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Drawing down our resources:

estimating the total appropriation of
water in China
Jiant ing Cao
Xia

, Yuanyuan Li

, Fuxin Shen

, Yiwei Chen

& Jun

General Inst it ut e of Wat er Resources and Hydropower Planning

and Design, Minist ry of Wat er Resources, PRC, Beij ing, China
b

Inst it ut e of Geographic Sciences and Nat ural Resources

Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beij ing, China
Version of record f irst published: 01 Oct 2012.

To cite this article: Jiant ing Cao, Yuanyuan Li, Fuxin Shen, Yiwei Chen & Jun Xia (2012): Drawing
down our resources: est imat ing t he t ot al appropriat ion of wat er in China, Wat er Int ernat ional,
37: 5, 512-522
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Water International
Vol. 37, No. 5, September 2012, 512522

Drawing down our resources: estimating the total appropriation

of water in China
Jianting Caoa* , Yuanyuan Lia , Fuxin Shena , Yiwei Chena and Jun Xiab
a
General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry of Water
Resources, PRC, Beijing, China; b Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources
Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Downloaded by [Jianting Cao] at 02:23 10 October 2012

(Received 24 September 2011; final version received 31 August 2012)

The authors estimate that people in China now use 33.8% of total evapotranspiration
and 80.5% of accessible runoff. They also project an increase in accessible runoff by
about 14% to 2030 through new dam construction and rehabilitation, while the population is likely to increase to 1.5 billion. Total human appropriation of runoff will
accordingly increase from 674 km3 to ca. 820 km3 . Appropriation of total renewable
fresh water is projected to increase from the present ca. 29% to 31.4%. In addition,
climate change is likely to exacerbate water stress in some areas.
Keywords: water resources; water balance; water shortage; environmental flows;
China

Introduction
China, with a huge population and high rate of economic growth, will face more serious
water resources challenges in meeting the needs of its increasing population and economic
development. In this paper, we estimate how much of Chinas renewable fresh water is
realistically accessible to humanity; what portion of this accessible supply is now used
directly by human-dominated systems; and by how much human access to fresh water is
likely to expand by 2030. This information can be used not only by water resource experts
to understand the present and future water resource situation in China, but can also assist
Chinas policy makers to devise and implement a water resource strategy to cope with
Chinas water problem.
Calculating Chinas water balance
Water balance estimates are derived from the interpolation of climatic, vegetation and soil
information for Chinas different water resource regions. We adopt the planning regionalizations of the National Assessment of Water Resources accomplished in 2008, wherein
the territory of China is divided into 214 level-III, 80 level-II and 10 level-I water resource
regions (Figure 1), based upon river systems and integrity of administration. Calculations
and statistics of precipitation, runoff, water supply, water use and so on, have all been made

*Corresponding author. Email: caojianting@giwp.org.cn

ISSN 0250-8060 print/ISSN 1941-1707 online
2012 International Water Resources Association
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2012.728945
http://www.tandfonline.com

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Songhuajiang Region

Liaohe Region
Northwest Rivers Region

Haihe Region
Yellow River Region
Huaihe Region

Southwest Rivers Region

Changjiang River Region

Southeast Rivers Region

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Pearl River Region

Figure 1. Ten level-I water resource regions in China.

for the period 19562000 at the scale of the level-III water resource region. This data has
been aggregated to provide the figures for higher levels and the entire country (Ministry of
Water Resources 2008).
Based on the 10 level-I water resource regions, the annual mean precipitation in
Chinas mainland was 6178.60 km3 , with an estimated annual runoff of 2774.10 km3
(for 19562000) (Figure 2). The different components of the terrestrial water cycle are
as follows.

Terrestrial renewable fresh water supply (RFWSland )

Generally the source of water on land is precipitation, so we assume the terrestrial renewable fresh water supply equals precipitation on land (Pland ). Since in the long run, soil
water storage can be assumed to remain constant, the terrestrial renewable fresh water supply (RFWSland ) can be subdivided into evapotranspiration from the land (ETland ) and runoff
to the sea (R). Because groundwater and surface water are often hydraulically connected,
we include soil infiltration and groundwater replenishment as part of the runoff component
(Equation 1). To sum up,
RFWSland = Pland = ETland + R.

(1)

Some 12,600 precipitation data observations in China were used to calculate RFWSland
and Pland . The precipitation in the level-III water resource regions was calculated by using
the rainfall Thiessen Method, according to the gauges within or adjacent to the water
resources region, then aggregated to level-II and water resource regions respectively.

The importance of evapotranspiration

Chinas total evapotranspiration (ET) was calculated by a water balance equation, assuming
constant water storage in the soil. Averaged over many years, evapotranspiration generally

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J. Cao et al.
RFWSland
(6178.6 km3/year)

Total runoff
(2774.1 km3/year)
Total evapotranspiration
on land
(3304.5 km3/year )

Remote flow
(671.1km3/year)

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Uncaptured floodwater
(1265.6 km3/year)

Geographically
and temporally accessible runoff (AR)
(837.4 km3/year)

Withdrawals (SW+GW)
[452.7+ 110.6 km3/year]
Human appropriation
of ET
[1116.8 km3/year (33.8%)]

Instream uses
[110.7km3/year]

Human appropriation of AR
[674km3/year (80.5%)]

Human appropriation of accessible RFWSland

[1790.8 km3/year (43.2%)]
Human appropriation of total RFWSland
[1790.8 km3/year (29.0%)]

Figure 2. Flow diagram analysing human appropriation of RFWSland in China.

Sources: Estimated on the basis of Ministry of Water Resources (2008) and National Bureau of
Statistics of China (2002).
Notes: RFWSland means the renewable terrestrial fresh water supply in China. ET means evapotranspiration. AR means accessible runoff. In total, about 12,600 items of meteorological station data
from 19562000 were employed to calculate the quantity of precipitation in the country. The quantity
of precipitation in every level-III water resource sub-region was first calculated and then aggregated
to level-II, level-II and the country respectively. Total runoff was calculated based on data from
1956 to 2000 from 3100 hydrological stations, and adjustments were made due to water use. Total
evapotranspiration was deduced from water balance. Human appropriations of ET were calculated
based on NPP of natural ecosystem and crop areas. AR was mainly aggregated from reservoir storage. Withdrawals of surface water (SW) and groundwater(GW) were aggregated from every level-III
water resource sub-region. The Tennant Method was used to roughly deduce the instream use of
water.

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515

is equal to the difference between precipitation and runoff. ET represents the water supply for all non-irrigated vegetation, including forests and woodlands, grasslands and
rain-fed crops.
To estimate the share of ET appropriated by human activity, we calculated the water
requirements of cropland, grazing land and trees harvested for fuel wood and timber
respectively. The crop water requirement in China was calculated by aggregating data on
daily crop evapotranspiration over the complete growing period. Based on different crop
patterns, planting areas and regional climate conditions, the total annual mean cropland ET
in China was 499.20 km3 during 19972001. To avoid double counting, we subtracted from
this estimate of ET on irrigated cultivated land (Table 1) the share attributable to irrigation
water, ca. 348.4 km3 .
To calculate the ET of the human-controlled grazing and forested land, we started with
the calculation of the fraction of their terrestrial net primary production (NPP) that humans
now control. The human-controlled NPP is material used directly by humans or used in
human-dominated ecosystems by communities of organisms that are different from those
in corresponding natural ecosystems. On the basis of Chinas different vegetation types,
their NPP per unit area (Tao et al. 2003), and the statistics on the areas of each of the major
vegetation types (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2002), the total biomass of major
vegetation was calculated (Table 1).
To arrive at the estimate of the average volume of ET required to produce a unit of
biomass, we divided total global terrestrial NPP of 132 109 metric tons per year by the
global terrestrial annual ET estimate of 70 000 km3 , yielding about 2 g of biomass per
kilogram of water (Gleick 1993, Postel et al. 1996). We then applied this global average to
the calculated value of human-controlled NPP (Table 1) of China. This was then adjusted
on the assumption, based on the situation in most Chinese cities, that half of the ET associated with lawns, parks and other human-occupied areas was supplied by irrigation. The
resulting calculation estimated that total human-controlled ET in China including cropland, grazing land, trees land, and other human-occupied areas amounts to ca. 1116.80 km3
of water. This represents 34% (1116.80 km3 /3304.50 km3 ) of the total terrestrial ET of
China. The remaining 66% must meet the water needs of all other land-based species and
natural communities.

Table 1.

Estimates of ET appropriated for human-dominated land uses in China.

Land type
Cultivated land
Forest land
Grazing land
Human-occupied area
(including urban lawns,
parks and others)
Total appropriated

Area
(thousand km2 )
1300
1589
3133
9
6031

Human-controlled
NPP (thousand
tons )

Humancontrolled
ET (km3 )

Proportion
of total ET
(%)

882,117
1,090,388
6106

150.8
426.7
537.8
1.6

4.6
12.9
16.3
0.0

1116.8

33.8

Notes: Adjusts for share of ET requirement met through irrigation. Human controlled NPP is material used
directly by humans or used in human-dominated ecosystems. Because the NPP of cultivated land vary greatly
with planting structures, and is different from those in corresponding natural ecosystems, a separate method was
employed to calculate ET for cultivated land.

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J. Cao et al.

Runoff
From a resource perspective, runoff is a measure of sustainable water availability. Runoff
is the source for human withdrawals of water for irrigated agriculture, industry and
municipalities, as well as for a wide variety of instream water uses, including the maintenance of aquatic life, navigation and the generation of hydroelectric power. The runoff of
each level-III water resource region was calculated based on the records of the hydrological
stations. As the discharge data cannot reflect actual human activities, the runoff, calculated
based on the records, was adjusted according to the water withdrawal, diversion and consumption within the region; the results were then aggregated to level-II and level-I regions
accordingly. The average annual total runoff for China was calculated as 2774.10 km3 for
19562000 (Ministry of Water Resources 2008).
In the first water resources assessment in the early 1980s in China, water resource
status was assessed using the 195679 series of precipitation and runoff (Hydrographic
Bureau, Ministry of Water Resources and Electricity, 1987). The national total runoff
(2774.10 km3 ) did not change a lot subsequently, but the distribution did, especially in the
north of China. In the four northern level-I water resource regions of the Liao, Hai, Yellow
and Huai rivers, the total runoff declined by 5.7%, while it increased by 2.7% in the level-I
southern regions of the Chang (Yangtze) River, the southeast rivers and the Pearl River.
The total runoff (2774.10 km3 ) was then adjusted to take account of geographic and
temporal inaccessibility, to estimate the portion that is realistically available for human
use. This is then referred to as accessible runoff (AR).
The distribution of Chinas runoff among the different water resource regions is highly
uneven, and corresponds poorly to the distribution of the population (Table 2). For example
north China, including the Yellow Huai and Hai River water resource regions, with 34.60%
of the total population of China, contains only 7.10% of total runoff, while the southwest
rivers region, with only about 1.60% of the population, contains 20.80% of runoff.
International obligations associated with Chinas runoff
The total river flow to other countries or to the boundary rivers, most of them located
in the southwest rivers region and the Songhuajiang Region, were calculated according to
monitored discharge data. We assumed 95% of the flows of these remote or boundary rivers

Table 2.

Share of runoff and population by the level-I water resource regions in China.

Level-I water
resources region

Total river runoff

(km3 /year)

Share of Chinas total

river runoff (%)

Share of Chinas total

population (%)

Songhua River
Liao River
Hai River
Yellow River
Huai River
Chang River
Southeast rivers
Pearl River
Southwest rivers
Northwest rivers
Totals

1491.9
498.2
370.4
706.6
916.3
9959.7
1993.3
4722.5
5775.0
1307.3
27741.3

5.4
1.8
1.3
2.5
3.3
35.9
7.2
17.0
20.8
4.7
100.0

5.1
4.3
10.0
8.7
15.9
35.1
5.4
11.7
1.6
2.2
100.0

Notes: Runoff data average for 19562000; population data were based on the year 2000.

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were inaccessible due to the absence of dams on their main channels and sparse population.
The combined average annual flow of these untapped rivers was 706.40 km3 /year, of which
671.10 km3 was inaccessible.
According to the UN Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International
Waters, the international obligations of flow delivery to neighbouring countries, such as the
Mekong River to downstream countries, are also fully met under present conditions where
little use is made of water within the upper reaches of the basin. Ecological flows and
downstream country water use are also considered in future water resource development.
Adjustments for temporal variability and extreme events
Geographically and temporally accessible runoff was analysed as follows. Irrigated agriculture, industry and households require that water be supplied when and where it is needed.
The degree of control over runoff is not easy to achieve, due to the temporal variation in
runoff. In China approximately 642.40 km3 of runoff (ca. 23.10% of the total) is renewable groundwater and base river flow. Of this, 18% is in the north (including the Songhua,
Liao, Hai, Yellow and Huai rivers, and the northwest rivers region), while 82% is in the
south (including the Chang River, the southeast rivers, the Pearl River, and the Southwest
Rivers regions). As long as abstraction does not exceed recharge, these sources can provide
a reliable renewable supply. The remaining runoff, 2131.70 km3 , is much harder to capture,
because most of it is in flood season. In China, 4060% of the mean annual runoff occurs
in summer (from June to August). In some areas, the percentage is higher, for example
7080% in the Hai River basin and northwest rivers.
Capturing flood runoff generally requires the construction of reservoirs. Over
84,000 reservoirs have been constructed in China during the past 50 years. Among these,
420 are large ones each with a capacity of more than 0.1 km3 , 2744 are medium ones each
with a capacity of between 0.01 and 0.1 km3 , and more than 80,000 are small ones each
with a capacity of less than 0.01 km3 . In the year 2000, the storage capacity of reservoirs
collectively totalled 575.40 km3 , of which 345 km3 , or about 60%, was actively used in the
regulation of river runoff. These reservoirs play important roles in controlling floods and
providing water for agricultural, domestic and industrial use. For instance, during 1998,
medium and large reservoirs in China retained 53.20 km3 of floodwater, saving some
200 cities from flood disaster.
Adding together the base flow and the surface runoff controlled by dams provides an
estimate of the total stable flow. Assuming that the geographically inaccessible runoff
is divided between base and flood flow in the same proportion as the total runoff, we
then reduced the estimate of total base flow by the share contained in the remote and
boundary rivers, 150 km3 (671.1 0.2310 km3 ), yielding an accessible base flow of
492.40 km3 (642.40 km3 150 km3 ). In addition to this, the estimated 345 km3 of runoff
regulated by existing reservoirs yielded an estimate of a present total accessible runoff of
837.40 km3 /year.
Human water use in China
Next we estimated the portion of accessible runoff now used by people in China. Three categories of water use are: (1) withdrawals or abstractions, water removed from rivers, lakes
and aquifers for human activities; (2) consumption, or withdrawals that are not available
for a second or third use because of their consumption during use processes; and (3) human
instream flow required for ecology and the like. Together, withdrawals and instream uses
provide a measure of human appropriation of runoff, so we estimated them separately here.

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Water withdrawals
Total water withdrawals in China were 563.3 km3 , aggregated from the water resource
regions. Of the total water withdrawals, surface water amounted to 452.7 km3 and
groundwater 110.6 km3 , about 80.4% and 19.6% respectively. Groundwater withdrawal
plays a significant role in water supply especially in north China, where groundwater
withdrawal was 38% of the total water supply. In the Hai and Liao level-I water resource
regions, groundwater withdrawal was 66% and 55% of total water withdrawal respectively.
Underground storage systems, which are usually recharged in the flood season by precipitation and surface water, have a huge capacity to adjust water withdrawal, so are significant
for water supply during periods of shortages.

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Agricultural water use

Similar to the situation worldwide, agriculture uses by far the most of Chinas accessible
runoff. Aggregating data from every level-III water resource region, the total agricultural
water use for the whole country was 348.40 km3 in 2000. The ratio of consumption to
withdrawals varies with climatic factors, the crops grown and irrigation efficiency, and
typically ranges from 50% to 80%. We calculated that about 64% of agricultural water
withdrawals nationally were consumed, resulting in a total of 221.90 km3 for the year 2000.

Industrial water use

Internationally, industrial use of water increases with country income, ranging from 10%
for low and middle-income countries to 59% for high-income countries. Industrial water
use has levelled off or declined in some wealthier countries, but continues to grow rapidly
in much of the developing world (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization 2003). In China, industrial water use increased an average of 5.20% annually from 1980 to 2000. Based on level-III data, we estimated that total industrial water use
was 116.30 km3 in 2000, including thermoelectric power. In contrast to agriculture, only a
small share of water used in industry is consumed. Most of it is discharged back to the environment with degraded quality. We estimated that about 24% or 27.9 km3 of industrial
water withdrawals in 2000 were consumed through embodiment in goods or evaporation
to the atmosphere during the production process, and were therefore further unavailable.

Domestic and municipal water use

Urban municipal and domestic water use varies considerably across the different regions
of China. The urban, municipal and domestic water use data that we collected revealed a
total urban, domestic and municipal water use of 32.20 km3 in China in 2000, of which
ca. 8.30 km3 (26%) was consumed. According to demographic characteristics and current
water use patterns, the total rural domestic water requirement was estimated at 28.70 km3 ,
of which ca. 26 km3 (91%) was consumed.

Instream flow requirements

Due to the importance of the maintenance of ecological integrity, ecological requirements
are considered to be the main instream flow uses in China. Although instream ecological requirements vary geographically and seasonally and there is increasing recognition

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that the magnitude, duration, frequency and timing of many elements of the flow regime
of rivers are important to their ecology rather than just low flows, in this paper we
only estimated minimum instream ecological water requirements for different seasons in
different water resource regions in reference to the hydrological regime (Wallace et al.
2003, Smakhtin et al. 2004).
We relied on the Tennant Method (Tennant 1976) with some adjustment to estimate
ecological flow. Generally, in most of north and northeast China, the minimum instream
water requirements were 50% of base flow during the non-flood season, amounting to
nearly 40 km3 . This quantity, to maintain a survival habitat for most aquatic life, occupies
about 15% of the mean annual river flow.
In the south part of China, river flow is abundant due to greater precipitation, with
discharge during the dry season relatively high, occupying some 20% of the annual total.
We assumed the minimum instream flow requirements occupy 50% of the discharge during
the dry season, reaching about 223.20 km3 . In the northwest endorheic (internal drainage)
region, the instream ecological flow should be nearly 50% of the total annual river flow due
to the fragile downstream ecology downstream. This equates to 18.90 km3 . Total minimum
instream flow requirement should be 282.20 km3 per annum (10.2 % of the total).
We also made adjustments to account for the meeting of the minimum ecological
water requirements by flood flows during the flood season rather than by accessible runoff.
In south China the flood season is from April to October, while in the north it is from
June to August. In actuality, the minimum ecological requirement cannot be fully fulfilled
from this source, especially in the northern water resource regions. From rough statistics
of the river flow conditions we deduced that only about 40% of the minimum ecological
water requirement was fulfilled in north China during the dry season. This is conservative,
for some rivers in the region have dried up at times during the non-flood season due to
human overuse of water resources. In the south we assumed the minimum instream ecological requirement could be fully fulfilled by a relatively large runoff in the dry season.
The actual instream water use of accessible runoff in the northern (including the northwest
and northeast) and southern area of China was 17.70 km3 and 93 km3 respectively, so the
total human-controlled minimum instream water use was about 110.70 km3 per annum.
Results
Total current human appropriation of available water
Overall, we estimate that ca. 37.10% of accessible runoff (311km3 /837.40 km3 ) is currently consumed directly for human purposes. Withdrawals from rivers, streams and
aquifers combined with instream flow requirements total 674 km3 , which suggests that
a total of 80.50% of accessible runoff (674 km3 /837.40 km3 ) is currently appropriated for
human purposes. We estimated that human use of ET and runoff constitutes 43.20% of the
total accessible RFWS [(1116.80 km3 + 674 km3 )/ (3304.50 km3 + 837.40 km3 )]. This is
conservative, because it assumes that all ET is accessible. Comparison of human use with
the total unadjusted RFWSland indicates that humans in China utilized about 29% of this
life-supporting resource (1116.80 km3 + 674 km3 / 6178.60 km3 ).
The future of water use in China
How much can accessible runoff be expected to increase during the next three decades?
The principal means of expanding accessible runoff is to capture and store more flood
runoff or to desalinate seawater. In China desalination only supplied 0.003 km3 of water, a
mere 0.0005% of total water use in 2000. For the foreseeable future, desalination is likely

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to continue to be used primarily to meet drinking water needs in water-scarce, energy-rich

coastal areas, and will continue to occupy a very small proportion of total water use.
The construction of new reservoirs will continue to expand accessible runoff but at a
slower rate. In China, most reservoirs were constructed in the period 195876, when an
annual average of 18 large, 102 medium and more than 3800 small reservoirs were constructed. After 1976, construction slowed down. During the five years 20004, only five
large and 215 medium and small reservoirs on average were constructed annually, and the
storage increased accordingly at an annual average rate of nearly 8.3 km3 . We would expect
this rate to drop further because of rising economic, social and environmental costs, while
the focus of construction has changed for safety reasons to the rehabilitation of old, sick and
dangerous dams. According to the water sector development planning, about 60 new dams
were to be constructed during the period 200610, increasing capacity by 4.5 km3 annually;
dam rehabilitation was to increase capacity by 3.5 km3 on average respectively. We estimated that the rate of dam construction and rehabilitation during the period 200630 will
occur at the planned rate, increasing annual storage capacity by about 8 km3 . Adding the
same proportion (about 40%) that is active storage or otherwise available for water supply
(ca. 120 km3 or nearly 14% of the accessible runoff), to the present estimated active storage
capacity of 345 km3 in 2030, yields a total of 465 km3 . Adding the accessible base flow
(492.4 km3 ) gives an accessible runoff in 2030 of 957.4 km3 / year.
We estimated water demand on the basis of population. In 2010 the total census population was 1339.72 million. It is projected that by 2030 the total population of China
will increase by 160 million to 1.5 billion, and the number of city and town dwellers
will increase from 665 million to 905 million (Ministry of Water Resources 2008). Since
1995 average per capita overall water use in China has fluctuated around 446 m3 annually
(Song and Zhang 2005). We assumed that this figure will remain the same in 2030, although
it may be an underestimate since per capita water use in urban areas is usually larger than
in rural areas. From the above we estimate Chinas social and economic water demand
(including domestic, industrial and municipal sectors) in 2030 would total 682.80 km3 per
annum.
Further, minimum instream flow needed for ecological health in the non-flood season would reach 137.20 km3 per annum in 2030. The total human appropriation of runoff
in 2030 would thus be approximately 820 km3 per annum, or greater than 85% of estimated accessible runoff. If we assume evapotranspiration remains the same as in 2000,
and that most land suitable for rainfed agriculture is already in production, then the total
appropriation of fresh water for human use in 2030 will reach 31.3%.
In this paper, no account has been taken of climate change impacts on water availability
and water demand. It is anticipated that during the next few decades, runoff patterns might
be altered substantially by temperature increases and precipitation shifts associated with
the build-up of greenhouse gases (Kundzewicz et al. 2007). This, in turn, could alter dam
requirements and reservoir storage and design, and thus accessible runoff. In fact, climate
change has already had an impact on water resources in some areas of China, including
a significant reduction in recent decades in precipitation and runoff as well as significant
reduction in the Hai River basin, but in the country as a whole total runoff has not shown
significant change.
The ecological impact of over-abstraction of water resources in China
The aquatic environment is already showing signs of degradation and decline, especially
in the north and northwest parts of China, particularly because of dam construction, river
diversions, excessive withdrawal of water, heavy pollution loads and other habitat changes.

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Substantially higher levels of human appropriation of accessible runoff could result in a

severe crippling of aquatic ecosystem services, including broad decimation of fish populations and the near extinction of some beneficial species. All species should be preserved as
far as possible, even those whose importance to us is not yet evident. Given the importance of the ecological function of rivers in providing human society with goods and
services, China has paid much attention in recovering flow to restore the ecological system,
especially in North China.
Discussion and conclusion
On the basis of the above analysis, Chinas human appropriation of the accessible runoff
has already reached a very high level, and in some water resource regions, water scarcity
has limited economic growth and caused deterioration in the environment. Greater investments in pollution prevention would free up accessible runoff to meet rising human water
needs while safeguarding ecological functions. There is a big gap in wastewater treatment,
especially in urban areas, compared with advanced countries. Wastewater treatment not
only protects water from pollution, but also adds a water source for the irrigation of urban
lawns and parks, and reduces water withdrawal to some degree as well. Likewise, greater
efficiency of water use, changes in agricultural cropping patterns, changes in industrial
structure, and the removal of marginal lands from irrigation could help slow the growth of
human appropriation of accessible runoff.
Agriculture now accounts for 62% of Chinas total water withdrawal. Increases in
population and the demand for food are putting additional pressure on water, even with
improvements in use efficiency. Agricultural water demand can be decreased by international trade to some degree. During the period 19612001 Chinas annual average net
virtual water flow of crop and livestock production was about 28.5 km3 , while the net
virtual water flow of industrial production was -38.6 km3 (Chapagain and Hoekstra 2004).
The annual total virtual water import of all crops has increased dramatically in recent years,
from 30.2 km3 /yr in 1997 to 88.1 km3 /yr in 2004 (Liu J. et al. 2007). In the future, making
use of the international market will be an alternative to Chinas domestic appropriation of
water.
Climate change and its potential impacts have become of increasing concern to water
managers. Water resource availability in China has changed in the past decades as in other
areas of the world. In the Hai River basin the average precipitation during the period
19802000 decreased 10% below that of the period 195679. The fourth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) projected that
global average temperatures in 2100 will be 1.84.0 C higher than in 19802000, and
more frequent and intense extreme weather events (including drought and flooding) are
also expected. China needs to strengthen its study of the impact of climate change on water
resources and build resilience for water resource availability and reliability associated with
the greater likelihood of extreme events.
Sustained efforts need to be made to reduce water demand and draw upon reasonably remote and boundary river and non-conventional water resources through appropriate
policies, laws, incentives and technical measures.
Integrated water resource management is also an urgent need for China, especially for
linking water quantity with water quality. The government has set as a goal the establishment of a society with water saving and pollution control in mind in order to reduce water
use and increase accessible runoff. If this can be achieved, it will be a significant step
forward to safeguarding sustainable social and economic development.

522

J. Cao et al.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr Caroline Sullivan for her valuable suggestions in the original writing of this paper. The authors also acknowledge with thanks the anonymous reviewer for
detailed advice. This study was funded by the National Key Project for Basic Research of China
(973 Program) [2010CB428406].

Downloaded by [Jianting Cao] at 02:23 10 October 2012

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