It is all too common to hear of species threatened with extinction. Not so common is to hear of an entire river threatened this way. But for many years, it seemed, China’s Yellow River was doomed.
Known as both the cradle of Chinese civilization and as “China’s sorrow” for the devastating floods it once caused, the Yellow River had by the 1970s been so sapped by irrigation and industry that it often failed to reach the sea. In 1997 it went dry for more than seven months.
Determined to keep the river flowing and empowered with new authority to do so, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, or YRCC, is experimenting with the concept of environmental flows to managing water allocation on the river and has joined with the IUCN to produce a Chinese-language version of the IUCN’s book on the subject, “Flow.”
The environmental flows approach, as has been explained in more detail elsewhere, pulls together the various stakeholders along a river and melds the various social, ecological, hydrological and economic demands on it to split the water in a way that is both fair and that leaves the river with enough water to sustain itself. The YRCC’s determination to adopt an e-flows approach, therefore, represents an important shift in the way China and its Ministry of Water Resources approach the task of managing natural resources.
“Previously this was very much a top-down process,” said Sun Yangbo at the YRCC in Zhengzhou. “This book gives us some examples of how to include public participation in decision making on water use.”
To understand just how big a shift this is, remember that China is the country that in the late 1950s conducted mass exterminations of sparrows to keep them from eating crops and that more recently built the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric dam. “The dominating concept was to fight with nature, to overcome nature, to harness it,” said Qin Liyi, a program officer at IUCN in Bangkok. “Environmental awareness is relatively new.”
Indeed, China’s pollution problems have given rise to a new emphasis in China on “harmonious development,” not only more equitable economic growth to reduce growing income disparities, but economic growth that reduces environmental degradation.
In 1999, the government gave the YRCC control of the Yellow River’s floodgates and authority to determine the allocation of its water. Now, provincial governments that previously took as much water as they wanted must submit to the YRCC, which aims not only to keep the water flowing, but reduce water pollution and control the massive erosion of soil that gives the river its namesake color.
“It’s very difficult,” said Sun Feng at the YRCC. The commission has to balance the needs of nine provinces with its forecasts for how much water will be available. So far, the commission has only been working on coordinating the various government ministries competing for the river’s water. But factories must also now apply to the YRCC for water. “If a new industry wants water to set up a new factory they have to come to us,” said she said.
The Chinese translation of “Flow” was launched in September 2006 and the YRCC is confident that it will help managers cope with these conflicting demands. Thanks in part to its embrace of the environmental flows concept, the YRCC now recognizes the need for the river to have enough water to flush out pollutants and support its own ecology.
China has yet to fully expand the environmental flows concept to include local communities and NGOs. “There’s still a long way to go,” said Qin Liyi. But it is clearly moving in the right direction. In October, 2007, the YRCC is planning to hold a forum on environmental flows that will enable it to hear from a broader range of experts and stakeholders. “We want to involve more local participants,” said Sun Yangbo.
Written by Wayne Arnold
