions? What are the status and management of water quality in the SNWTP? What are the consequences of resettlements caused by the SNWTP? How is increased water supply affecting regional development? Is the SNWTP achieving its stated environmental goals? What are the sustainability credentials of the SNWTP? Drawing on primary and secondary data, the article demonstrates both that the opportunities and burdens characterising the project are highly uneven and that management systems are evolving rapidly in an attempt to enforce strict water quality targets. Furthermore, while the SNWTP may be helping to resolve groundwater overexploitation in Beijing, it is highly energy intensive, raising questions about its sustainability. Our analysis highlights the need to continue to interrogate the socio‐economic, environmental, and political implications of such schemes long after they are officially completed.
... The Middle Route (SNWTP-MR) transfers water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, on the Han River (a tributary of the Yangtze River) to Beijing through newly built canals. A Western Route (SNWTP-WR) is planned (Ma et al., 2016). The entire SNWTP will connect the Yangtze, Huai, Yellow and Hai rivers, affecting almost onethird of China's territory (Zhang et al., 2009). ...
This paper explores the relationship between rescaling and the neoliberalization of water governance in the South-North Water Transfer Project. It demonstrates that the Chinese government has selectively adopted some neoliberal tools while rejecting others and dismissing the ideology of neoliberalism. These elements of neoliberalism are sometimes associated with the rescaling of water governance upward, downward, outward and inward. Rescaling has evolved expediently rather than through planned design, reflecting both the exigencies of practical problems and the legacies of bureaucratic power struggles. Market-friendly reforms enable more actors to bring environmental interests into state and market institutions, to form a closed network with policy-makers. The distinctive conflict between the actual existing selective neoliberalization and official discourses of anti-neoliberalization reflect the particularities of neoliberalization in China's hydro-politics.
... This program can work effectively at improving the water quality and dilute the pollutant and algae by enhancing the water exchange in part of this lake (Jia et al., 2008). At present, the South-to-North Water Transfer Project in China is the largest water conservancy project in the world and aims at tackling with the water shortage in the northern region (Ma et al., 2016). This project optimized the water allocation by transferring the water from the south to the water-deficient zone in the north through the east, the middle and the west routes, of which the total length was 4350 km and the quantity of transferred water was expected to 448 billion m 3 per year (Huang and Yi Niu, 2015). ...
Ecological water replenishment is an effective approach to the wetlands suffering water shortage. However, optimizing the replenishment is a tough problem, considering local flow pattern, water exchange and environmental crisis. Therefore, determining the inlet position and the flow rate of water diversion remains an interesting and important topic. This study developed an applicable and reliable method to identify the preferable inlet location and inflow rates of the transferred water, which considers the influence of the factors on environmental risks in receiving water bodies based on numerical results using the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) in both Lagrangian and Eulerian frameworks. An environmental risk assessment system with comprehensive utilization of water age was established. The Water Transfer Project for the Baiyangdian Lake from the Yellow River is a representative and well-known water replenishment event in China, which served as a case study. The results show that under the static and NNE wind conditions, the north open inlet is a suitable inlet position, while the south one is preferable under the SSW wind condition. Considering the environmental risk of the water transfer, it indicates that higher inflow rate would bring less environmental risk generally and the optimal inflow rate is 20 m3/s, regardless of the wind conditions and the inlet position. The methods aforementioned played a vital role in optimizing the inlet position of water delivery and selecting the optimal plan of the recharge rate. It could provide a useful reference for ecological restoration and a guarantee for sustainable development of wetlands.
... Despite its usefulness, that is to say, increase water supply for agricultural, residential, commercial, hydropower, and other demands, the implementation of water transfer projects has always been an emotional and controversial issue. One of the main reasons is water loss during the process (Ma et al. 2016), which mainly includes evaporation, seepage, bank storage and those impacts mentioned above. ...
The difference in water distribution around the world has generated a gap between water for needs and water resources availability. Most regions such as the Middle East, some part of Asia, North Africa have been suffering from it.
... Despite its usefulness, that is to say, increase water supply for agricultural, residential, commercial, hydropower, and other demands, the implementation of water transfer projects has always been an emotional and controversial issue. One of the main reasons is water loss during the process (Ma et al. 2016), which mainly includes evaporation, seepage, bank storage and those impacts mentioned above. ...
Waterfront is a land or a dock area. It is located directly on a body of water such as a river, lake or ocean. It exists in many countries in the world. Concerning lake, the waterfront has a strong connection with the water body whereby it shares its water. The formation set by the waterfront lake and the external rivers constitutes a system in the environment.
... Despite its usefulness, that is to say, increase water supply for agricultural, residential, commercial, hydropower, and other demands, the implementation of water transfer projects has always been an emotional and controversial issue. One of the main reasons is water loss during the process (Ma et al. 2016), which mainly includes evaporation, seepage, bank storage and those impacts mentioned above. ...
It is well known the various uses of water in our society. Water has played a significant role during the development of human society (Liu et al. 2017). About 71% of the earth’s surface is water-covered (The USGS Water Science School 2016). However, water is unevenly distributed. During the last three decades, the Chinese economy has experienced the fastest growth among major nations, and it is now ranked second in the world (Liu et al. 2013).
... Despite its usefulness, that is to say, increase water supply for agricultural, residential, commercial, hydropower, and other demands, the implementation of water transfer projects has always been an emotional and controversial issue. One of the main reasons is water loss during the process (Ma et al. 2016), which mainly includes evaporation, seepage, bank storage and those impacts mentioned above. ...
We all know that water is essential for life, but its access is still much more difficult depending on our geographic positions. Some areas are relatively dry, and there is about 80% of humans who live in a state of water insecurity (Wilson et al. 2017).
... The middle route (MR) draws water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the middle and upper reaches of the Han River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze River, and delivers water to Beijing through new trunk channels. The west route seeks to transfer water from tributaries of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, but it is still in the planning stage due to complex terrain and ecological issues (Ma, et al., 2016). The entire SNWTP is to connect the four catchments of the Yangtze River, Huai River, Yellow River and Hai River from south to north and eventually form a water grid featuring "four horizontals and three verticals" (Ministry of Water Resources, 2002) in China. ...
... Another way to relieve water resources stress in northern China is the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) (Ma et al., 2016). On December 12, 2014, the water system of the middle line of SNWTP begun to convey 9.5 billion m 3 water per year. ...
During the last two decades, MBR applications in China grow exponentially with the first pilot test of 10 m3/d in 1999 and the first application with capacity of 110,000 m3/d commissioned in 2009. It is critical to examine the drivers of MBR applications in China, which can provide sound scientific basis for future development of MBR applications. This study summarized the historical development of MBR applications and analyzed the driving forces by survey, literature review and interviews with MBR suppliers. The results showed that: (1) technical advantages of MBR and public policy related to water resources and environment promoted MBR beyond lab and pilot test into wide commercial applications in China; (2) petrochemical industry needs for wastewater treatment and reuse promoted medium-scale MBRs as public policy and regulation on water resources and environment tightens; (3) when the breakthrough of capacity of a single project above 10 thousand m3/d, the Green Olympic Games and Asian Games and tightening effluent regulations in environmentally sensitive areas incentivized MBR applications; and (4) the emergence of 100,000 m3/d MBR was mainly stimulated by water resources stress. Water resources stress and public policy related on resources and the environment are the primary driving forces in the last several decades. The future drivers of MBR applications in China appear to be decreasing operation cost.
... The middle route (MR) draws water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir in the middle and upper reaches of the Han River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze River, and delivers water to Beijing through new trunk channels. The west route seeks to transfer water from tributaries of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, but it is still in the planning stage due to complex terrain and ecological issues (Ma et al., 2016). The entire SNWTP is to connect the four catchments of the Yangtze River, Huai River, Yellow River and Hai River from south to north and eventually form a water grid featuring "four horizontals and three verticals" (Ministry of Water Resources, 2002) in China. ...
Due to the construction and operation of China’s South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), it is necessary to conduct broader research on the underlying trends and factors of the water-use performance in the SNWTP’s cities from the perspective of “resource-economy-environment” system. This paper attempts to identify the optimal paths and measures for improving the water-use performance as measured by the Luenberger productivity indicator and its decomposition. The results show that sewage discharge, free-of-charge water use and leakage are the crucial variables that constitute major contributions to the overall inefficiency value associated with urban water use in the SNWTP. The static efficiencies of water consumption indicate better performance of the cities of the middle route if opposed to those of the eastern route. The results suggest that the cities that receive water from both of eastern and middle routes, have better performance in water use than other cities, while the static efficiency in the other water-consuming areas on the eastern and middle routes do not differ in this regard. The results also indicate that the water-use productivity for the SNWTP follows a downward trend during 2006-2014.
... Mayan reservoir (latitude 40 ° 19 '~ 41 ° 31', longitude 115 ° 25 '~ 117 ° 33') is the final water receiving area of the middle route of South-to-North water transfer project [9], [10]. The evolution and development of the aquatic ecosystem in this reservoir is not only related to ecological environment health, but also to the urban water supply security in Beijing [11], [12]. ...
The South-to-North water diversion impacts on microbial community niche were investigated in the water receiving area. In this paper, the community structure, niche breadth and overlap of the dominant genus were determined to approach the distribution features of microbes and the community changes in Miyun Reservoir. Our results showed that before water transfer, the main bacteria phylum was Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. The niche breadth range (OMI value) of dominate bacteria genus was 0.01~0.54, and the tolerance value range was 0.55~4.56. After water transfer, Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia were the dominate phylum. The niche breadth range of dominate bacteria genus was 0.00~0.38, and the tolerance value range was 0.55~4.56. It indicated that after water diversion, the relative abundance of the Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia increased significantly (p<0.05), and the ecological niche of the genus Candidatus Methylacidiphilum, Chitinophagaceae and OM27 clade was significantly differentiated (p<0.05). The niche overlap results suggested that the inter-species niche competition becomes more intense after the water transfer, which reflected the different utilization ability of each bacteria genus in the new aquatic environment of the Miyun Reservoir.
... The Middle Route starts at the DJK Reservoir on the Han River, the Yangtze's longest tributary, and began to divert water through a new canal in December 2014. The planned Western Route would divert water from upper Yangtze River tributaries, but has not emerged from the planning phase because of complicated terrain and ecological concerns (Ma et al., 2016). After the construction of Middle Route, the maximum impounded level of the DJK Reservoir increased from 157 m to 170 m, enlarging its maximum water surface area from 813 km 2 to 1183 km 2 . ...
This article examines the planning, implementation and effects of resettlement for the Danjiangkou Dam Heightening Project. In the process of planning, the local government took full account of the long-term development of resettlers. In the process of implementation, resettlers could obtain compensation, subsidy, follow-up support and counterpart support. Their living and production conditions greatly improved after resettlement. The following factors contributed to successful resettlement: a development model of industry supporting agriculture; commitment of the central government; adequate funding; sound organizational systems; efficient government management mechanisms at various levels; and the favourable geographical location of the resettlement site.
Nutrient levels in the artificial channel constructed for the Middle Route Project are significant indicators of water quality safety and aquatic ecological integrity for this large, inter-basin scheme. However, the distribution and transport of nutrients along the channel were poorly understood. Based on a time-series dataset as well as mass balance and material flow analysis methods, the water and nutrient transport fluxes in the Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project were identified in this study. The results indicate that the nutrient concentrations varied considerably with time, but there was no significant difference among the 30 stations of the main channel. Seasonal temperature difference was the major factor in the large fluctuations of water quality indicators over time. The nutrient loadings varied with the water volume outputs from the main channel to the water-receiving cities. Atmospheric deposition was an important source of nutrients in the main channel, accounting for 9.13%, 20.6%, and 0.635% of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur input from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, respectively. In 2021, a net accumulation of 988 tons of N, 29 tons of P, and 2,540 tons of S, respectively, were present in the main channel. The increase of these external and internal nutrient loadings would cause water quality fluctuation and deterioration in some local sections of the main channel. Our study quantified the spatial and temporal patterns of nutrient transport in the Middle Route and revealed the ecological effects on the aquatic environment, assisting authorities on the project to develop effective water conservation strategies.
A comparative analysis of co-existing invasive and native wetland plants is a practical approach to exploring exotic plant invasiveness. Spartina alterniflora is an invasive C4 grass, prevalent in China's coastal wetlands and other parts of the world, posing a risk to the hydrological cycle. While the crop coefficient Kc and evaporative water loss of the invasive S. alterniflora are still considerably unexplored, we utilized field measurements and a modeling technique to evaluate water loss to Evapotranspiration ET in marshes with S. alterniflora and P. australis. Changes in surface resistance, canopy height, and the technique used to calculate net radiation from incoming solar radiation have all been shown to influence the Penman–Monteith methodology for estimating ET. Overall, S. alterniflora surpassed P. australis in leaf area index LAI, ET, crop coefficient Kc, peak net photosynthetic rate, and growing season. Daily ET values in both plants ranged from 0.98 to 6.35 mm/day and 1.91 to 8.16 mm/day during the monitoring period. According to regression analysis, the key driving factors of ET from both plant communities throughout the growing season are net radiation, soil moisture, relative humidity, air temperature, and surface temperature. These findings highlight the necessity of precisely determining these parameters based on site-specific data instead of depending on empirical models developed mainly for crops and forests. Given the mean ET rates found in this study, S. alterniflora invasion in China currently accounts for ~4.3 × 10⁶ m³ day⁻¹ of water loss to ET, posing a severe threat to the availability of water resources in China's wetlands. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the link between plant invasiveness and water loss in wetlands, offering stakeholders a benchmark for achieving future goals and plans related to the utilization of wetland water resources worldwide.
In jiangxi province, china, a new river will be excavated in the southern part of Qinglan Lake to drainage the main flow of Fuhe River into the Lake to improve the local flood prevention and navigation problems. A physic model is established to analyze the changes of flow characteristics under different engineering schemes. The research shows that water level decreases 1.91m, flow velocity of the upstream increases to 4.83 m/s, under P=5% River flood, which means the diversion engineering can significantly relieve the local flood pressure, but increase the scouring risks of wading buildings such as piers and embankments. Then the further optimization study shows that scheme 3 not only reduced the engineering quantity, but also decreased velocity increase rate from 61% to 48%.
Water stable isotopes have extensive applications in the study of riverine hydrological process, in particular, isotopic enrichment occurring along flow direction can be used as an indicator to estimate river surface evaporation. However, this application is difficult in natural rivers due largely to complex water exchange along river channel. China’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) is the largest artificial river designed to divert water from south to north through its enclosed, long span open canal, therefore providing a practice to estimate river surface evaporation by using isotope method. In this paper, we carried out hydrometeorological surveys and sampled canal water along the Middle Route of SNWDP (MRP) in two seasons, July 2018 and April 2019, for δ¹⁸O and δ²H measurement, then simulated the isotopic enrichment in canal water by using Craig-Gordon (C-G) evaporation model. We found clear increasing trend in heavy isotopes along the long span canal from head water to the end, resulting from evaporation enrichment. We used C-G evaporation model to estimate evaporation ratio E/V of canal water. Results show a ratio of evaporation loss of 2.54%~3.73% in July 2018 and 1.66%~2.39% in April 2019. We also found obvious seasonal differences existed in canal water isotopes, evaporation enrichment and the CWEL (canal water evaporation line), in association with more intensive evaporation in summer. Some large isotope fluctuations along the canal are mostly related to rainfall events, altering the canal water isotope signal. Our result in this study highlights the potential for water isotopes in the application of inter-basin water resources management, in particular, with increasing stress from water shortage and anthropogenic impact.
Since its implementation in 2015, the Middle Route of the South‐to‐North Water Diversion Project (MR‐SNWDP) has transferred an average of 45 billion cubic meters of surface water per year from the Yangtze River in southern China to the Yellow River and Hai River Basin in northern China, but how that supply is able to cope with droughts under different scenarios has not been explored. In this study, using the water demand for 2020 as the guaranteed water target, a Water Evaluation and Planning system was used to simulate available water supplies in Beijing under different drought scenarios. In the case of a single‐year drought, without the MR‐SNWDP, Beijing’s water shortage ratio was 16.7%; with the MR‐SNWDP, this ratio reduced to 7.3%. In the case of a multi‐year drought, without the MR‐SNWDP, Beijing’s water shortage ratio was 25.3%; with the MR‐SNWDP, this ratio reduced to 7.4% and domestic water supply was improved. Our research suggests that to prepare for multi‐year drought in the Beijing area, the SNWDP supports increased supplies to the region that would mitigate drought effects. This study is, however, mostly focused on water supply provision to Beijing and does not comprehensively evaluate other potential impacts. Multiple additional avenues could be pursued that include replenishing groundwater, increasing reservoir storage, and water conservation methods. Further research is needed to explore the relative costs and benefits of these approaches.
This article investigates the energy intensity and related impacts of the Eastern Route of China's South-North Water Transfer Project, based on the concept of the water–energy nexus. It finds that from November 2013 to May 2017 a total of 2.35 billion kWh of energy were consumed to transfer 15.5 billion m3 water driven by a large-scale system of pumping stations. This energy production required 7.4 million m3 of virtual water and emitted 1.93 MtCO2e of carbon. An average water–energy nexus ratio of 0.05% indicates that transferring 100 m3 of water consumes 0.05 m3 of virtual water due to the electricity consumption of the Eastern Route's pumping stations. It is estimated that to transfer 7.3 billion m3 water by 2030, this mega project will consume 1.35 billion kWh of energy, 4.6 million m3 of virtual water and emit 0.94 MtCO2e of carbon. These findings and scenario analysis demonstrate that strategies are needed for mitigating the energy intensity of the Eastern Route, such as improved pumping efficiency, reduced water loss during water delivery, decreased water quotas, and promotion of other, less carbon-intensive water sources in destination provinces.
To alleviate water shortage, several water transfer projects have been constructed in China. To further develop the supply chain management of water resources, the Eastern and Central Routes of China's South-to-North Water Transfer Project are considered as two water suppliers. The two suppliers provide water for two distributors in northern China. Based on a two-stage Stackelberg game, we develop a chain-to-chain competition model in three alternating scenarios including under wholesale price contracts, two-part pricing contracts and mixed pricing contracts, and derive the optimal pricing and ordering strategies. We find that each water supply chain member can earn a higher profit under the two-part pricing contract with appropriate parameters compared to that under the wholesale price contract. When the competition is weak, the performance of the supply chain subsystem under the two-part pricing contract is better than that under the wholesale pricing contract. On the contrary, when the competition is strong, the performance of the supply chain under the two-part pricing contract is lower than that under the wholesale price contract. With the two-part pricing contract used for both water supply chains, the two suppliers are in the prisoners' dilemma. The study expands the theory of supply chain management under competition and provides insights for the sustainability of water resource management.
A two-region, spatial economic model is developed to explore the implications of interregional water transfers on household migration and the intraregional distribution of land between urban and agricultural use when there are agglomeration economies in urban production. A particular example is considered where an arid region lacks water resources but has differing levels of amenities and agricultural productivity relative to a water rich region. The conditions for the stability of both the dispersed and concentrated equilibria are found. Numerical simulations provide a graphical example of the set of stable equilibria in the parameter space. Finally, the model is calibrated using data on household consumption and agricultural production patterns in the US.
The middle route project South-to-North water transfer project s u m m a r y The coincidence of precipitation for an inter-basin water transfer project may determine the feasibility of the project and whether there is enough water to be diverted. The degree of coincidence statistically depends upon the spatial dependence of precipitation and can be measured by the multivariate probability distribution. A copula-based approach, which captures such dependence structure, is proposed to quantify the synchrony and asynchrony of precipitation for the middle route of South-to-North water transfer project in China. A test procedure is suggested for testing whether the selected copula is able to simultaneously measure the overall and tail dependencies of the observations. Goodness-of-fit tests indicate that the asymmetric trivariate Clayton copula is appropriate to model these dependencies of precipitation in different regions of the project. Combination frequencies of wet, dry and normal conditions and conditional probabilities for some extreme deficit rainfall events are calculated using the proposed procedure. The probability that is beneficial to water transfer is large enough to guarantee the amounts of water transferable, on the whole. But for some extreme deficit rainfall events, the possibility for water transfer would become very small.
The Tagus-Segura Transfer (TST), the largest water infrastructure in Spain, connects
the Tagus basin's headwaters and the Segura basin, one of the most water-stressed
areas in Europe. The need to increase the minimum environmental flows in the Tagus
River and to meet new urban demands has lead to the redefinition of the TST's
management rules, what will cause a reduction of transferable volumes to the Segura
basin. After evaluating the effects of this change in the whole Tagus-Segura system,
focusing on the availability of irrigation water in the Segura, the environmental flows in
the Tagus and the economic impacts on both basins; we propose an innovative twotranche
option contract that could reduce the negative impacts of the modification of
the Transfer's management rule, and represents an institutional innovation with respect
to previous inter-basin water trading. We evaluate this contract with respect to spot and
non-market scenarios. Results show that the proposed contract would reduce the
impact of a change in the transfer's management rule on water availability in the
recipient area.
Sustainable management of water for human uses and maintaining river health requires reliable information about the future availability of water resources. We quantified the separate and combined impacts of climate and land cover changes on runoff for the historical record and for modelled future scenarios in the upper Han River and Luan River, supply and demand zones respectively of the middle route of the South to North Water Transfer Project in China, the world's largest inter-basin water transfer project. We used a precipitation-runoff model, averaged multiple climate model predictions combined with three emissions scenarios, a combined CA-Markov model to predict land cover change, and a range of statistical tests. Comparing baseline with 2050: climate change would cause an average reduction in runoff of up to 15 % in the upper Han River and up to 9 % in the Luan River catchment; a scenario involving increased forest cover would reduce runoff by up to 0.19 % in the upper Han River and up to 35 % in the Luan River; a scenario involving increased grass cover would increase runoff by up to 0.42 % in the upper Han River and up to 20 % in the Luan River. In the lower Luan River, the mean annual flow after 1998 fell to only 17 % of that of the baseline period, posing a serious threat to river health. This was explained largely by extraction of surface water and groundwater, rather than climate and land use change.
Changes in the global water cycle can cause major environmental and socioeconomic impacts. As the average global temperature increases, it is generally expected that the air will become drier and that evaporation from terrestrial water bodies will increase. Paradoxically, terrestrial observations over the past 50 years show the reverse. Here, we show that the decrease in evaporation is consistent with what one would expect from the observed large and widespread decreases in sunlight resulting from increasing cloud coverage and aerosol concentration.
This study assesses evaporation losses from water reservoirs in the semi-arid Segura basin (south-east Spain), one of the most water stressed European catchments. These losses are evaluated from both the hydrologic and economic perspectives under different water availability scenarios that are based on water policy trends and climate change predictions.We take a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis, combining energy balance models to assess the effect of climate change on evaporation from water bodies, Class-A pan data and pan coefficients to determine evaporation loss on a regional scale, and non-linear mathematical programming modelling to simulate the economic impact of water use and allocation in the basin. Our results indicate that water availability could be reduced by up to 40 % in the worst-case scenario, with an economic impact in the 32–36 % range, depending on the indicator in question. The total annual evaporation loss from reservoirs ranges from 6.5 % to 11.7 % of the water resources available for irrigation in the basin, where evaporation from small reservoirs is more than twice that from large dams. The economic impact of such losses increases with water scarcity, ranging from 4.3 % to 12.3 % of the value of agricultural production, 4.0 % to 12.0 % of net margin, 5.8 % to 10.7 % of the irrigated area, and 5.4 % to 13.5 % of agricultural employment. Results illustrate the importance of evaporation losses from reservoirs in this region and the marked upward trend for future scenarios. Besides, they highlight the extent of the impact of climate change on future water resources availability and use in southern Europe.
The South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), if fully developed, could divert 40–50 km 3 /yr from the Yangtse basin to the North China plain, alleviating water scarcity for 300–325M people living in what even then will be a highly water-stressed region. Construction of the next stage, diverting up to 20 km 3 at a cost of about $17,000M (including $7000M in ancillary costs), is to start in 2002/3. A recent World Bank study suggests that the project is economically attractive. This conclusion has been disputed by the World Wildlife Fund (now the Worldwide Fund for Nature). This paper concludes that little confidence can be placed in either of these analyses. It therefore seeks to throw light on how the project fits within a broader regional and agricultural development setting. The project is hugely expensive, and would at the margin tend to preserve water in low value agriculture and require the resettlement of upwards of 300,000 people. On the other hand, the pace and scale of socio-economic change in China are without precedent, and adjustment problems on the North China plain are greatly exacerbated by water scarcity. Reallocation of water from irrigation to municipal and industrial uses or to the environment is socially divisive and in some instances physically impracticable. The transfer project would greatly alleviate these difficulties. It is these arguments (which are ultimately political and pragmatic), rather than those based strictly on economic or food security concerns, that make the Government's decision to proceed with the project fully understandable.
The over-exploited groundwater resources on the North China Plain have caused ecological problems, including lowering of the
groundwater table, enlarging the depression zone and land subsidence. The contingent valuation method, a technique that reveals
peoples’ preferences, is applied to measure the in situ value of groundwater in order to provide policy makers information
on protection and restoration of groundwater in the region. It was found that only 28% of households were willing to pay some
amount of money to preserve ground water. The estimated mean willingness to pay for each household was found to be only 1.26Yuan/m3 annually. The in situ non-use value of groundwater subject to over-exploitation was estimated to be 0.014Yuan /m3. These amounts are insignificant when compared to the cost of protecting and restoring the groundwater, which are several
hundreds times higher than the estimated willingness to pay. While some discrepancy was expected, the extent of this difference
was unexpected. Thus, it would appear that the contingent valuation method does not provide an adequate estimate of the in
situ value of groundwater on the North China Plain. It is hypothesized that one reason for this result may be the very low
income and education levels of respondents in this area. An integrated economic-ecological modeling technique is recommended
as an alternative option to the contingent valuation method in this case.
This study developed a generalised analytical framework that can be applied to integrating environmental sustainability aspects into economic development planning in the case of exploiting water resources through inter-basin water transfers (IBWT). The study developed and applied a multi-country ecological social accounting matrix (MC-ESAM) for Lesotho and SA to evaluate the ecological implications of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) and their consequent economic costs and benefits for the two countries. The study further used the developed MC-ESAM multipliers to analyse the impact of lost ecological services downstream the LHWP dams in Lesotho on the wellbeing of households directly affected by the project in Lesotho and the general economies of Lesotho and SA. The results revealed that while the LHWP has significant direct and indirect benefits in terms of social and economic development in Lesotho and SA, the project has serious unintended impacts on ecological resources and services, with deleterious wellbeing implications for populations residing within the reaches of the LHWP rivers and downstream the LHWP dams in Lesotho. The empirical analysis results showed relatively small impacts in general, but were significant for groups of people directly affected by the project in Lesotho. An important limitation of the empirical contributions of the study relates to the inability to measure and include in the analyses values of critical other ecosystem services of affected freshwater resources. Nevertheless, the study demonstrated the importance of integrated ecological economic accounting for comprehensive assessment of IBWT projects' impacts.
The future adequacy of freshwater resources is difficult to assess, owing to a complex and rapidly changing geography of water supply and use. Numerical experiments combining climate model outputs, water budgets, and socioeconomic information along digitized river networks demonstrate that (i) a large proportion of the world's population is currently experiencing water stress and (ii) rising water demands greatly outweigh greenhouse warming in defining the state of global water systems to 2025. Consideration of direct human impacts on global water supply remains a poorly articulated but potentially important facet of the larger global change question.
Habitat fragmentation is the primary cause of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, but its underlying processes and mechanisms remain poorly understood. Studies of islands and insular terrestrial habitats are essential for improving our understanding of habitat fragmentation. We argue that the Three-Gorges Dam, the largest that humans have ever created, presents a unique grand-scale natural experiment that allows ecologists to address a range of critical questions concerning the theory and practice of biodiversity conservation.
Water is a naturally circulating resource that is constantly recharged. Therefore, even though the stocks of water in natural
and artificial reservoirs are helpful to increase the available water resources for human society, the flow of water should
be the main focus in water resources assessments. The climate system puts an upper limit on the circulation rate of available
renewable freshwater resources (RFWR). Although current global withdrawals are well below the upper limit, more than two billion
people live in highly water-stressed areas because of the uneven distribution of RFWR in time and space. Climate change is
expected to accelerate water cycles and thereby increase the available RFWR. This would slow down the increase of people living
under water stress; however, changes in seasonal patterns and increasing probability of extreme events may offset this effect.
Reducing current vulnerability will be the first step to prepare for such anticipated changes.
The South-to-North Water Transfer (SNWT) Project of China is the largest of its kind ever implemented. Of its three routes (i.e., East, Middle and West), the middle one will transfer 14 billion m(3) of water annually from the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze and the water supplying area, to Beijing by 2030. Thus water quality in the 95,000 km(2) upper Han River basin is of great concern. A watershed management initiative has been implemented in the basin, and the ultimate objectives are to quantify basin's ecosystem functioning and to develop an integrated management system with respect to water resources conservation. Specifically, the program includes five activities: characterization of riparian ecosystems, detection of land use and land cover change, quantification of nutrient cycling of representative ecosystems, determination of spatial and temporal variations of water quality, and finally development of a watershed management system for water conservation. This article provides the justifications of the watershed management initiative and the initial results are comprehended with respect to the water conservation in the Han River basin.
A review lecture with about 50 references concerning turbulent transport, energy balance and biological aspects.Discussion, pp 87-92. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission)
In order to know the evaporating capacity of channel and lake reservoir water surface along Jiangsu section of the Eastern Route of South-to-North Water Diversion Project(JERP), its power loss of the pumping stations and its influence on water transfer efficiency of JERP, evaporating capacity calculating models and formulae which are suitable for the areas where JERP locates were analyzed and compared. Evaporating capacity of every channel and lake reservoir water surface along JERP was calculated by integral. Both spacial and temporal distribution characteristics of the evaporating capacities of water surface were analyzed. The discharge loss and input power loss of every step pumping stations caused by water surface evaporation were calculated. The effect of water surface evaporation on water transfer efficiency of JERP was computed and analyzed. The results show that the evaporating capacities of water surfaces gradually increase from south to north and north-west, and are largest in summer and least in winter. The annual average evaporating capacity of water surfaces amounts to 862.2 mm. The evaporation water volume losses of Hongze Lake, Luoma Lake, Baima Lake and water transfer channels are 77.7%, 13.3%, 3.6% and 5.4% of the total evaporation water volume loss respectively.17.46% of the water pumped by source pumping stations loses for evaporation, which causes water transfer efficiency of JERP to decrease by 10.33%, and that is a considerable energy loss. Pipelines could be considered for the great water transfer projects which could avoid evaporating capacity of water surface.
Better local water management is the way to keep pace with escalating demands, not pumping water across the country, warn Jon Barnett and colleagues.
The Central Arizona Project (CAP) has been supplying Colorado River water to Central Arizona for roughly 25 years. The CAP canal is operated remotely with a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. Gate-position changes are made either manually or through the use of automatic controls with a controlled-volume approach. In this paper, the writers examine the potential application to the CAP canal of water-level difference control, a new feedback canal-control method. The main objective of this method is to keep the downstream water-level errors in equal pools. The control model is a multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) system, and the controller is solved as a linear quadratic regulator (LQR). A feed-forward routine called volume compensation was also used to route the flow changes. Simulation results show that this method is stable and can deal with different kinds of changes relatively quickly. For small changes, the water-level difference controller can operate well even without routing flow changes. For large flow changes, the water-level difference control alone can take up to 12 h to stabilize all water levels. Performance is greatly improved with the inclusion of the feed-forward routine. This new method provides better water-level control than the current method, and it is much less sensitive to errors in gate calibration. The writers suggest that this water-level difference-control method is quite promising, especially for large canals.
Hanjiang river is the longest river in Yangtze river basin, having high economic importance to China for its economically exploitable hydropower and potential water resources. In an attempt to satisfy China’s economic and social development needs, the Chinese government has established cascade dams and four relative water diversion projects in Hanjiang river, which aims at transferring water from south (Hanjiang river) to north (water-stricken areas). However, there are increasing eco-environmental concerns associated with the establishment and development of cascade hydropower. In this study, the opportunities and eco-environmental influences related to Hanjiang river’s cascade hydropower development are explored and then recommendations are put forward to minimize the potential impacts. The implementation of vigorous projects related to hydropower and water diversion has an important role to play in solving flood, energy and water shortage problems. In addition, the eco-environmental and socio-economic impacts on the middle and downstream and its diversion can be relieved to some degree in the area. However, the establishment of projects can cause several impacts on the local eco-environment. First, Danjiangkou reservoir construction can cause change in water flow, water bloom, soil erosion in the river basin. Second, it can directly lead to the decrease of 10.5 billion cubic meters of water in the middle- and downstream areas, threatening the local supply of drinking water and influencing farming irrigation and industrial production. Finally, the construction of cascade hydropower dams can change the water form and fish stocks may reduce threatening eco-environment security and environmental geology.
Observed pan evaporation data from 588 stations covering the entire territory of China are analysed using the modified Mann–Kendall trend test method. Fuzzy C-Means clustering is conducted for regionalization. Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify the principal influencing factors. Results indicate that: (1) the entire country can be categorized into three parts, i.e. A: southern, central and southwestern China; B: northwestern China and C: strip zone extending from northeastern to southwestern China; (2) significant decreasing pan evaporation can be identified in southern, central, southwestern, eastern and northwestern China. Stations with significant increasing pan evaporation seem to be scattered sporadically across China. Besides, the strip zone extending in the NE-SW direction is dominated by significant and also nonsignificant increasing trends of pan evaporation and (3) sensitivity analysis indicates that relative humidity is the principal influencing factor for pan evaporation, especially in northwestern, northern and northeastern China. Generally, in northwestern, northern and northeastern China, relative humidity has an adverse relation with pan evaporation, implying pan evaporation paradox and also intensifying hydrological cycle in these regions. In southeastern China, particularly the middle and lower Yangtze River basin and the Pearl River basin, relations between pan evaporation and relative humidity are relatively complex, showing that other factors in addition to relative humidity can have impacts on pan evaporation changes, such as cloud coverage, temperature and aerosol concentration. Local features of aerodynamic and radiative drivers of the hydrological cycle and their regional responses to climate changes, and also different features of ground surface may play considerable roles in pan evaporation changes.
Water diversion causes changes in the downstream flow regime, which may intensify the crisis of water shortage. The effect of the diversion on water shortage depends on the volumes of water transferred and water demand of source area, the upstream inflow and the way the reservoir is operated. This paper reports the findings of a study to assess the impact of water diversion from Danjiangkou reservoir on middle and lower Hanjiang River, part of the source area of South-to-North Water Transfer Project, China. The risk evaluation model consists of four parts, including inflow generation, water demand, simulation, and performance evaluation. Thomas–Fiering model and Mont-Carlo method are utilized to simulate monthly reservoir inflow data and a 12-dimensional random vector is used to describe the 12-month water demand in middle and lower Hanjiang River. A reservoir simulation model is established for optimum operation of Danjiangkou reservoir. Several scenarios including different water diversion scales are run by the risk evaluation model, whose outputs provide valuable information for decision making.
Is the total evaporation from a wetland surface (including: open water evaporation, plant transpiration and wet/dry soil evaporation) similar, lower, or higher than evaporation from an open water surface under the same climatic conditions? This question has been the subject of long debate; the literature does not show a consensus. In this paper we contribute to the discussion in two steps. First, we analyse the evaporation from a wetland with emergent vegetation (Ea) versus open water evaporation (Ew) by applying the Penman–Monteith equation to identical climate input data, but with different biophysical characteristics of each surface. Second, we assess the variability of measured Ea/Ew through a literature review of selected wetlands around the globe.We demonstrate that the ratio Ea/Ew is site-specific, and a function of the biophysical properties of the wetland surface, which can also undergo temporal variability depending on local hydro-climate conditions. Second, we demonstrate that the Penman–Monteith model provides a suitable basis to interpret Ea/Ew variations. This implies that the assumption of wetland evaporation to behave similar to open water bodies is not correct. This has significant implications for the total water consumption and water allocation to wetlands in river basin management.
Two theoretical approaches to evaporation from saturated surfaces are outlined, the first being on an aerodynamic basis in which evaporation is regarded as due to turbulent transport of vapour by a process of eddy diffusion, and the second being on an energy basis in which evaporation is regarded as one of the ways of degrading incoming radiation. Neither approach is new, but a combination is suggested that eliminates the parameter measured with most difficulty-surface temperature-and provides for the first time an opportunity to make theoretical estimates of evaporation rates from standard meteorological data, estimates that can be retrospective. Experimental work to test these theories shows that the aerodynamic approach is not adequate and an empirical expression, previously obtained in America, is a better description of evaporation from open water. The energy balance is found to be quite successful. Evaporation rates from wet bare soil and from turf with an adequate supply of water are obtained as fractions of that from open water, the fraction for turf showing a seasonal change attributed to the annual cycle of length of daylight. Finally, the experimental results are applied to data published elsewhere and it is shown that a satisfactory account can be given of open water evaporation at four widely spaced sites in America and Europe, the results for bare soil receive a reasonable check in India, and application of the results for turf shows good agreement with estimates of evaporation from catchment areas in the British Isles.
Interbasin water diversion generates some of the largest controversies and deepest conflicts in water resources development. These transfers have become multi-disciplinary problems. The more water purposes served in a interbasin water transfer, the more complex the resolutions of problems are. Geomorphological, geological, and hydrological properties of diversion region are crucial factors in transfers. Interbasin transfers make the region an important planning unit. Controversies in transfers result from losses and damages in the basin of origin. Many large projects for water transfers around the world still await decisions on construction. Diversion projects now require long periods to study and large planning and design investments, with detailed studies of all transfer aspects, including environmental impacts. The compensation for losses in the basin of origin is important, though often it takes into account only the water uses but not others (recreation, instream water values, ecology, etc.). Controversies among basins and regions may create serious political divisions and infights in the state as well as among the states. In general, factors must be taken into account, including the prohibition of interbasin water transfers. Equity funds within the states may resolve some of the controversies. The role of governments may be to plan water resources development, create policies and strategies, and provide legislation. Regional water plans and their coordination by the state agencies may lead to a good compromise and a mutually-acceptable solution. Interbasin transfers may lead to very complex legal problems. Each of the three standard methods of conflict resolution—the administrative-legal, arbitration, and market decision (negotiation, contracts, compensation) has its place in resolving controversies.
China has started the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP; its magnitude is even greater than the Three Gorges Dam Project), to deliver about 45 billion m3 of water from the Yangtze River to the water starving North China Plain. Is the project needed given the multiple socioeconomic, engineering, and environmental challenges and controversies it is facing and the effects of demand management programs China has been implementing in recent years? This article, through the analysis of the water shortage problems in the North China Plain and the Yellow River basin, demonstrates that considering China’s current economic base, technological capacity, and income levels, the SNWTP, while facing multiple challenges, is still needed to relieve the water deficit problems in the North China Plain. However, the SNWTP is only a partial solution to North China’s chronic water shortage problem. China should continue to actively implement and enforce its demand management programs nationwide to ensure that its limited fresh water resources are used to meet the multiple needs of human societies and ecosystems in a socially responsible, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable way.
Drought and fresh water shortage are in the way of sustainable agriculture development in the North China Plain. The scarcity
of fresh water forces farmers to use shallow saline ground water, which helps to overcome drought and increase crop yields
but also increases the risk of soil salinization. This paper describes salt regimes and crop responses to saline irrigation
water based on field experiments conducted from October 1997 to September 2005. It was found that use of saline water causes
the ECe of the topsoil (0–100cm, Cv: 0.196∼0.330) to be higher and more variable than the subsoil (100–180cm, Cv: 0.133∼0.219).
The salt load rapidly increased, notably in the upper 80cm and especially during the season of October 1999 to June 2000.
It was concluded that the maximum soil depth to which the soil was leached during the wet season was about 150cm. The relative
yields of winter wheat could be ranked Fresh Sufficient (FS, 100%) > Fresh Limited (FL, 91.80%) > Saline Sufficient (SS, 91.63%)
> Saline Limited (SL, 88.28%) > Control (C, 69.58%) and for maize FS (100%) > FL (96.37%) > SS (93.05%) > SL (90.04%)> C (89.81%).
The best irrigation regime was Saline Limited for winter wheat and maize, provided rainfall is sufficient. The experiments
confirm that saline irrigation water appears to be economically attractive to farmers in the short term and ecological hazards
can still be controlled with proper leaching.
At standard weather stations the routine weather records usually available are air temperature, T (°C), solar radiation RS (MJ/m2/d), relative humidity, RH (%), and wind velocity, u (m/s). A simple algebraic formula, equivalent in accuracy to the Penman equation is derived for computing evaporation from readily available measured data. The derivation of the formula is based on simplifications made to the “standardized” form of the Penman equation. The two components of the standard Penman equation (radiation and aerodynamic) were computed indirectly from the available routine weather data using the standardized calculation procedure recommended by Shuttleworth [Shuttleworth, W.J., 1993. In: Maidment, D.R. (Ed.), Evaporation, McGraw-Hill, New York, pp. 4.1–4.53 (Chapter 4)] and Allen et al. [Allen, R.G., Pereira, L.S., Raes, D., Smith, M., 1998. Crop evapotranspiration: guidelines for computing crop water requirements. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper, 56, Rome, 300 pp]. In addition, another, more simplified formula, easy to use for routine hydrologic applications, is also developed. On the other hand, at many places reliable wind speed data are rarely available. For such cases, an expression, which does not require wind speed data, is proposed. The simplified formula for the Penman equation proposed to estimate potential evaporation from open-water without recourse to wind data is where RA (MJ/m2/d) is the extraterrestrial radiation. A simplified expression for the calculation of RA is also given. The simplicity of the formulas is demonstrated in a computational example applied for monthly climatic data. The performance of the new derived formulas was tested under various climatic conditions using a global climatic data set including monthly data as well as daily data obtained from a weather station. The new open water evaporation formulas were also adapted for calculating reference crop evapotranspiration.
At many places the only reliable climate measurements available are those of daily minimum screen temperature, daily maximum, rainfall and windspeed. However, even the temperatures alone are sufficient for estimating monthly mean lake evaporation E0, using the following simplified version of Penman's formula: , where T is the daily mean temperature (i.e. the average of the extremes), z is the elevation (m), Rs is the solar irradiance of the lake's surface, F stands for (1.0 − 8.7 × 10−5z), u is the windspeed at 2 m, and Td is the dewpoint temperature. Two new methods of estimating Rs are described, the more accurate being based on rainfall data, as proxy for the cloud which reduces extraterrestrial radiation. Td can be estimated from the daily extreme temperatures. The windspeed can be gauged from measurements nearby or at other times, since accuracy is not important. Errors of estimating monthly mean evaporation are consequently around 0.3 mm day−1 at Copenhagen. For annual evaporation at three lakes in the USA, estimates differ from measurements by 0.1, 0.4 and 0.1 mm day−1, respectively, but the errors of the measurements are uncertain. Estimates for a reservoir in Western Australia are closer to measurements by the Bowen-ratio method, than are water-balance measurements. On average, monthly estimates and Bowen-ratio measurements there differ by about 0.8 mm day−1, whilst averages over 2 years differ by 0.3 mm day−1.The annual range of monthly mean temperatures at a place is proportional to the latitude and to d0.2, where d (km) is the distance downwind of the ocean .
Using remotely sensed surface temperature to estimate the sensible heat flux over partial canopy covered surfaces, one faces the problem of how the bare soil and plant foliage temperatures contributing to the radiometric surface temperature are related to the turbulent transport of sensible heat across the surface-atmosphere interface. To solve this problem, several sensible heat models, using radiometric surface temperature, have appeared in the literature. In this study, using the observational data from three interdisciplinary field experiments [the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) Field Experiment (FIFE), Monsoon '90 and Washita '92, the performance of four models using average values of their parameters in predicting land surface sensible heat flux was evaluated. By analyzing the sensitivity of the models to common parameters and input variables, reasons for differences in the performances of the models and the potential to improve the agreement with observations have been ascertained. From the comparisons of modeled versus measured sensible heat flux for the different surfaces, the dual-source model in Norman et al. (1995) had the best agreement with its mean absolute percent difference (MAPD) values being similar to the observational accuracy (i.e., ∼ 20%). From the sensitivity analysis the model appears to have the greatest potential for operational applications since it requires relatively few parameters and is not very sensitive to the uncertainty in most of the model parameters. The single-source models in Kustas et al. (1989) and Troufleau et al. (1996) require accurate estimates of the surface roughness z0m and empirical relationships to account for differences between aerodynamic and radiometric temperature. Therefore, it may be difficult to improve their performance without some independent means of estimating the empirical coefficients and a reliable method for determining z0m. Estimates from the dual-source model in Lhomme et al. (1994) tend to produce the largest scatter with the observations. This may be related to the fact that the model is more sensitive to variations in most of the parameters common in dual-source models. In addition, its response to high surface-air temperature differences in the sensitivity analysis differs from all other models. Therefore, it may be more difficult to obtain reliable estimates from this model on an operational basis.
Knowing the rate of evaporation from surface water resources such as channels and reservoirs is essential for precise management of the water balance. However, evaporation is difficult to measure experimentally over water surfaces and several techniques and models have been suggested and used in the past for its determination. In this research, evaporation from a small water reservoir in northern Israel was measured and estimated using several experimental techniques and models during the rainless summer. Evaporation was measured with an eddy covariance (EC) system consisting of a three-dimensional sonic anemometer and a Krypton hygrometer. Measurements of net radiation, air temperature and humidity, and water temperature enabled estimation of other energy balance components. Several models and energy balance closure were evaluated. In addition, evaporation from a class-A pan was measured at the site. EC evaporation measurements for 21 days averaged 5.48 mm day−1. Best model predictions were obtained with two combined flux-gradient and energy balance models (Penman–Monteith–Unsworth and Penman–Brutsaert), which with the water heat flux term, gave similar daily average evaporation rates, that were up to 3% smaller than the corresponding EC values. The ratio between daily pan and EC evaporation varied from 0.96 to 1.94. The bulk mass transfer coefficient was estimated using a model based on measurements of water surface temperature, evaporation rate and absolute humidity at 0.9 and 2.9 m above the water surface, and using two theoretical approaches. The bulk transfer coefficient was found to be strongly dependent on wind speed. For wind speeds below 5 m s−1 the estimated coefficient for unstable conditions was much larger than the one predicted for neutral conditions.
The principles governing the application of the conceptual model
technique to river flow forecasting are discussed. The necessity for a
systematic approach to the development and testing of the model is
explained and some preliminary ideas suggested.
The accuracy of the predictions of distributed hydrological models must depend in part on the proper specification of flow pathways. This paper examines some of the problems of deriving flow pathways from raster digital terrain data in the context of hydrological predictions using TOPMODEL. Distributed moisture status is predicted in TOPMODEL on the basis of spatial indices that depend on flow path definition. The sensitivity of this index to flow path algorithm and grid size is examined for the case where the surface topography is a good indicator of local hydraulic gradients. A strategy for the case where downslope subsurface flow pathways may deviate from those indicated by the surface topography is described with an example application.
In semi-arid areas, crop growth is greatly limited by water. Amount of available water in soil can be increased by surface mulching and other soil management practices. Field experiments were conducted in 2005 and 2006 at Gaolan, Gansu, China, to determine the influence of ridge and furrow rainfall harvesting system (RFRHS), surface mulching and supplementary irrigation (SI) in various combinations on rainwater harvesting, amount of moisture in soil, water use efficiency (WUE), biomass yield of sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolour L.) and seed yield of maize (Zea mays L.). In conventional fields without RFRHS, gravel-sand mulching produced higher biomass yield than plastic-mulching or straw-mulching. In plastic-mulched fields, an increasing amount of supplemental irrigation was needed to improve crop yield. There was no effect of RFRHS without plastic-covered ridge on rainwater harvesting when natural precipitation was less than 5 mm per event. This was due to little runoff of rainwater from frequent low precipitation showers, and most of the harvested rainwater gathered at the soil surface is lost to evaporation. In the RFRHS, crop yield and WUE were higher with plastic-covered ridges than bare ridges, and also higher with gravel-sand-mulched furrows than bare furrows in most cases, or straw-mulched furrows in some cases. This was most likely due to decreased evaporation with plastic or gravel-sand mulch. In the RFRHS with plastic-covered ridges and gravel-sand-mulched furrows, application of 30 mm supplemental irrigation produced the highest yield and WUE for sweet sorghum and maize in most cases. In conclusion, the findings suggested the integrated use of RFRHS, mulching and supplementary irrigation to improve rainwater availability for high sustainable crop yield. However, the high additional costs of supplemental irrigation and construction of RFRHS for rainwater harvesting need to be considered before using these practices on a commercial scale.
Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-making
World Commission on Dams (WCD), 2000. Dams and Development: A New
Framework for Decision-making. Earthscan Publications, London.
Introduction of south to north water transfer project's plan
Construction and Administration Bureau of South to North Water Transfer Project,
Ministry of Water Resources of China (CAB-SNWTP), 2003. Introduction of
south to north water transfer project's plan. China Water Resour., 56-62 (In
Chinese).
One Year After the Officially Running of the Middle Route of South-North Water Transfer Project
- Hubei Daily
Hubei Daily (HD), 2015. One Year After the Officially Running of the Middle Route
of South-North Water Transfer Project (In Chinese) http://hbrb.cnhubei.com/
HTML/hbrb/20151212/hbrb2800583.html.
Analysis of the loss of water surface evaporation and its variation characteristics in Zhuzhuang Reservoir. South-to-North Water Transf
- J Y Zhao
Zhao, J.Y., 2014. Analysis of the loss of water surface evaporation and its variation
characteristics in Zhuzhuang Reservoir. South-to-North Water Transf. Water
Sci. Technol. 12, 147-150 (In Chinese with English abstract).
Composite geomembrane's anti-seepage application in SNWD
- C Y Wang
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- B Ma
- R G Jiang
Wang, C.Y., Yu, L.S., Ma, B., Jiang, R.G., 2009a. Composite geomembrane's
anti-seepage application in SNWD. Water Conserv. Sci. Technol. Econ. 15,
738-739 (In Chinese with English abstract).
Is the South-North Water Transfer Project Failed?
- Xinhua News
Xinhua News (XN), 2014. Is the South-North Water Transfer Project Failed? (In
Chinese) http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014-12/27/c 1113798357.htm.
Managing Water Resources in a Changing Physical and Social Environment, 007. IGU Home of Geography Publication Series
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He, C.S., Cheng, S.K., Luo, Y., 2007. Water diversions and china's water shortage
crisis. In: Robinson, P.J., Jones, T., Woo, M.K. (Eds.), Managing Water Resources
in a Changing Physical and Social Environment, 007. IGU Home of Geography
Publication Series, Rome, pp. 89-102.
Composite geomembrane’s anti-seepage application in SNWD
- Wang