WATER CONSERVATION New Streams Of Thought, Far Eastern Economic Review.
Big problems invite big solutions. But grass-roots responses to China's chronic water-supply and distribution problems prove that small-scale initiatives are essential to any long-term answer to the crisis.
LIKE A SECURITY GUARD, farmer Xiao Zhaofang used to stand watch over a sparkling treasure for more than 30 days every year. Her trove: a precious stream of water that coursed through irrigation canals to nourish her crop of rice, peanuts and watermelon. "If I didn't someone would steal it," she says.
Since small-scale water charges were first introduced to the Chinese countryside in 1983, farmers have had to physically protect their water supply during the planting and growing season to ensure unscrupulous neighbours don't redirect the flow to their own fields.
For Xiao, life is getting easier. In April last year, she and 350 local farming families got together to form a water user association, or WUA, and replaced the local government as the supplier of water to farmers in their district of Xinglong in Hubei province, central China. Since then, her water supply has been secure, her crops have been watered and she's on friendly terms with her neighbours.
End of story? No, it's only the beginning. After decades of wasteful water policies China is beginning to tighten the taps on this vital resource. It needs to. China is not only short of water. It has problems on all fronts-pollution, floods, drought, distribution and pricing among them. Per-capita water reserves are a quarter of the world average, and most of the nation's water resources are in the south of the country.
In the north, deserts and arid land areas are expanding, aquifers are draining, coastal land is becoming salinated as the fresh-water table heads towards bedrock and some major cities are a decade or two away from running dry. At almost every level, China is ideologically and bureaucratically unprepared to deal with its water crisis. But as Ma Jun, author of China's Water Crisis, points out, "when you have a crisis, things have to change."
And change is under way. The result is a wide range of responses. From the central government, there are proposals for massive waterway projects involving the transfer of water between river basins. The biggest of these, the multibillion dollar South-North water transfer project, aims to transfer 150 million tonnes of water annually from the mighty Yangtze that flows through central China across 1,200 kilometres to the dehydrating cities of the north.
Rural villages-also feeling the water pinch-are responding in their own way (see story on page 38). There, solutions have to be low-tech and easy to implement, but the cumulative impact is significant.
Water user associations like the one in Xinglong are a key part of the grass-roots answer. With active support from the Ministry of Water Resources, they are spreading throughout the country, illustrating part of a broader trend in China-local organizations taking control of problems the once omnipotent Communist Party cannot solve.
Too often, Communist Party officials concentrate on eye-catching projects, such as a new road or office development, to win attention from their superiors. and gain promotion, say agricultural experts. The less glamorous work of repairing irrigation ditches attracts only lip service; rarely is it a priority for cadres in a hurry. But for farmers, it is key to their livelihood.
Already, there are about 1,500 WUAs scattered across China. About 500 were set up with advice and, in some cases, financial help for capital works such as canal repair from the World Bank, which in 1995 fostered one of the first programmes in Lugang, near Xinglong. The Lugang association has been around long enough to get most things right, but there are other WUAs that have been incorporated into the local political structure and fail to operate in the transparent, efficient manner required for their success (see story on page 39). Ideally, the associations are at the wide base of a supply pyramid, where responsibility for water distribution is shared between county and provincial water bureaus and farming communities.
The number of villages in each association is determined by the size of the local water-catchment area. For example, the area covered by the Lugang WUA is home to 1,400 families in nine villages and-an indication of the complexity of water supply in China's countryside-has around 100 kilometres of irrigation channels.
The associations, whose officials are directly elected by the farmers, are responsible for ensuring the supply of water to all farmers in their area. That involves organizing the repair and maintenance of irrigation canals and regularly opening locks to allow the flow of water from main arteries to the vein-like channels that criss-cross large parts of China's densely populated countryside.
Simple tasks. But the secure provision of the most important commodity in the rural economy to the farmers that depend on it is a significant achievement. "Water is the farmer's life blood, it determines whether their children have enough to eat," says Richard Reidinger, who as lead agricultural economist at the World Bank in Beijing has played a key role in the promotion of WUAs in China.
The associations buy water-with funds pooled by their members-from a state-owned water-supply company that in turn buys it from the county or provincial water bureau. The three combined make up what is called a self-financing irrigation and draining district. Look at a typical case in Hubei: The Zhang He reservoir supplies water to the San Gan Management District, which sells it to the Jingmen City Water Resource Company that in turn feeds water to 23 WUAs with a total area of over 20,000 hectares.
In a nudge towards water conservation, supply companies charge WUAs for the volume of water they use. In the past, villages were charged for water based on the amount of land they had under cultivation, regardless of the amount of water they used. Under that system there was no incentive to save. This simple reform cut water usage by up to 20% in some villages, says Reidinger. Raising water prices in northern China, where the crisis is most serious, and charging by volume rather than by land area, would further encourage conservation, say experts. But that's a politically sensitive move in the countryside, where many farmers' finances are stretched by random levies.
One of the key benefits for farmers is that by organizing the supply of water the associations save them an enormous amount of time and labour. "Before, it took about 100 people per village to administer water supply during the three or four peak periods every year when farmers most needed it," says Chen Jingxiang, chairman of the Lugang association. Now, because everybody's supply is guaranteed, eight people are enough to open and close the locks between water channels and oversee distribution.
In addition, the renovation and extension of irrigation canals in Lugang has added 15% more land to the irrigated area, allowing farmers there to produce higher-yield crops.
In the 1950s and 1960s Maoist work brigades built ditches and canals to expand the irrigation systems across China. Such advances helped China's countryside grow enough food to accommodate the rapid rise in post-revolution baby boomers that doubled the country's population between 1952 and 1980.
Rural reforms initiated in the 1980s saw farmers take responsibility for their own land holdings. Communal duties, including upkeep of the irrigation systems, became more haphazard and competition for water was often fierce, reviving local antagonisms that had been buried by the uniformity forced on rural communities by the communist regime in the 1950s.
Today, WUAs are a marker of how rural communities are making decisions that once were made for them. "Farmers can now reach agreement among themselves about water use, it's kind of self-governing," says author Ma Jun.
For Xiao, the water user association has brought security and savings. "Before there was no management and a lot of water was wasted," she says. Her water costs have gone down 40% since the WUA took over water supply from the local government.
And she no longer has to worry about the dangers of protecting her water supply. Guarding water is "man's work, but they are not at home," says Xiao, referring to her husband and 20-year-old son, who work in nearby Jingmen city. Not having to stand guard over their water supply frees farmers up to maintain irrigation canals, repair tools or take on other jobs or, as Xiao confessed, to just rest.
