China is a country with scarce water resources. Demand for water has continuously risen amid rapid economic growth, triggering environmental problems that have become increasingly obvious. In some arid and semi-arid regions in northern and northwest China, underground water has rapidly declined due to excessive exploitation. This has resulted in large-scale environmental problems, including desertification, soil salinization, land subsidence and ground cracks. All of these hazards pose a serious threat to social production, living safety and sustainable development in society.

Previous water conservation efforts focused on benefiting people through engineering, such as through construction of water reservoirs. These reservoirs have brought many benefits to people in terms of flood protection, drought-resistance and electricity generation.

But such projects represent a double-edged sword. If development and utilization of engineering is incompatible with sustainable development of the environment and social economy, it can cause an irreversible negative influence on natural ecology and society.

Nowadays, water conservation efforts need to shift from being project-oriented to ecology- and people-oriented. This transition doesn’t mean abandoning existing water projects or denying useful functions of engineering. It instead calls for water projects that pay greater attention to achieving an ecological balance and social harmony rather than profit alone.
It is necessary to explore water resources and promote environmental protection from ecological and sociological perspectives to pursue a coordinated path of development that balances the interests of society and nature.

Currently, efforts to prevent the drying up of rivers and underground water resources require concentrating power in water resources management and stricter regulation of behavior in this field through new or amended laws.

Comprehensive management systems for river basins partly limit regional reallocation of water resources. They play an active role in reasonable, coordinated and balanced allocation of water resources within river basins. They are also conducive to the protection of water resources and ecological environments in river basins.

Although China has established several institutions responsible for managing river courses and basins, management systems have room for improvement due to poor laws governing stakeholders of river basins. It is therefore necessary to strengthen legislative efforts to improve management systems.

Building a society savvy about water conservation depends on improvement to institutional regulations. In terms of China’s current situation, it is necessary to establish a core institutional system, including detailed rules related to cultural, legal and policy issues. Social support can be formed only through systematic and institutional regulation that promotes water conservation in people’s behavior and psyche.

A society savvy about water conservation can be judged by more than the sheer amount of water it saves. It is characterized by its people consciously choosing to treasure every drop of water. People attain more individual and social benefits by using less water, including sustainable development of the social economy.

In summary, water resources have key strategic significance in China. In order to deal with rivers and underground water drying up as well as other related ecological problems, such as land subsidence, China needs to take water conservation to a new strategic level.

China must scientifically and reasonably balance its need to use water with the necessity to protect it to advance sustainable development of the social economy.

The author is a professor at Renmin University of China.

Translated by Chen Meina
Revised by Tom Fearon