Search

Governing and managing water sustainably is a critical issue globally. Given its rapid economic development and the effects of global climate change, China faces serious water challenges including water shortages and pollution. The Chinese government has long been considering governance reforms which will improve water and river management. Conscious of the negative effects of fragmented institutions and the lack of incentives to support environmentally-sustainable management, China has recently established and implemented the 'He-Zhang' system - a network of River Chiefs and River Keepers across the country and at all administrative levels. This paper outlines the origins, purpose and structure of the system; summarizes progress with its implementation; and identifies some of its future challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of China's intensified efforts to engage in regional and global environmental governance is widely noted and debated. With rapidly increasing economic and political influence, China has been gradually changing its attitude and strategy in negotiations over some of the most challenging cross-border environmental crises. In this paper, we examine two cases of multinational environmental negotiations, where China exhibited leadership potential and efforts, namely the climate change regime and Mekong river governance system. Our analysis focuses both on the leadership activities around institutional, moral, and financial contributions to the governance regime, and on the efforts for China to take up exemplary actions at domestic level. We argue that in both cases, China exhibited both determination and commitment to shape the course and outcome of the negotiations, whilst applying two clearly different strategies. In the case of climate change, China is using its entrepreneur power to facilitate the deals and portray itself as the moral leader of the climate change course, while in the Mekong river case, financial and institutional inputs are the major instruments for Chinese to assume the leadership role. Yet in both cases, China exhibited a notable shift from an un-cooperative and coercive veto power to a more constructive player in the multinational environmental negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the correlations between Chinese banana farmers' perceptions of integrated water management technology (IWMT) and their adoption behaviours and examines the impact of IWMT adoption on farm performance. The results revealed that farmers' IWMT adoption correlates significantly with their perceptions of whether IWMT adoption can help reduce farm workload, fertilizer and water, the extent to which the technology is easier to operate, and the extent to which the technology can generate higher economic benefits than furrow irrigation technology. IWMT adoption significantly increases banana yields, gross revenue, net returns and irrigation frequency, but does not significantly affect irrigation expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change will not only affect a single hydrological series but also may affect the dependence structure. However, traditional hydrological approaches often fail to analyse the multiple characteristics of runoff within a bivariate framework under climate change. This study explores the influence of future climate change (2031 − 2080) on the runoff volume series in spring, summer and autumn as well as their dependence structures in the Luanhe River Basin, China. The results indicate that the time-varying dependence structure between spring and summer runoff series, as well as that between the summer and autumn runoff series, are mainly related to the summer precipitation. The differences between copula models with constant dependence parameters and those with time-varying dependence parameters are presented under different cases. This study incorporates the impacts of climate change on the bivariate frequency analysis of seasonal runoff series, which may provide important guidance for water resource management under climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hydrological Sciences Journal/Journal des Sciences Hydrologiques is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The water-short adjacent basins of the Huang (Yellow), Huai and Hai Rivers in North China contain most of China's farmland. This study evaluates water vulnerability there as a function of sensitivity to climate change, people per unit flow, water use-to-availability ratio, and per capita water use. Three scenarios for 2030 are considered: (1) climate change without socio-economic changes; (2) socio-economic changes without climate change; and (3) both climate and socio-economic changes. Results show increases in the already precarious vulnerability, especially in the Hai river basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]