The Water Shortage in China

Water shortage is a growing problem for most countries in the world. For China, which has 20% of world’s population and only 7% of available water resources, this problem may become catastrophic (Hofstedt 2010, 72). Therefore some actions and measures should be performed to avoid or at least to weaken future water crisis in China. In this work the following three solutions will be proposed and analyzed in terms of efficiency and applicability: water usage efficiency improvement; adopting the local agencies on controlling water resources; reasonable water pricing.

Most of water consumed in China is not rationally used. The cause which intensifies the water shortage in China is water inefficient use. For instance, 65%-70% of Chinese water usage is spent on agricultural needs, but more than half of this amount evaporates percolates and loses (Roberts 2009). Besides, majority of another 20%-25% which is occupied by China’s industry is not recycled (Brown 2008a, 16; Roberts 2009). Obviously, improving water distribution technologies and management quality can be one of the options to reduce the water scarcity in China. There are many different methods of improving the water distribution efficiency. Firstly, irrigation technologies should be improved. Farmers in China may use drip and shrink irrigation methods instead of traditional “surface” ones such as furrow and flood irrigation. Drip irrigation method is used mostly in arid and semi-arid zones and it increases the efficiency of irrigation by transporting the water directly to the roots of irrigated plant. The emitters sprinkle the soil under the roots with water which is introduced to the plant by pipes, diminishing water evaporation, deep percolation and leak. In contrast, fur...

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... water price rising and its maintaining on the reasonable level will inevitably lead to the increasing of other products cost, which is unacceptable in China (Hofstedt 2010, 76-77). Consequently, this measure should be adopted consistently, in accordance with the global situation in the world and in China especially.

In conclusion, this work has evaluated several solutions of the water shortage in China: water usage efficiency improvement, adopting the local agencies on controlling water resources and reasonable water pricing. It has been revealed that all of proposed solutions might be effective, but they should be properly applied and, probably, their combining can contribute to the combating the water scarcity in China. However, some of other solutions should have been evaluated, such as water recycling, and this work might become a base for further studies.