Risk Assessment and Prediction of Water Shortages in Beijing
北京市水资源短缺风险等级评价与预测

A shortage of water resources in Beijing has become a critical factor limiting its development. Many factors influence the risk of water shortage and because of their nature it is difficult to develop an accurate mathematical model to describe this risk. This study is based on water data from 1979 to 2009 for Beijing and uses grey relationship analysis to screen water shortage risk factors. Based on screened shortage risk factors, fuzzy cluster analysis was applied to cluster risk level and predict water shortage risk from 2010-2015. The results reveal the major risk factors as precipitation, population, service and domestic water, agricultural water, industrial water and percentage of waste water treatment. Prior to 1999, water shortage risk remained at a relatively low level, with fluctuations in high and low precipitation years. After 1999, risk has been consistently high. According to our predictive model, in high precipitation years, water shortage risk will be low, in normal precipitation years it will be medium, and in low or extremely low precipitation years the risk will be relatively high. Under the South-North Water Transfer Project, 0.5 billion cubic meters of water will be transferred to Beijing by September 2014. This will increase to one billion cubic meters by the end of 2015. It is clear that the South-North Water Transfer Project will play a key role in addressing the water crisis in Beijing. The results of our study are objective and provide a clearer understanding of the risk of water shortages in Beijing. These results will aid water resource planning, regional development planning and policy.