Focus on Arts and Ecology

A professor at Melbourne University talks about the limitations of water diversion during a time of extreme weather events. 

By Jiang Yifan, October 12, 2022

This summer, China saw the hottest, widest-spread and longest-lasting heatwave since the country started to keep comprehensive records in 1961. What should have been the flood season for the Yangtze basin became a record-setting drought. Water levels in Dongting and Poyang lakes dropped several metres lower than expected for the time of year. Small and medium-sized rivers in a number of provinces dried up, as did some reservoirs. The mouth of the Yangtze saw a salt tide that is rare in summer. The drought also caused severe electricity shortages in Sichuan and Chongqing. At the end of September, 95% of Jiangxi was still suffering an extreme drought.

Meteorologists have linked the drought with the general trend of global warming and think it was seasonally affected by unusually high temperatures on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, the La Niña phenomenon, and warmer water temperatures in the Indian Ocean and the north-west Pacific. The drought, combined with the 2020 floods in the south and the 2021 floods in the north, are making the impacts of climate change much more real for ordinary people.

Meanwhile, China is speeding up the construction of a vast “national water grid” to solve regional water shortages. The government increased investment in the project this year, partly to help stabilise the economy. By late August, water projects worth more than 1.8 trillion yuan (US$250 billion) were under construction, more than ever before.

But what can water diversion achieve when extreme weather is further exacerbating the uneven distribution of water resources both geographically and over time? China Dialogue spoke with Mark Wang, a professor of geography at Melbourne University and director of its Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. Since 2011, he and his team have been studying how China manages its water resources. They have examined water, rural and agricultural issues in the Yellow River basin; supplies of fresh water in Shanghai under climate change; and the South-to-North Water Diversion project. Team members have a strong background in human geography and focus on the social and governance issues associated with major water projects and water resources. Rather than take an engineering approach focusing on increasing water supplies to meet ever-greater demand or solving water shortages, they look at the social, institutional and environmental aspects of balancing supply and demand by increasing demand-side water conservation.

China Dialogue: In mid-August, reservoirs on the Yangtze responded to the drought by reallocating water among themselves. How useful are such intra-basin transfers when responding to extreme weather events like this?

Mark Wang: Such joint transfers can be of some use, and the Chinese government is good at integrated management of the upper and lower reaches of the river. It can do it, it can do it well, and it will be of some help with, for example, irrigation in certain areas. But effectiveness is limited by a number of issues.

The first is: who gets the water? As it flows downriver, the water doesn’t benefit the worst affected areas, Sichuan and Chongqing, which are upstream. They actually provide the extra water. It was reported that reservoirs on the upper and middle Yangtze provided 5.3 billion cubic metres of water in early and mid-August. Reservoirs on the upper reaches of the river, mostly in Sichuan and Chongqing, provided 70% of that.

Second is the amount of water that can be made available. That 5.3 billion cubic metres is no small amount, but it’s about 0.5% of the 1 trillion cubic metre annual flow of the river or 2.6% of the basin’s annual surface water supply of 200 billion cubic metres. It can meet some needs, but only so far.

Third, what should that water be used for? Normally, agriculture accounts for half of all water use on the Yangtze basin. Another 30% goes to industry, 17% is for municipal use [including households], and 3% is for ecological flows. I believe ecological flows will be the first to go in this situation, as those are often regarded as dispensable. Domestic supplies will get priority and then industrial and agricultural uses, with industry very likely to come first between the two. Over 12 million mu (8,000 square kilometres) of farmland has been affected by drought over the six provinces on the Yangtze. On average 1 mu needs 400 cubic metres of water a year, which means 5 billion cubic meters for the whole basin. How much of that 5.3 billion cubic metres will be left for agriculture once households and industry have been supplied?

We can tackle a drought in that way, but there’s only so much good it can do. And remember, the drought affects the entire basin, not just the lower parts.

Will cutting off ecological flows have a severe impact on the environment?

Yes. The ecological flow is the minimum necessary to keep an ecology functioning. But in China it’s often thought of as ornamental. For example, some water from the South–North Water Diversion project is used in Beijing or Xiong’an to flush out polluted rivers – that’s not an ecological use in the strict sense.

We’ve seen reports of a big number of smaller rivers running dry. Does that indicate ecological flows are being overlooked?

This is an important issue for China and also a lot of Asian countries, including Japan. Rivers are living things. The course of the river, its oxbow lakes, all have evolved in different ways and have different ecological worth. Rivers need a certain amount of water, the ecological flow, to keep ecosystems functioning. A river drying up can have catastrophic outcomes, with many organisms perishing. It’s something we don’t pay enough attention to. We worry about the major rivers, but the smaller ones, the tributaries and streams, have long been overlooked. China is adopting a “river chief” system, which will see a local official take responsibility for each river. That’s a great system, but the vast majority of river chiefs don’t understand how rivers work. They worry about preventing pollution, illegal sand extraction or illegal occupation of the river course. But we rarely hear of them ensuring ecological flows. We need to take a comprehensive approach to keeping our rivers alive.

Could such extreme weather events be mitigated by transfers between basins? Particularly in a year like this, when the south has suffered a drought and the north floods? And if it is technically feasible, what governance challenges are there?

We must not overestimate the ability of water transfers to relieve regional droughts caused by extreme weather. Water transfers can’t solve extreme weather caused by climate change. The impacts are too big and it’s impossible to predict which areas will be affected.

China’s national water grid is starting to take shape, with its ultimate goal of forming three routes running north to south and four east to west. But it is designed to take water from the Yangtze and send it north to an area centred on Beijing – the most water-stressed and irrigation-reliant part of China. In some senses, the population, rapid urbanisation and increasing water demand from industry mean water supplies there are even more stressed than those in Xinjiang. The direction of flow means the South–North Water Diversion project can’t solve droughts in the Yangtze basin. There is a scheme being planned which would take water from the Three Gorges reservoir to the lower reaches of the Han River. That would relieve shortages of water in the rivers below the Danjiangkou reservoir, which have arisen due to the transfer of water to the north. But that is merely a reallocation of water within the Yangtze basin.

Despite these problems, the South–North Water Diversion project is a national-level undertaking. Presumably that means there’s no fighting over the water between the provinces it passes through?

Almost none. But it does flow through a lot of provinces, some of which contain both areas that sacrifice water and those which benefit from it. That means central government subsidies are important. Water transfers aren’t just about physically shifting water. There are flows of money and power, and measures need to be taken to manage those. The interests of the donor areas need to be protected, and opportunities for growth need to be provided.

We’ve seen the uneven distribution of water in China worsen, both geographically and over time. In 2020, the south suffered floods. In 2021, it was the north. Now we have a drought in the south when it should be flood season. At the same time, we’re building a national water grid, with further increases in investment made this year. Do you think those projects will be enough for China to meet the water challenges climate change will bring?

That uneven distribution isn’t a new problem, but it has become worse in recent years. I have reservations about continuing to invest in physical infrastructure, to be building more dams and water transfer projects, under these circumstances. I’m more in agreement with Xi Jinping’s “16-character water governance plan”: save water first, distribute water evenly, manage water systematically, and make use of both the market and government. I’m excited about that as it prioritises water conservation, which is a change from engineering-first thinking. The idea of simply transferring enough water across river basins to meet demand is no good. We need to work with what nature gives us, not insist on remaking it.

So where should the money that’s being spent on those projects go instead? I think our water infrastructure is already good enough. We have world-leading technology and hardware. What if we spend it on water-conservation measures? What if we expend the same amount of effort in that direction? And could we make use of our institutional advantages and make a major social engineering push for better management of water resources? It’s not that China isn’t trying to conserve water. You hear talk of “sponge cities” everywhere. But it’s not doing enough. Irrigation accounts for 60% of China’s water use. Drip irrigation is developing well, but the majority of farmland is still using flood irrigation, which is a massive waste of water. Reducing agriculture water use would significantly decrease water stress.

The water grid can help by transferring and storing water, but there is only so much that engineering projects can do to solve water shortages. I hope that in the future China’s water-management strategy won’t be decided solely by engineers. We need more environmental and social scientists playing a part in the policymaking process, to ensure those factors are also given consideration.

Overall, the drought during what should be the flood season is a clear warning: we cannot rely on engineering to solve these problems. The impact of climate change on water resources and the water environment will be unpredictable. If a drought happens in the same place every year, you can put water diversion infrastructure in place and mobilise the entire country to transfer water to you. But the reality is that droughts do not do that. They strike here one year and there the next. Physical infrastructure cannot respond quickly enough.

December 28, 2022 

There’s one thing 2022 has made clear: If we’re going to tackle the extinction emergency and climate crisis — and save life on Earth — half-measures and business as usual won’t cut it. This moment calls for bold, far-reaching ideas and the drive to realize them.   That’s why the Center for Biological Diversity just launched an ambitious petition to bring back jaguars to the American Southwest. Our vision for jaguars — like our visions for gray wolves and California grizzly bears — is to return them to their ancient homelands wherever suitable. In doing that, we restore the wilderness character of the ecosystems these majestic creatures once sustained.   Nothing less than grand solutions will ensure a living future for the wild.   Read on for some highlights of our wins this year — which we couldn’t have achieved without you.   To help us win next year too, contribute to our Saving Life on Earth Fund. Give now and your donation will be matched. Endangered Species Saving species from extinction is the Center’s core mission and always will be. In 2022 we won lifesaving Endangered Species Act protection for 45 species, including tricolored bats, lesser prairie chickens, foothill yellow-legged frogs, and Hermes copper butterflies. We secured more than 2 million acres of critical habitat for 28 species, including Canoe Creek mussels, Louisiana pine snakes, eight Florida plants, and Panama City crayfish.   We also fought for endangered species by curbing blinding resort lights on Maui to help baby sea turtles and Hawaiian petrels; protecting diamondback terrapin turtles from crab traps; and pursuing protection for southern bog turtles, ghost orchids, Railroad Valley toads, and other species on the brink. The Climate Law Institute The Center’s pathbreaking climate program won a historic, decade-long fight to protect emperor penguins jeopardized by Antarctic sea-ice loss.   We also scored preliminary protection for Temblor legless lizards — sand-swimming California reptiles imperiled by oil and gas drilling — and fought for candy darters, brightly colored Appalachia fish put at risk by the Mountain Valley Pipeline. After a court halted federal approval of the pipeline over its threats to the darters, we fought off Sen. Joe Manchin’s attempts to greenlight the project in Congress.   Alongside environmental justice leaders, the Center helped win the nation’s largest health-and-safety buffer between new oil and gas drilling and California communities. And after decades of pressure from frontline activists and our team, Los Angeles voted to phase out oil and gas drilling over the next 20 years. Both moves represent key protections for people and wildlife in one of the largest oil-producing states. Keeping People and Wildlife Safe From Toxics We scored a decisive victory when the Environmental Protection Agency, infamously negligent on pesticides, agreed to an ambitious workplan to protect endangered species from these poisons — a first. The major wins we’ve racked up in court have made the EPA change course: We forced it to act on certain pesticides detrimental to native pollinators like Fender’s blue butterflies, and our case on ultra-toxic atrazine secured key waterway protections. Our work on pesticide-infused dog collars, reported to cause terrible harms, prompted congressional hearings and continued public pressure on the EPA.   Internationally, we held a historic anti-factory-farm meeting in Mexico with communities, tribal leaders and advocacy groups from across the Americas. Working closely with Indigenous youth, we helped get an injunction against mega-factory farms for pigs in the Yucatán. And in the United States, we achieved an agreement forcing the EPA to bump up the smog threat level for Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, New York City and Denver — which means healthier air for 27.5 million people. Common Lands People, as well as other animals and plants, need protected public lands more than ever. So the Center is working to safeguard 30% of lands and waters for wildlife by 2030, as well as to kick damaging fossil fuel exploitation, timber-cutting, and livestock grazing out of vulnerable U.S. wildlands.     This year we secured a grazing ban across 33,000 acres of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in California — a major win for sage grouse and other species. We launched the Climate Forests campaign, backed by more than 120 other groups, calling for the Biden administration to protect mature and old-growth forests from logging.    In Arizona we got cattle ejected from 100 miles of the wild and scenic Verde River and its tributaries and won a long-running court battle to protect more than 30 miles of desert oasis from grazing in the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area. Justice in Energy Our Energy Justice program worked unflaggingly this year to make sure the transformation to greener power sources brings greater equity and possibility to folks across the country who’ve been sidelined and sickened for decades by the fossil fuel industry. We pushed President Biden to use the Defense Production Act to jumpstart our clean energy transition and urged him to use his climate emergency powers; we challenged utility attacks on solar power at the national level, with the Federal Trade Commission, and pushed Tennessee Valley Authority and California's Newsom administration to massively deploy rooftop- and community-solar programs rather than centralized energy.     We also played a leadership role — three times — in killing Manchin’s dirty deal, which threatened to rush destructive fossil fuel development through Congress. We stood strong as one of the only national environmental groups to oppose the Inflation Reduction Act’s giveaways to Big Oil and, at the climate convention in Egypt, helped secure the Biden administration’s first announcement supporting the phaseout of fossil fuels.  Urban Wildlands In our work to make life more livable for people and other animals in California, where human expansion over the landscape is rapid and intense, we halted destructive developments throughout the state that would threaten wildlife, worsen the climate crisis, and increase the risk of wildfire — including Guenoc Valley in Napa County and Fanita Ranch in San Diego County.   We sponsored and helped pass the Safe Roads and Wildlife Protection Act, which requires California to improve wildlife crossings for vulnerable animals like mountain lions, desert tortoises, and California tiger salamanders. And we put a stop to shortsighted water projects like Del Porto dam and Cadiz water pipeline, which would’ve damaged ecosystems and communities. Oceans The Center had a great run in 2022 in our longstanding fight for healthy oceans. We won multiple court victories to save endangered North Atlantic right whales from deadly lobster-gear entanglement and ship strikes. And we won a preliminary victory seeking expanded habitat protections for North Pacific right whales — the world’s most imperiled whale population, with only 30 animals left.   We made important progress defending humpbacks and other endangered whales from ship collisions off California’s coast, secured an agreement with the federal government to study how oil drilling harms whales and other marine species, and successfully defended our victory on Pacific offshore fracking against efforts to overturn it. International The Center’s work across the world secured Endangered Species Act listing deadlines in 2022 for giraffes and seven foreign bird and butterfly species put at risk by U.S. trade.   Our groundbreaking undercover investigation into Mexico’s heartbreaking pet trade showed how imperiled sloths, monkeys and parrots are openly marketed on social media — shedding light on the underground digital wildlife economy driving species toward extinction.   We also documented foreign nations’ extensive bycatch of dolphins and whales ahead of next year’s requirement that the United States ban foreign seafood that doesn’t meet strong U.S. marine mammal protection standards. And based on our petition, the U.S. government made its first-ever environmental trade complaint under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement over Mexico’s failure to the save vaquita porpoises, the world’s most endangered cetaceans. Population and Sustainability As the world population hit 8 billion, the Center made a powerful media push connecting unsustainable human population growth with the wildlife extinction crisis. During the White House conference on hunger, nutrition, and public health, we sent the Biden administration 10 executive actions it can take now to align its nutrition and climate goals.   Also this year we launched an educational webinar series and website debunking myths about how cattle grazing impacts wildlife and the environment and building a case for a transition to plant-based foods. And we issued a report on the connections between reproductive health, environmental toxicity, and capitalism that’s being used to educate healthcare professionals. Conserving Carnivores In our multiple campaigns to protect carnivores across the United States — and help restore them to their former homes — the Center secured a landmark ruling this year that restored federal protection to gray wolves outside the northern Rockies. We also sued to win back Endangered Species Act protection for the Rockies wolves who are still in the crosshairs in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.   We made things better for bears by convincing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider bringing grizzlies back to the North Cascades and by saving Washington’s black bears from inhumane spring hunts.   And of course, we filed our groundbreaking petition to reintroduce jaguars to New Mexico and protect 14 million acres of Southwest habitat for these beautiful cats. The Revelator: Wild Reporting and Commentary In 2022 the Center continued its support of environmental journalism through The Revelator, our news and ideas publication. Stories this year provided insight into logging, dams, clean water, species recovery, conservation communications, how war affects wildlife, and lots more.   Check out The Revelator’s best articles and commentaries of 2022, and if you haven't yet, subscribe to the publication's free e-newsletter to stay informed in 2023. Center for Biological Diversity | Saving Life on Earth Photo credits: Jaguar by Quinn Dombrowski/Flickr; leatherback sea turtle by GTN NERR/Flickr; emperor penguins by Siggy Nowack/Pixabay; Fender's blue butterfly courtesy ODOT; sage grouse courtesy USFS; rooftop solar by Ulrike Leon/Pixabay; desert tortoise by Brad Sutton/NPS; North Atlantic right whale courtesy NOAA; giraffe by Stefan Krause/Wikimedia; Earth courtesy NASA;  gray wolf by MTSOfan/Flickr; sunset by Edward Adams. Center for Biological Diversity P.O. Box 710 Tucson, AZ 85702 United States