Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Research article

Water use conflict between wetland and agriculture T

a a,d a b c a
Yuanchun Zou , Xun Duan , Zhenshan Xue , Mingju E , Mingyang Sun , Xianguo Lu ,
Ming Jianga, Xiaofei Yua,∗
a
Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment & Jilin Provincial Joint Key Laboratory of Changbai Mountain Wetland and Ecology, Northeast Institute of
Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China
b
School of Life Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
c
College of Art and Design, Jilin Jianzhu University, Changchun 130118, China
d
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: To analyze the water use conflict and its driving factors between wetland and agriculture at both regional and
Wetland-agriculture interaction local scales, agricultural water consumption and wetland water storage changes in the Sanjiang Plain, the main
Water balance grain-producing area in Heilongjiang Province of Amur River Basin, were investigated based on statistical data,
Groundwater decline field survey and GIS calculation. A specific case study in the Qixing River National Nature Reserve (QNNR)
Adaptive management
wetland-farmland system was completed using a water balance approach. Results showed that the proportion of
Northeast China
agricultural water increased from 71.8% to 88.0% while that of ecological water only hovered around ap-
proximately 1% in Heilongjiang Province during 2004–2015. Due to wetland loss and degradation, the total
surface water storage in the Sanjiang Plain wetlands decreased from 14.46 × 109 t in the 1980s to 4.70 × 109 t
in 2010. Agricultural development in successive years, and the dramatic increased requirement for water in
paddy fields, intensified the water use conflict between wetlands in the QNNR and surrounding farmlands.
Groundwater extraction for irrigation was approximately twice as high as the total infiltration recharge from
wetlands and farmlands. It is concluded that the degraded natural water resource endowments are struggle to
sustainably support stable grain production as a mainstay of national food safety, which determined the com-
petitive relationship between wetland and agriculture. To mitigate this conflict, adaptive wetland (e.g. water
transfer at stagger time, precise water recharge, resourced meltwater) and agricultural techniques (e.g. water-
saving irrigation and planting, soil water capacity increment, rainfed agriculture) and five key management
solutions were recommended.

1. Introduction agriculture with improved water projects and wastewater treatment

Wetland ecosystems have irreplaceable and important functions in
terms of protecting water resources, and both global and local water
cycling rely heavily on wetlands. More than half of global natural
wetlands have been lost due to anthropogenic activities since 1900,
which has caused major negative impacts on hydrology in multiple
scales (Stacke and Hagemann, 2012; Russi et al., 2013; WWAP, 2018).
Agriculture, as the world's largest freshwater consumer that accounts
for approximate 85% of global water consumption with most used for
irrigation, will continue to increase its demand for water resources
(Jury and Hjjr, 2007; Siebert et al., 2010; WWAP, 2012). Currently,
most irrigated agriculture around the world is under the circumstance
of full-utilization or overexploitation of water resources, and devel-
oping countries can only meet their food needs by expanding irrigated
plants. However, these water projects solely or mainly serve agri-
cultural irrigation and lack consideration of natural ecosystems such as
wetlands, which has threatened many wetlands (Peck et al., 2004;
Martinez-Santos et al., 2008; Verones et al., 2012). The ecological
characteristics of the hydrologically related wetlands have been af-
fected directly or indirectly, which leads to the degradation of some
important ecosystem services that the wetlands provide or even wet-
land loss (Junk et al., 2013; Flávio et al., 2017). Therefore, it is parti-
cularly important to coordinate agricultural and ecological water uses.
China has been and still is struggling to produce enough food to feed
its large population (Zong et al., 2013). The issue of food security drove
the Chinese government to implement a policy of land reclamation. As a
result of agricultural and industrial water transfers, the freshwater that
should have entered wetlands had been dramatically reduced (An et al.,

∗
Corresponding author. 4888 Shengbei Street, Changchun City, Jilin Province, China.
E-mail address: yuxf@iga.ac.cn (X. Yu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.07.052
Received 17 March 2018; Received in revised form 22 June 2018; Accepted 15 July 2018
0301-4797/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. Zou et al.
2007). The history and current status of wetland in the Sanjiang Plain of
Northeast China, to a certain extent, represents the entire state of
China. Driven by the Chinese government's comprehensive develop-
ment strategy of agricultural modernization, urbanization and new in-
dustrialization, wetlands are increasingly threatened by the use of
water in the entire basin (Wu et al., 2012). The Sanjiang Plain is the
major grain-producing area of the Amur River Basin; meanwhile, it is
the largest distribution area of freshwater palustrine wetlands in China.
Currently, water scarcity has become an increasingly important con-
straint on wetland conservation and agricultural development in this
area, which will further aggravate the competition for water resources
between wetlands and agriculture. Therefore, more effective measures
should be deployed to protect water resources as early as possible to
maintain the important ecosystem functions of natural wetlands.
The objectives of this study were 1) to understand the conflict si-
tuation between wetland water use and agricultural water use in the
Sanjiang Plain, 2) to calculate the water balance of the wetland-farm-
land system, 3) to find the natural and anthropogenic factors causing
this conflict, and 4) to propose relevant suggestions based on the re-
sults.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area description
The Sanjiang Plain, which is located in Heilongjiang Province of
Northeast China, is an alluvial plain formed by the Amur River,
Songhua River and Ussuri River, with a total land area of 1.09 × 107 ha
(Yang et al., 2001). Since the 1950s, the area has undergone continuous
high-intensity agricultural reclamation. The originally natural wetlands
landscape has been completely transformed into China's important
commodity grain base, which has made tremendous contributions to
improve the national food production and provide human food and
clothing. However, this contribution is at the expense of comprehensive
wetland degradation and loss that was attributed to the unsustainable
overexploitation of agricultural development (Zou et al., 2018). His-
torically, in this area, the depth of groundwater is relatively shallow
and can supply river water each year. Since 1990, the groundwater
depth has gradually increased due to the increasing scale and intensity
of groundwater exploitation, resulting in annual recharge from surface
water to groundwater (Gu, 2017).
The case study area is located in the middle reaches of the Qixing
River, including the Qixing River National Nature Reserve (QNNR) and
its neighbouring Friendship Farm and 597 Farm. It is located in the
hinterland of the Sanjiang Plain in the eastern part of Heilongjiang
Province (Fig. 1). Natural wetlands that were once widely distributed in
Fig. 1. Land use and cover of Qixing River Wetlands (QNNR) and the sur-
rounding farms.
141
Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146
the Qixing River sub-basin 60 years ago, have now become patches
embedded in agricultural landscapes due to long-term agricultural de-
velopment. The Qixing River is a tributary of the Naoli River, and the
Naoli River is a tributary of the Ussuri River. The length of the Qixing
River is 241 km, and the width is 6–30 m with the maximum less than
50 m. The drainage area of the Qixing River is 1.08 × 106 ha (Li et al.,
2003). It originates in the Qixinglazi Mountains and flows eastward
through the Sanhuanpao Flood Detention Zone (SFDZ) and enters the
Naoli River. As a Ramsar Site (No. 1977, January 9, 2011), the QNNR
covers a part of the Qixing River and represents the primitive, typical
and complete reed mash landscape. The geographical coordinates are
46°39′45″–46°48′24″ N, 132°00′22″–132°24′46″ E, and the average
elevation is 80 m. The total area of the QNNR is 2.00 × 104 ha. The
temperate humid monsoon climate of the QNNR is subjected to an
average annual temperature of 2.3 °C–3.4 °C; moreover, precipitation is
400–600 mm, and evaporation is approximately 3.84 mm. The main
soil types include mars soil, among others. There are 264 vertebrate
animals (e.g. Grus japonensis) in the wetlands, as well as 264 higher
plants species (e.g. Phragmites australis) (Li et al., 2003; Ramsar
Convention on Wetlands, 2014). The groundwater depth is 3–10 m. The
main recharge of groundwater is atmospheric precipitation, and the
main discharges are artificial extractions, which have been widely
exploited and utilized (Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, 2014; Gu,
2017).
In recent years, the remaining natural wetlands in the Qixing River
sub-basin are surrounded by nearby farmlands. Farmlands have been
converted from drylands to paddy fields and have caused severe water
scarcity (Zhou et al., 2015). The water use conflict between the wet-
lands and farmlands is becoming serious.
2.2. Regional agricultural water use and wetland storage changes
The data used in this study were collected from the National Bureau
of Statistics of China (2017) and other published papers in Chinese. The
correlation and regression analyses for the inter-annual variation in
agricultural and ecological water uses in Heilongjiang Province were
performed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 21.0 (IBM-
SPSS Inc., USA). All curve fittings were created using Origin Pro 8.0
(OriginLab Corp., USA).
The surface, soil and total water storages of the Sanjiang Plain
wetlands in the 1970s and 2010 were calculated according to the field
survey of the soil moisture and average surface water depth of typical
wetland plant communities based on the distribution of wetlands in the
Sanjiang Plain that were interpreted using remote sensing and geo-
graphical information system methods (Zou et al., 2018).
2.3. Wetland and farmland water requirement assessment framework
In both wetlands and their surrounding farmland, the water re-
quirement can be divided into five parts: the actual evapotranspiration
of vegetation after deducting precipitation, underground water storage
changes, surface water storage changes, soil water storage changes and
plant water changes. The actual evapotranspiration of vegetation can be
measured by direct observation of the evapotranspiration under dif-
ferent regimes of water conditions; however, evapotranspiration can
also be indirectly calculated by multiplying the potential evapo-
transpiration by the canopy cover/crop coefficients or by multiplying
the open water evaporation by leaf area index-adjusted ratios (Drexler
et al., 2004; Sun and Song, 2008; Xu et al., 2011). Considering the
interannual variation and its smaller proportion in the total water
storage, plant water storage is generally negligible. For the wetlands
with large spatio-temporal dynamics, the surface water storage also
needs to consider that wetland has different ecological characteristics in
abundant, dry and flat water years, and there is a critical threshold of
ecological water requirements for wetlands (Yang et al., 2008).
Y. Zou et al.
2.4. Wetland ecological water requirement
Wetland ecological water consumption can be expressed as Eq. (1).
Due to the variations in the surface water level, area and meteorological
conditions, the actual wetland ecological water requirement changed
interannually. Generally, it can be calculated according to the multi-
year average of ecological water consumption (i.e., the water require-
ment under multi-year average water storage) (Li et al., 2006).
W = E − P + G + ΔR + ΔS + ΔB (1)
where
W—wetland ecological water requirement, m3/a;
E—wetland evapotranspiration, m3/a;
P—wetland precipitation, m3/a;
G—wetland groundwater recharge, m3/a;
△R—wetland surface water variation, m3/a;
△S—wetland soil water variation, m3/a;
△B—wetland plant water variation, m3/a.
Among them, P can be calculated using the local average annual
precipitation; ΔR is the difference between upstream inflow and sur-
rounding farmland drainage and downstream outflow, which is related
to the protection or restoration wetland area and the suitable surface
water depth; △B is related to vegetation productivity and type; △S is
related to surface flooding; △W is related to groundwater depth and
dynamics; E is related to land cover types.
As far as the QNNR is concerned, a large number of excavated dit-
ches in wetlands have been blocked and smoothed due to the water
conservancy construction in the SFDZ and the restoration and protec-
tion in the QNNR. In particular, through heightening and blocking the
cofferdam and embankment around the wetlands, fully enclosed water
resources management has been achieved within the QNNR (Cui et al.,
2012). Controlled by the above engineering measures, although the
surface water level in the reserve still has seasonal changes, the annual
variation is limited (unless it encounters extreme drought and flood
events). However, there are no monitoring data of inflow and outflow,
and △R can only be assumed as zero to keep a relatively stable surface
water level of the SFDZ. Most soils in the QNNR are saturated or
flooded (Pan et al., 2015), and the interannual changes in soil water
storage (△S) are negligible. Similarly, the interannual wetland vegeta-
tion has changed insignificantly in recent years, and there have been
non-significant changes in the aboveground biomass of the constructive
wetland plant P. australis that rejuvenates and withers in the same year,
with a plant water content of approximately 55% (Jia and Lu, 2011;
Wang et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2018), since 2010. Considering the
interannual changes of △S and △B are smaller than those of E, P and G,
they can generally be ignored in the calculation. Therefore, the ecolo-
gical water requirement of the QNNR can be simplified as Eq. (2):
W = E−P + G (2)
Of course, if drought and flood events occur in the year before the
calculation, the additional water consumption that is compensated to
restore the average flooding area and surface water depth should be
considered in the calculation of the ecological water requirement for
the current year.
The precipitation amount of the QNNR is calculated as Eq. (3):
P = 103 × A × p
(3)
2
where A is the wetland area (km ); and p is the average annual pre-
cipitation (518 mm).
At present, the land covers of the QNNR include open water as well
as different types of wetland vegetation. In addition, there is also
building land, cultivated land (mainly dryland) and woodland in the
reserve. However, the building land does not occupy the ecological
water requirement, and the forest land is generally recharged by
142
Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146
precipitation only. Although both lands produce some runoff, this
runoff can be offset by the difference between precipitation and eva-
potranspiration. Therefore, E (m3/a) was calculated as the sum of
wetland and dryland in Eq. (4):
E= 103 × ∑ Ai × Ei (4)
where Ai is the area of the wetland or dryland (km2); and Ei is the
evapotranspiration of the wetland or dryland (mm).
As the groundwater level of the QNNR has been fluctuating down-
ward in recent years, the average depth of groundwater is 4–5 m. The
former positive recharging from groundwater to wetlands has been
transformed into wetland surface water recharging for groundwater. G
is equivalent to the wetland infiltration, as shown in Eq. (5):
G = 106 × ∑ (1 + H /Zr ) × k × A × T (5)
2
where H is the average open water depth (m); A is the area (km ); k is
the saturated soil hydraulic conductivity (m/d); Zr is the buried depth
(m); and T is the calculation period (d).
2.5. Surrounding farmland water requirement
The farmland water requirement can be calculated according to the
actual water consumption of different farmland types. For example, the
actual water consumption of paddy field and dryland in Heilongjiang
Province is 561 mm and 424.8 mm, respectively (Xia et al., 2007). The
average water consumption of paddy field and dryland in the Sanjiang
Plain is 652 mm and 388 mm, respectively (Wang et al., 2004). Zhou
et al. (2015) calculated the annual water consumptions of the Naoli
River Basin when both the crop growth and leisure period and the field
water consumption were taken into account. The annual water con-
sumptions were 657.7 mm for paddy field and 456.3 mm for dryland,
which were used in this study. This value does not consider the com-
pensation of precipitation and can be used as the upper limit of the
farmland water requirement (WFu). When assuming that the precipita-
tion in paddy fields is completely effective, and all drylands are rainfed,
the reduced value can be used as the lower limit (WFl).
Another approach for calculating the farmland water requirement is
to use the irrigation water quota set by Heilongjiang Province multi-
plied by the different farmland areas. According to “Heilongjiang Water
Quota Standard (DB23/T 727-2016)” (Heilongjiang Province Quality
and Technical Supervision, 2016), the quota of soybean surface irri-
gation in the Sanjiang Plain is generally 936–1404 m3/ha,
1404–1828 m3/ha in the dry year and 450 m3/ha in wet year; fur-
thermore, the quotas of well and canal irrigation paddy fields are
4500–5250 m3/ha and 5250–6000 m3/ha, respectively. In this study,
the median values of 1404 m3/ha, 4875 m3/ha and 5625 m3/ha were
used for dryland, well irrigation and canal irrigation paddy fields, re-
spectively. The well irrigation covers 90% of total paddy fields (Zhong
et al., 2010), and the average quota for paddy field was 4950 m3/ha.
This value, which is based on the irrigation quotas, can be used as the
median (WFm).
2.6. Water cycling in wetland-farmland systems
The wetland ecological water and surrounding farmland water
consumptions are involved in a whole wetland-farmland system that is
affected by the hydraulic connection between surface and groundwater.
The water cycle of the system shows that this is a four-dimensional
process, including three spatial dimensions and time (Fig. 2).
According to the land covers of the QNNR and the surrounding
farms in 2010 (Fig. 1) and the related meteorological and hydro-
geological parameters provided in the literature (Guo et al., 2008;
Zhong et al., 2010; Deng et al., 2012; Pan et al., 2015; Zhou et al., 2015;
Gu, 2017), the total precipitation, evapotranspiration and precipitation
that recharge the groundwater in this system were calculated using the
Y. Zou et al.
Fig. 2. Water cycling of wetland-farmland system in Qixing River.
following methods.
Due to the relatively closed nature of the Naoli River Basin and the
lack of groundwater hydraulic gradient data in the study area, the in-
filtration recharge of groundwater in this study did not consider the
groundwater lateral inflow recharge and outflow discharge (Gu, 2017).
Since the groundwater evaporation consumption decreases with the
increase in groundwater depth, groundwater no longer evaporates
when the local groundwater depth is more than 3–5 m (Yan et al., 2010;
Gu, 2017); therefore, this study assumed that groundwater evaporation
was zero. Precipitation and irrigation infiltrations were calculated as
Eqs. (6) and (7):
QPr = 103 × α × P × A
where QPr precipitation is the precipitation infiltration (m /a), α is the
3
recharge coefficient of precipitation infiltration (dimensionless), and A
is the total area of precipitation area (km2).
QIr = ∑ βi × qi × Ai
where QIr is the irrigation infiltration (m /a); βi is the infiltration re-
3 Statistics of China, 2017), each kilogram of grain would consume
charge coefficient of different irrigation types (dimensionless); qi is the
irrigation quota (m3/ha) of different irrigation types; and Ai is irrigated
area of different irrigation types (ha).
Because the infiltration coefficient of canal and well irrigations are
similar, this study combined them into QIr.
Groundwater extraction by well irrigation was calculated as Eq. (8):
R Gw = γ × qPf × APf
where RGro is the groundwater extraction (m /a); γ is the ratio of well
3
irrigation (dimensionless, 90%); qPf is the well irrigation water quota of
paddy fields (m3/ha); and APf is well irrigation area of paddy fields (ha).
Farmland drainage includes paddy field drainage and dryland sa-
turated runoff, which was calculated as Eq. (9):
DFl = a× qPf × APf + b× qDl × ADl
3 Plain on the wetland worsened. The total surface water storage in the
where DFl is the farmland drainage (m /a); a is the drainage coefficient
(dimensionless); qPf is the well irrigation water quota of paddy field
(m3/ha); APf is the paddy field irrigation area; b is the dryland runoff
production coefficient (dimensionless); qDl is the dryland water quota
(m3/ha); and ADl is dryland area (ha).
3. Results
3.1. Provincial agricultural water consumption
As a major grain-producing province in the country, Heilongjiang
Province has consumed massive agricultural water resources to main-
tain steady grain production in successive years. According to the
National Bureau of Statistics (2017), the proportion of agricultural
water increased from 71.8% to 88.0% between 2004 and 2015, while
Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146
350 100
Water consumption difference (108 t/a)
Y = -3184.71 + 1.62X
(R2 = 0.91, P< 0.001) 80
Water use percentage (%)
300
Consumption difference 60
Ecological water
250 Y = -25985.65 + 13.05X
Agricultural water
(R2 = 0.97, P< 0.001) 40
200 20
0
150
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Fig. 3. Inter-annual variation of agricultural and ecological water use percen-
tages and their differences in Heilongjiang Province (Adapted from National
Bureau of Statistics, 2017).
the proportion of ecological water only hovered around approximately
1% during the same period (Fig. 3). Compared with the national
average data, the proportion of agricultural water in Heilongjiang
(77.8%) was approximately 1/4 higher than the national average
(62.8%), while the proportion of ecological water (0.8%) was ap-
proximately 1/2 lower than the national average (1.8%) during
2004–2015. The ecological water consumption was less than 2.1% of
the agricultural water consumption. When their conflict is expressed as
the difference between the two consumptions, the conflict seems to
intensify each year, i.e., from 1.85 × 1010 m3/a in 2004 to
(6)
3.10 × 1010 m3/a in 2015, with an increment of 67.3% in the past 12
years (Fig. 3), which means increasing fresh water (1.31 × 109 m3/a)
has been diverted and allocated to agricultural use.
According to the actual requirement of crop evapotranspiration and
the average rice planting area ratio and grain yield of Heilongjiang
(7) Province from 2010 to 2015 (Wang et al., 2004; the National Bureau of
1.2 m3 of fresh water. In addition, the water consumed by farmland
crops only accounted for a part of agricultural water use, while the
other part was consumed by the water from the water sources to the
fields. This loss can be characterized by the effective utilization coef-
ficient of irrigation water (i.e., the ratio of net irrigation water used in
the field to the gross irrigation water used at the water source). Ac-
cording to the survey (Table 1) conducted by Si et al. (2017) in 2016, it
(8)
was demonstrated that the steady increments in grain production in
successive years in Heilongjiang Province occurred at the expense of
large water consumption by crops.
3.2. Wetland water resource crisis caused by agricultural development
(9) The impacts of agriculture and water conservancy in the Sanjiang
Sanjiang Plain wetlands decreased from 5.12 × 109 t in 1980 to
0.93 × 109 t in 2010. The soil water storage capacity decreased from
9.34 × 109 t in 1980 to 3.77 × 109 t in 2010. As a result, the total
wetland water storage amount decreased from 14.46 × 109 t to
4.70 × 109 t, which meant that one half of the water storage has been
lost in the past 30 years (Fig. 4).
3.3. Water balance in wetland-farmland systems
Using the classification statistics of various types of vegetation in
the QNNR of 2010 (Fig. 1) and the related parameters given in the
literature (Wang and Yang, 2001; Li et al., 2006; Xia et al., 2007; Liu
et al., 2008; Zhou et al., 2015; Pan et al., 2015; Gu, 2017), the calcu-
lated results of Eqs. (2)–(9) and the farmland water requirements are
143
Y. Zou et al. Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146

Table 1
Statistics of irrigation indexes of Heilongjiang Province in 2016 (Si et al., 2017) and its average rice planting percentage and grain yield during 2010–2015 (the
National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2017).
Irrigation area (× Freshwater consumption Irrigation quota Average effective Average water Rice planting Average grain yield
106 ha) (× 1010 m3) (m3/ha) utilization coefficient consumption (mm) percentage (%) (kg/ha)

5.05 3.06 6058 0.60 605.8 26.3 5020.72

extraction by well irrigation. In other words, if the over-extraction of

groundwater from surrounding farms is not prevented and the
groundwater depth continues to decline, the ecological water require-
ment of the QNNR will increase in the future.
Compared with the ecological water requirement of the QNNR, the
surrounding farmland water requirement is approximately 10 times
that of the former. Due to long-term agricultural development, espe-
cially the rapid water consumption of growing paddy fields, the water
use conflict has intensified between wetlands and farmlands. The
amount of groundwater extracted by the wetland-farmland system
(4.27 × 108 m3/a) is approximately 2.0 times the value of the sum of
precipitation, wetland and irrigation infiltrations (2.30 × 108 m3/a).
This imbalance between groundwater recharge and discharge is the
main reason for the decrease in the groundwater depth. Therefore, how
to limit the exploitation of groundwater while rationally allocating and
regulating surface water to support agricultural development and meet
Fig. 4. Changes of water storage in wetlands of the Sanjiang Plain during the the wetland ecological water requirement has become a key issue for
past 30 years. sustainable development in the region.

Table 2 4.2. Implications for technical measures

Calculated results of water balance parameters (108 m3/a). W, wetland ecolo-
gical water requirement; E, wetland evapotranspiration; P, wetland precipita- With the increased agricultural water requirement (Fig. 3) and de-
tion; G, wetland groundwater recharge; WFu, WFm and WFl, the upper, median
creased wetland water storage (Fig. 4), both agricultural and wetland
and lower limit of farmland water requirements respectively; PTotal and ETotal,
adaptive techniques should be developed and implemented in Sanjiang
total precipitation and evapotranspiration of the wetland-farmland system re-
Plain. How to reduce the agricultural water consumption and increase
spectively; QPr, precipitation is the precipitation infiltration; QIr, the irrigation
infiltration; RGro, the groundwater extraction; DFl, the farmland drainages. the use efficiency are of specific concern.
The first recommended technology is water-saving irrigation and
W E P G WFu WFm WFl
planting. As the largest consumer of agricultural water in Heilongjiang
0.65 1.54 1.04 0.15 12.83 6.66 1.34 Province (Fig. 1, Table 1), once the amount of irrigation water is re-
PTotal ETotal QPr QIr RGw DFl duced, the entire amount of agricultural water will be reduced too.
12.50 14.77 1.25 0.90 4.27 0.85 Therefore, it is necessary to intensify the anti-seepage transformation of
existing water conservancy facilities, modify large-scale irrigation dis-
tricts to a collection of small and medium-sized irrigated districts, and
listed in Table 2. control seepage of existing flood irrigation channels. In addition,
planting practices such as intermittent and wetting irrigation can sig-
4. Discussion nificantly reduce the ecological water consumption of paddy fields with
little effect on the physiological water requirement. Compared with
4.1. Key role of groundwater in mitigating the conflict flooded irrigation, the total water consumption of intermittent and
wetting irrigation could decrease by 13.9% and 20.2%, respectively.
Stimulated by the central government's rice planting encouraging Meanwhile, the water use efficiency could increase by 35.7% and
policies and increased rice prices, the paddy fields are still expanding 50.0%, respectively (Jia et al., 2009; Nie et al., 2011).
despite the water resources problems that have been encountered The second recommendation is to increase the soil water capacity.
(Wang and Wu, 2011; Zou et al., 2018). Consequently, the exploitation To increase the effective soil water storage capacity, comprehensive
of groundwater is also rapidly increasing. Coupled with serious human measures can be deployed, including non-engineering measures, such
waste and poor management, the groundwater depth in the Sanjiang as increasing surface coverage, leaving stubble, decreasing tillage or
Plain has lowered. The phenomena of hanging pumps and local over- even no-tillage, increasing the surface roughness, reducing precipita-
exploitation have occurred frequently. The balance of groundwater tion loss and evaporation, deep tillage, ultra-deep tillage, application of
resources in the Sanjiang Plain has been subjected to serious damage. organic materials and other soil improvers, artificially improving the
The groundwater recharges in the QNNR and the surrounding Friend- physical properties of soil and enhancing soil water storage capacity
ship and 597 Farms are from precipitation infiltration, river recharge (Deng et al., 2001).
and irrigation infiltration, and the main discharges are from artificial The third is rainfed agricultural technology. For drylands, rainfed
exploitation (Fig. 2). Our results related to the water balance (Table 2) recharge has been achieved through the development of soil reservoirs
indicated that the ecological water requirement calculation demon- and compensatory irrigation techniques, such as ultra-deep tillage,
strated that, unless experiencing extreme precipitation events, the ex- ridge tillage, wet seeding and artificial rainfall. For paddy fields, the
isting wetlands of the Qixing River cannot obtain rain and do not have water-saving techniques (i.e., dry seeding, dry weeding, alternatively
the ability to supply water to the surrounding farmlands without dike wet and dry, wet seeding, drought-resisting agents), the water con-
and cofferdam, and the recharge to groundwater cannot offset the sumption could decrease from shallow-depth-shallow (756 mm) to

144
Y. Zou et al.
interplanting (395 mm) and to wet irrigation (409 mm) (Xia et al.,
2007; Jia et al., 2009; Yan et al., 2010). The integrated utilization of
these techniques can fully exploit precipitation resources, exert the
regulation function of the soil water reservoir, and overcome the un-
even distribution of annual precipitation.
As far as wetlands are concerned, according to the irrigation season
of paddy fields, the natural wetlands (e.g., C. lasiocarpa) in agricultural
landscapes could be used to transfer the water at staggered times
coupled with agricultural water consumption timing, through which a
compensational water supply mechanism could be formed, and water
use conflict between wetland ecological water requirements and
farmland water requirements would be mitigated locally to some extent
(Song et al., 2017). When encountering extreme drought, wetlands
could be recharged with less water through more precise recharge
timing and amounts, according to soil water dynamics and biological
requirements.
In addition to the above water-saving techniques, increasing the
total water supply through water conservancy projects is necessary
when such local measures fail. Considering the cold climate of the
Sanjiang Plain, with snowfall of 40–80 mm and a maximum snow
thickness of approximately 45 cm (Yin et al., 2003), learning how to
fully utilize snow/ice meltwater could be a suitable alternative option.
4.3. Management recommendations
1) Improvement of the right to speak of wetland water use to ensure
that the minimum ecological water needs of wetlands
Local governments should, as early as possible, restrict or at least
discourage the development of paddy fields by adjusting agricultural
subsidies; additionally, they can formulate and increase agricultural
water prices to economically stimulate farmers to protect water re-
sources. Ensuring the minimum ecological water requirement of wet-
lands, maintaining the integrity of wetland ecosystems and improving
the adaptability of drought and flood can be achieved through policies
and regulations, market instruments, water-saving propagation and
technical promotion. For example, the preferential subsidies for agri-
cultural production should be abolished, and the agricultural water
price should be reformed. Due to the sharp increment in agricultural
water cost and the corresponding decrement of marginal benefits, the
enthusiasm of wetland reclamation would be stifled.
2) Wetland surface-groundwater and wetland-farmland joint water
resources management
Strengthening the implementation of wetland recharge projects
would enable the full utilization of floods, meltwater and purified
farmland drainage to recharge wetlands. Strengthening the investment
and construction of farmland irrigation networks around wetlands
would also enable the better use of transit surface water resources. For
the areas with higher self-resilience on groundwater recharge, the wells
do not need to be shut down completely. Instead, a “no-harvest period”
should be identified to provide sufficient groundwater depth recovery
time. For the groundwater depression cones, artificial irrigation re-
covery should be conducted. For some isolated wetlands, well recharge
can be used to improve their ability to address extreme drought events.
3) Encouragement and development of agricultural wetland irrigation
systems
Agricultural drainage collection-processing-irrigation wetland sys-
tems (CPI-wetlands) can be constructed in suitable geographic sites
near the farmlands. The agricultural drainage is collected, purified and
stored through this system and can be reused for irrigation (Smiley and
Allred, 2011). In the wetland-farmland systems of the Sanjiang Plain,
such projects should be encouraged, and more similar or upgraded
145
Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146
methods should be researched and developed.
4) Basin-scale water productivity assessment
The basin-scale water productivity can be used as a framework for
assessing the requirement for balanced wetlands and agricultural water
requirements to ensure the equitable distribution and allocation of
water resources (i.e., the synthetic benefit accounting of water re-
sources used for crops, livestock, fisheries, ecosystem services and so-
ciety). Although there is no market exchange and the ecosystem service
value cannot be easily realized at present and the basin-scale water
resource allocation model based on the total economic value faces a
practical application challenge, wetland protection endeavours can be
strengthened, and the unconstrained requirement for agricultural water
resources can be limited under the background that ecological civili-
zation construction requires increasing attention.
5) Climate change adaptive water management
At present, influenced by global changes, the seasonal frost area in
the Sanjiang Plain is shrinking; moreover, the frost layer becomes
thinner, and the freeze-thaw process becomes weaker, which is un-
favourable to the formation of spring flood runoff. The increase in
evapotranspiration caused by the increased temperature in summer and
the decrease of winter snowfall will lead to a decreased water supply
but increased consumption; these conditions will cause widespread
occurrence of wetlands and farmland water shortages, drastic runoff
reductions and increased marsh river break-off days in the Sanjiang
Plain (Gu, 2017). Therefore, greater importance should be paid and
more active responses should be made to mitigate the negative impacts
of current and future climate change through enhancing the adaptive
capacities of both natural ecosystems and societies.
5. Conclusion
Heilongjiang Province, as a major grain-producing province in
China, has consumed massive agricultural water resources to maintain
steady grain production in successive years. Compared with the other
parts of China, the proportion of agricultural water in Heilongjiang is
approximately one quarter higher than the national average, while that
of ecological water is approximately one half lower than the average.
The long-term agricultural unsustainable over-exploitation of surface
and groundwater causes water resources conflicts between wetlands
and farmlands in the Sanjiang Plain. The local continuous decline of the
groundwater depth in the QNNR showed that groundwater extraction
was approximately twice as high as the total infiltration recharge from
wetlands and farmlands. When we improve the wetland water resources
protection system and integrate wetland protection goals into agri-
cultural policies, as well as develop and apply specific wetland and
agricultural water-saving techniques, the conflict is not impossible to
alleviate.
Acknowledgments
We express gratitude to the reviewers and editors for their critical
comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This study was
supported by the Northeast China Office of WWF China. We are also
grateful for the financial support from the National Key Research and
Development Program of China (2016YFC0500403), Jilin Provincial
Key Research and Development Program (20180201010SF), National
Natural Science Foundation of China (41471079, 41671087,
41501102), Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinse
Academy of Sciences (IGA-135-05).
Y. Zou et al.
References
An, S., Li, H., Guan, B., Zhou, C., Wang, Z., Deng, Z., Zhi, Y., Liu, Y., Xu, C., Fang, S.,
Jiang, J., Li, H., 2007. China's natural wetlands: past problems, current status, and
future challenges. Ambio 36 (4), 335–342.
Cui, S.B., Gao, Z.S., Chen, H., 2012. Management pattern and species protection of
wetlands in Qixing River national nature reserve. Prot. Forest Sci. Technol. (4),
104–106 (In Chinese).
Deng, G.L., Wang, N., Dong, Y.X., 2012. Research on paddy field return water coefficient
for planning EIA of 100 billion grain production engineering in Heilongjiang pro-
vince. Heilongjiang Sci. Technol. Water Conserv. 40 (2), 26–27 (In Chinese).
Deng, L.Q., Liu, M.X., Zhao, Q.B., Yao, Z.C., 2001. Study on rainfed agriculture in
Sanjiang Plain. Water Conserv. Sci. Technol. Econ. 7 (4), 185–186 (In Chinese).
Drexler, J.Z., Snyder, R.L., Spano, D., Tha Paw, U.K., 2004. A review of models and
micrometeorological methods used to estimate wetland evapotranspiration. Hydrol.
Process. 18 (11), 2071–2101.
Flávio, H.M., Ferreira, P., Formigo, N., Svendsen, J.C., 2017. Reconciling agriculture and
stream restoration in Europe: a review relating to the EU water framework directive.
Sci. Total Environ. 596–597, 378–395.
Gu, X.Z., 2017. Research on Groundwater Circulation and Transform Relationship with
River Water of Naoli River Basin. Master Dissertation of Jilin University (In Chinese).
Guo, L.Z., Wang, F.L., Wu, C.Y., Xiao, J.M., 2008. Analysis and certainty on hydrologic
parameters of Sanjiang Plain Naoli River basin. J. Northeast Agr. Univ. 39 (9), 44–48
(In Chinese).
Heilongjiang Province Quality and Technical Supervision, 2016. Heilongjiang Water Use
Quota Standard (DB23/T 727-2016). (In Chinese).
Jia, L., Lu, J.J., 2011. The meaning of water storage in wetlands and analysis of cases.
Wetland Sci. 9 (2), 116–119 (In Chinese).
Jia, Q.F., Chu, X.F., Yao, Z.C., 2009. Research on agricultural true water-saving tech-
nology. J. Heilongjiang Hydraul. Eng. 36 (4), 31–35 (In Chinese).
Junk, W.J., An, S.Q., Finlayson, C.M., Gopal, B., Kvĕt, J., Mitchell, S.A., Mitsch, W.J.,
Robarts, R.D., 2013. Current state of knowledge regarding the world's wetlands and
their future under global climate change: a synthesis. Aquat. Sci. 75, 151–167.
Jury, W.A., Hjjr, V., 2007. The emerging global water crisis: managing scarcity and
conflict between water users. Adv. Agron. 95, 1–76.
Li, J.Y., Li, L.J., Jiang, D.J., Yang, J.W., 2006. Calculation method on ecological water
storage and ecological water requirement of marsh. Acta Geograph. Sin. 61 (3),
289–296 (In Chinese).
Li, Z.F., Liang, D.C., Ji, X.C., 2003. Discussion on construction of water storage project in
Qixing River national nature reserve. J. Heilongjiang Hydraul. Eng. 30 (1), 68–69 (In
Chinese).
Liu, Z.M., Jiang, M., Tong, S.Z., 2008. Hydrological function of Sanhuanpao flood de-
tention zone. Wetland Sci. 6 (2), 242–248 (In Chinese).
Martinez-Santos, P., de Stefano, L., Llamas, M.R., Martinez-Alfaro, P.E., 2008. Wetland
restoration in the Mancha Occidental aquifer, Spain: a critical perspective on water,
agricultural, and environmental policies. Restor. Ecol. 16 (3), 511–521.
National Bureau of Statistics, 2017. National Data. http://data.stats.gov.cn/.
Nie, X., Wang, Y.Y., Liu, X.T., 2011. Effects of water-saving irrigation on ecological and
physiological water requirement and yield of cold rice at Sanjiang Plain. Acta Agr.
Boreal. Sin. 26 (6), 168–173 (In Chinese).
Pan, H.S., Yao, J.Y., Cui, S.B., Li, C.T., Gao, F., 2015. Calculation and analysis of the
ecological water demand in Qixinghe national nature reserve. J. Eng. Heilongjiang
Univ. (3), 46–49 (In Chinese).
Peck, D.E., McLeod, D.M., Hewlett, J.P., Lovvorn, J.R., 2004. Irrigation-dependent wet-
lands versus instream flow enhancement: economics of water transfers from agri-
culture to wildlife uses. Environ. Manag. 34 (6), 842–855.
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, 2014. Information Sheet on Ramsar Wetlands. https://
rsis.ramsar.org/RISapp/files/RISrep/CN1977RIS.pdf.
Russi, D., ten Brink, P., Farmer, A., Badura, T., Coates, D., Förster, J., Kumar, R.,
Davidson, N., 2013. The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Water and
Wetlands. IEEP, London and Brussels Ramsar Secretariat, Gland).
Si, Z.J., Sun, X.M., Lv, C.B., Li, F.H., Meng, D.B., 2017. Calculation and analysis of ef-
fective utilization coefficient of farmland irrigation water in Heilongjiang Province in
146
Journal of Environmental Management 224 (2018) 140–146
2016. Heilongjiang Water Resour. 7, 1–6 (In Chinese).
Siebert, S., Burke, J., Faures, J.M., Frenken, K., Hoogeveen, J., Döll, P., Portmann, F.T.,
2010. Groundwater use for irrigation – a global inventory. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 14,
1863–1880.
Smiley, P.C., Allred, B.J., 2011. Differences in aquatic communities between wetlands
created by an agricultural water recycling system. Wetl. Ecol. Manag. 19 (6),
495–505.
Song, P.P., Luan, J.H., Zou, Y.C., 2017. Height and aboveground biomass of Carex la-
siocarpa under simulated water levels. Wetland Sci. 15 (3), 478–482 (In Chinese).
Stacke, T., Hagemann, S., 2012. Development and evaluation of a global dynamical
wetlands extent scheme. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. 16, 2915–2933.
Sun, L., Song, C., 2008. Evapotranspiration from a freshwater marsh in the Sanjiang Plain,
Northeast China. J. Hydrol 352 (1), 202–210.
Verones, F., Bartl, K., Pfister, S., Vilchez, R.J., Hellweg, S., 2012. Modeling the local
biodiversity impacts of agricultural water use: case study of a wetland in the coastal
arid area of Peru. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46 (9), 4966–4974.
Wang, F., Cui, S.B., Pan, H.S., Chen, J.F., 2015. Influence of climate change on the growth
of reeds in Qixing River Wetland. Heilongjiang Meterol. 32 (2), 15–28 (In Chinese).
Wang, S.H., Liu, W.C., Liu, Q.C., 2004. Agricultural water consumption and suitable
paddy rice plant areas of the Three-River-Plain. Trans. CSAE 20 (4), 50–53 (In
Chinese).
Wang, X.X., Wu, J., 2011. Empirical study on wetland water resource conservation.
Manag. World (8), 57–65 (In Chinese).
Wang, Y.Y., Yang, Y.X., 2001. Effects of agriculture reclamation on the hydrologic
characteristics in the Sanjiang Plain, China. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 11 (2), 163–167.
Wu, J., Wu, J.I., Wang, X.X., Ma, Z., 2012. Securing water for wetland conservation: a
comparative analysis of policy options to protect a national nature reserve in China.
J. Environ. Manag. 94 (1), 102–111.
WWAP (World Water Assessment Programme), 2012. The United Nations World Water
Development Report 4: Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risk. UNESCO, Paris.
WWAP (United Nations World Water Assessment Programme)/UN-Water, 2018. The
United Nations World Water Development Report 2018: Nature-based Solutions for
Water. UNESCO, Paris.
Xia, G.L., Han, Y.M., Du, C., Yao, Z.C., Xiao, D.F., 2007. Evaluation of agricultural water
consumption in Heilongjiang. J. Heilongjiang Hydraul. Eng. Coll. 34 (4), 4–8 (In
Chinese).
Xu, S., Ma, T., Liu, Y., 2011. Application of a multi-cylinder evapotranspirometer method
for evapotranspiration measurements in wetlands. Aquat. Bot. 95 (1), 45–50.
Yan, X.Y., Yang, Y.C., Yao, Z.C., 2010. Dynamic analysis on groundwater in typical well-
irrigated rice area. J. Heilongjiang Hydraul. Eng. 37 (1), 31–36 (In Chinese).
Yang, Q., Lv, X.G., Wang, Y.Y., 2001. The basic scientific problem of wetland agriculture
in the Sanjiang Plain. Chin. J. Eco-Agric. 9 (1), 58–60 (In Chinese).
Yang, W., Yang, Z.F., Sun, T., 2008. A review of requirement quantity and allocation of
ecological water for wetland. Wetland Sci. 6 (4), 531–535 (In Chinese).
Yin, X.L., Chu, Y., Yang, W., 2003. Relationships between marsh and precipitation, terrain
surface water, groundwater in Sanjiang Plain. Chin. J. Eco-Agric. 11 (1), 157–158 (In
Chinese).
Zhang, H.Q., Zeng, X.Y., Qu, Y., Cui, L., Li, H.Y., Luo, C.Y., Gao, Y.H., 2018. The spatail-
temporal changes of vegetation NDVI in the growing season in Naoli River Basin
during 2011–2016. Territory Nat. Resour. Study 1, 91–93 (In Chinese).
Zhong, C.H., Guo, F.T., Mu, L.L., Qiu, M.F., Yao, Z.C., 2010. Potential analysis on de-
velopment of rice irrigation on Friendship Farm. Heilongjiang Hydraul. Eng. 37 (2),
9–13 (In Chinese).
Zhou, H., Lei, G.P., Zhang, B., Zhao, Y.H., Zhang, X., Dong, B.W., 2015. Farmland change
induced land and water resource balance in Naoli River Basin from 1990 to 2013.
Trans. Chin. Soc. Agr. Eng. 31 (1), 272–280 (In Chinese).
Zong, Y.Q., Zheng, Z., Huang, K.Y., Sun, Y.Y., Wang, N., Tang, M., Huang, G.Q., 2013.
Changes in sea level, water salinity and wetland habitat linked to the late agricultural
development in the Pearl River delta plain of China. Quat. Sci. Rev. 70, 145–157.
Zou, Y.C., Wang, L.Y., Xue, Z.S., E M.J, Jiang, M., Lu, X.G., Yang, S.D., Shen, X.J., Liu,
Z.M., Sun, G.Z., Yu, X.F., 2018. Impacts of agricultural and reclamation practices on
wetlands in the Amur River basin, northeastern China. Wetlands 38, 383–389.