15.4 Key Sectoral Reforms
331
The Shiyang RiverBasin locates in the eastern part of Hexi Corridor, Gansu
Province. The riverbasin is severely short of water resources. Due to the fast
social and economic development in the middle stream, there is a serious
ecological disaster in the downstream, such as drying up of end lake and source
of the sandstorm. The ecological disaster resulted in social problems too, such
as ecological refugees.
In 2007, the Wuwei Prefecture in the riverbasin started to implement water
rights reform as a key non-structural instrument to restore the riverbasin. The
water rights allocation plan of the prefecture, counties, irrigation districts
and towns/countries were formulated for domestic, ecological and productive (industrial and agricultural) uses. The agricultural water use was further
allocated down to irrigation districts, towns/countries, WUAs and water users.
Then water certificates were issued for each rural household. The water tickets
were used to manage each irrigation.
To support water rights reform, the metering system with an IC card for
groundwater was installed for each well. WUAs were set up in the riverbasin.
After the water rights reform, the annual water use of the prefecture
decreased from 2.326 billion m
3 in 2006 to 1.613 billion m
3 in 2011, the
agricultural water use decreased 0.883 billion m
3 from 2006 to 2011.
15.4.4.2 ET-Based Water Rights Management
A recent development in water rights management is a shift from focusing on water
extraction to water consumption. The concept behind this approach is that the portion
of water lost to evapotranspiration (ET) is part of the “real” quantity consumed but
no longer available for users downstream or from the aquifer. In contrast, the portion
that returns to the surface or groundwater systems is still available for other users
downstream or from the aquifer, unless its quality has deteriorated to the point that it
is not suitable for economic use, in which case the losses are “real” losses. Advances
in remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques have made
it feasible to manage irrigation water resources in terms of the amounts of water
actually consumed by crops, trees, and weeds for ET rather than manage total water
withdrawals from surface and groundwater sources.
The ET approach is particularly useful in North China and Northwest China.
In water-scarce areas, it is important to manage water resources in terms of net
water consumption, which includes ET. Past management in China based on water
withdrawals has been shown to be unsuccessful because the saved water might be
used to irrigate more land; that is, more water is consumed with less water returning
1 China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Tsinghua University, Renmin
University of China. Implementation Assessment for Water Abstraction Control System in Northwest China, July 2012.
331
The Shiyang RiverBasin locates in the eastern part of Hexi Corridor, Gansu
Province. The riverbasin is severely short of water resources. Due to the fast
social and economic development in the middle stream, there is a serious
ecological disaster in the downstream, such as drying up of end lake and source
of the sandstorm. The ecological disaster resulted in social problems too, such
as ecological refugees.
In 2007, the Wuwei Prefecture in the riverbasin started to implement water
rights reform as a key non-structural instrument to restore the riverbasin. The
water rights allocation plan of the prefecture, counties, irrigation districts
and towns/countries were formulated for domestic, ecological and productive (industrial and agricultural) uses. The agricultural water use was further
allocated down to irrigation districts, towns/countries, WUAs and water users.
Then water certificates were issued for each rural household. The water tickets
were used to manage each irrigation.
To support water rights reform, the metering system with an IC card for
groundwater was installed for each well. WUAs were set up in the riverbasin.
After the water rights reform, the annual water use of the prefecture
decreased from 2.326 billion m
3 in 2006 to 1.613 billion m
3 in 2011, the
agricultural water use decreased 0.883 billion m
3 from 2006 to 2011.
15.4.4.2 ET-Based Water Rights Management
A recent development in water rights management is a shift from focusing on water
extraction to water consumption. The concept behind this approach is that the portion
of water lost to evapotranspiration (ET) is part of the “real” quantity consumed but
no longer available for users downstream or from the aquifer. In contrast, the portion
that returns to the surface or groundwater systems is still available for other users
downstream or from the aquifer, unless its quality has deteriorated to the point that it
is not suitable for economic use, in which case the losses are “real” losses. Advances
in remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) techniques have made
it feasible to manage irrigation water resources in terms of the amounts of water
actually consumed by crops, trees, and weeds for ET rather than manage total water
withdrawals from surface and groundwater sources.
The ET approach is particularly useful in North China and Northwest China.
In water-scarce areas, it is important to manage water resources in terms of net
water consumption, which includes ET. Past management in China based on water
withdrawals has been shown to be unsuccessful because the saved water might be
used to irrigate more land; that is, more water is consumed with less water returning
1 China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Tsinghua University, Renmin
University of China. Implementation Assessment for Water Abstraction Control System in Northwest China, July 2012.