Luwei Ying and Xianlong Hou CE 397 – Transboundary waters Transboundary Water issues in China Background Studies have shown that with the further deterioration of the ecology, Ice and snow melt in the Himalayas will reach the peak with the global warming during the period of 2050 to 2070. As a result, the Himalayas’ water resources would decrease. United Nations issued a warning in 2010 that there had been 1.1 billion people lacking access to safe water resources and the number would increase to 4 billion which is the half of the world’s population in the year of 2050. According to the situation in China, there is about 25% of the total land turned out to be desertification. Over the years, man-­‐made deforestation and overgrazing lead to desertification expanding rapidly. 40% of the river was polluted by heavy metal and pesticide. The capita water resource is only 25% of the global average level which is the lowest of all the large economies. What is worse, the capita water resource in North is as low as 9% of the global level, especially in Beijing, the capita water resource is only 100 m3 which is only 10% of the per capita share of the international warning standard. Due to excessive pumping, the groundwater level of north part of China has decreased dramatically. The researcher of International Rivers of Water Resources in China, Cathy Xu believes that from the point of view of the resources, the north part of China has formed the biggest underground funnel in the world due to excessive pumping. What’s worse, the funnel is expanding. In recent years, severe drought and floods and other natural disasters took turns to attack the north and south China provinces. Sustained drought leads to the decrease of the water level at Yangtze and other major rivers. Hydroelectric power generation is 20% less than a normal year which in turn leads to the increase of coal consumption for power generation. For the reason that the price of electricity is lower and the corresponding price of coal is much higher, many of the coal-­‐fired power plants are facing the risk of closure. Therefore, the coal-­‐fired power plants have to reduce the generating capacity artificially which in turn would make the situation
worse and worse. According to some studies, some of the areas have to face the power
failure every two or three days.
In order to ensure normal power supply under the condition of drought, there is raising demand of coal power generation. However, the mining coal, in turn, would require a lot of water resources. World Bank warned that the continuing decline of water supply will intensify the rich-­‐poor and urban-­‐rural conflicts in China. If there is still no change of the ways to use water, in the next decade, tens of millions of Chinese people will become eco-­‐environmental refugees. Ways of solution One of the most effective and efficient ways to solve the problem is to carry out transboundary waters cooperation. Transboundary waters resources take up about 30% of the whole water resources in China, however, the Development and utilization of the transboundary waters is less than 5%. Therefore, Chinese government has already begun cooperation with neighboring countries. For example, the Chinese government has invested $ 30 billion to construct a 20 million kilowatts hydropower station in northern Myanmar and a power station
which has a installed capacity of 7.1 million kilowatts at Salween (Known as Nujiang in the
territory of China). In Laos, Chinese government has invested $ 200 million to build a
hydropower station with a total installed capacity of 100,000 kilowatts. In addition,
Chinese government has planned to build a hydropower station in Cambodia with a total
installed capacity of 2.7 million kilowatts and invested about $ 600 million to build a
hydropower station with a total installed capacity of 330,000 kilowatts in Myanmar in 2014.
Problems and conflicts Case one: Chinese government and Myanmar government signed the lease about building
hydropower station on Peace River which is a transboundary river between these two
countries. The lease said the power will But the problem is the station located in the
Kachin State, an area is being controlled by the anti-Government army has almost eight
thousand soldiers. In June, 2011, after the project was completed, the Kachin army
conflicted with the Myanmar government army again, the result was station was bombed
and several Myanmar soldiers were killed and all the engineers from China went back
home for security. Case two: The Yarlung Zangbo River origins from China and flows through India(main tea
product area) and Bangladesh(rice product area) (Brahmaputra River), it is the second
biggest river in India and Bangladesh. Since the large water resource in upstream, China
government plans to build the hydropower station in the river, it is absolutely the
downstream water resource will decrease. India and Bangladesh have expressed strong
dissatisfaction with that decision and India claimed that project will be a serious threat to
the domestic water use will even get into war conflict if the project stats.
Case three: The IrtySh River origins from the north area of Xiangjiang Province in China and
then flows into Kazakhstan. The problem is China is now building a canal from Irtysh River
to the state capital city. Kazakhstan expressed strong dissatisfaction with this construction
and thinks it will definitely decrease the water resource and influences the
agricultural irrigation and channel transportation.
Conclusion China is one of the countries with the most international rivers; there are 12
international rivers origin from China and area involve in 19 countries and nearly 3 billion
people. In recent years, some issues about developing and utilizing the water resources,
ecological environmental protection and pollution control have taken place in China and
the surrounding countries. These factors are influencing China's security and should be
solved via negotiations and cooperation.
Discussion 1. Under the condition of the recent water resources status quo in China, do you believe there is going to be a water resources disaster in the near future if no better solutions are carried out? 2. According to the present water resources situation in China, do you think developing transboundary water resource is a good idea? Why? 3. Assuming developing transboundary water resources is critical, what chances of success are there if the developing process is only based on the existing International water laws or regulations but no real cooperation and negotiations? How important is the win-­‐win situation come to be? Do you think International political and economic situation would have an influence on such cooperation? Reference Study
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