The Basin Water Resources Management System and Its Innovation in China

Water provides the origin of human survival and prosperity, and the basic resource for the maintenance of terrestrial ecosystems, their biodiversity, productivity and ecological services. With China’s recent, rapid growth both in population and economic development, the water shortage has become one of the most constraints on its ecological restoration and socio-economic development, especially in the arid inland regions of northwest China. At first glance, this water shortage in China appears to be a resource crisis. But second, an in-depth analysis reveals that the water shortage crisis arises mainly resulting from the poor water management system and operating mechanism that cannot facilitate fair allocation and efficient utilization of water resources both regionally and nationally and thus is viewed as a crisis of water management. The solution of China’s water shortage and low-efficient utilization problem will, in particular, require a fundamental and substantial reform or innovation of the existing water management system and operating mechanism. In this paper, we address explicitly the problems existed in the current water management system, explore the basic theory of water resources management and provide some insights into the way how to establish a river basin based integrated water resources management system in China.