Li Ying
Engineer, Water resources and Water Administration Bureau, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, 1155 Ave., Wuhan, China, 430010
Tel: 0086 27 82828755, Fax: 0086 27 82820252, E-mail: zjyaly@public.wh.hb.cn
Liu Zhensheng
Vice Director, Water resources and Water Administration Bureau, Changjiang Water Resources Commission, 1155 Ave., Wuhan, China, 430010
Tel: 0086 27 82828752, Fax: 0086 27 82820252,
E-mail: liuzs@cjwrc.edu.cn
Abstract: In recent
time, more pressures were put on the water resources management due to shortage
of fresh water resources globally, water pollution, the deterioration of water
quality, increasing of cost for developing new water source, as well as
population growth and water demand growth. It is obvious that supply-oriented
management is not the only way to solve these problems. Water demand management
is a new trend for water resources management in recent world. To ensure
sustainable development of water resources in Changjiang River Basin, demand
management has already been put into practice. The demand management measures in
terms of legal, economic and technical instruments, which was put into practice
in Changjiang River Basin, were firstly described in this paper, and suggestions
for water demand management are given based on the analyzing of existing the
problems in the implementing those measures.
Keywords: demand management, economic tools, water saving technique, water price, and sustainable development
In decades, the emphasis of water resources management was put on water supply management by ways of searching and developing new water sources, water transfer and distribution, and water treatment and so on. With global shortage of fresh water resources, deterioration of water quality in various water bodies, increasing of cost for developing new water source, as well as population growth and water demand growth, etc., the shortcomings of supply-oriented water management were been aware. Providing water free of charges or heavily subsidized in the past have already led to serious mis-allocations, inefficient using and overexploitation of water resources.
In recent decades, with rapid economic growth in Changjiang Valley, the water demand from all sectors increased quickly. Statistic show that the total amount of water use increase from 135 billion m3 in 1980 to 164 billion m3 in 1993, while the amount of industrial water using was doubled (increased nearly 20 billion m3). Water using increasing gave more pressures to water supply projects in Changjiang River Valley, and also led to water pollution problems, especially in the Changjiang Delta region. Due to the fact that charges for water supply are generally lower than the cost or simply free of charge, water supply units have been in a state of fund deficit. This has led to inadequate maintenance of water supply system, therefore resulting to inefficient water using. Those issues have been already recongernized by the water resources managers in Changjiang River Basin. Efforts are made to execute water demand management, which is considered crucial for sustainable development of water resources in Changjiang River Basin.
Demand management is defined as the development and implementation of strategies to influence demand for the efficient and sustainable use of the scarce water resources. The aims of demand management are to safeguard the rights of access to water for future generations, to limit water demands, to ensure equitable water distribution, to protect the environment, to maximize the socio-economic output of one unit water, and hence to increase the efficiency of water use and so on.
The tools and measures for demand management could be on economic, legal, administrative, educational and technical aspects, etc. From legal angle, the demand management is to formulating and implementing water law and regulations, while economic measures used in the demand management is to charge water using and apply different price policy. From the technical view, those technical measures, such as: drip irrigation, leakage control, canal lining etc., can be considered as water demand management also.
In order to ensure water resources equitable distribution and allocation, to improve water use efficiency and to make up the cost in the operating, maintaining and renewing the water supply projects, the regulation of water pricing and water fee using for water supply projects was issued by the State Council in 1985, and it indicated that there is no more water supplied for free. In this regulation, it is stipulated that water users, whom extract water from water supply projects, such as reservoirs, cannels, etc., should be charged by the managing companies, regardless the purposes of water use. The principle for drawing water tariffs as well as the ways of collecting water fees and using the money are also ruled in this regulation.
In 1988, Water Law was published, it stipulated officially that water resources is also a kind of economic goods, those who take the water from lakes and rivers or ground aquifers, should get water usage licenses and be charged in some degree, so called water resources fee. In 1993, the State Council draw up the regulation of implementing procedure for water usage licenses, it is made clear that each unit or individual who take water directly from lakes, rivers or ground aquifers by constructing projects or pumping facilities etc., should apply water usage licenses, and be charged based on the amount of water taken, which be contracted in the license. Anymore, the regulation of annual examining water usage was set up, it rules that the water administrative departments at all levels should examine all water users annually within its authority, in terms of the amount of water taken, the water quality of discharge, water saving measures taken as well as the amount of water applied for the next year. Anymore, the water administrative departments have the rights to examine all index mentioned above at anytime within the year, and if the amount of water taken in the year exceed that contracted in the license, it should be charged at higher rate, also several penalties are set up in case of no compliance with the regulation.
The current economic instruments which are being put into practice in Changjiang River Basin have three: water resources fee, water fee charged by water supply projects, and tape water charge.
3.2.1 Water resources fee
Except for Shanghai City and Hunan Province, other provinces in Changjiang River Basin have already set up the regulations of collecting water resources fee based on the local situation, all water users have been registered and paid for water taking. Those who construct the new projects or expand the scale for water taking should go to corresponding water administrative departments for fore-apply and applying for the licenses.
The rates of water resources fee vary with the provinces, and being set up by provincial water administrative departments. The standard for water resources fee setting are mainly dependent on the types of water use and water supply sources (surface water or ground water). At present, the rate of water resources fee is set too low (for surface water taking, it cost 0.02-0.05 RMB for 1 m3, while it cost 0.03-0.05 RMB for 1 m3 groundwater drawing), and not high enough to show the functions of economic instrument. Especially the rate between surface water taking and ground water drawing are too close, and led to ground water being over-developed in the regions whose surface water are highly polluted. For instants, in Changjiang delta plain, land subsidence have already occurred in some area, and threatened the safety of the highway from Shanghai to Nanjing. The maximiue depth of land subsidence even reached 1 m in some region. The reasons causing the problem are that the groundwater was over-taken by the companies and enterprises due to the surface water highly polluted and eutrophication. The cost of taking, treating surface water is higher than that of ground water extraction (including paying higher water resources fee). To avoid the worse state occurring, Jiangsu provincial water administrative department adjusted the strategies for ground water management, and the water resources fee for ground water will be raised in a short period, and the applying procedure for digging new wells will be more stricter, in addition, the plan for reducing the amount of groundwater extracting annually have already been made and been implemented. It has proved that these measures have effects on the control of land subsidence. Stricter regulation for ground water extracting in those regions will be draw up soon.
3.2.2 Water fee charged by water supply projects
It has been made clear in the Water Law that those who use water provided by water-supply projects shall pay water fee to the supplying unit. The activities charged include using facilities to take water from reservoirs, irrigation canals, manmade channels, etc. for different water use purposes.
At present, water fee is considered as a kind of administrative charge, and each year the government gave subsidies to those projects. To lighten the burden of farmers, some local governments even cancel the water fee for irrigation purpose. The standards for collecting water fee are also set far below the cost, and the non-block rate is commonly practiced. Therefore it is no good for encouraging efficient water use, and water supply units also can not receive sufficient payment for their services, consequently, they are not able to maintain their system adequately, hence led to system at the edge of break-down and inefficient water use.
Another problem occurring in the implementing procedure of this regulation is that agreement between different administrative regions is hard to be reached in case of that the water supply project and water users belong to different administrative regions. For example, the Danjiangkou project on Hanjiang River, which is in charge of by Changjiang Water Resource Commission, MWR, is a multiple purpose project. It has several functions such as: flood control, power generation, irrigation and water supply for industry. More than 30 enterprises and tape-water supply companies from Hubei Province and Henan Province are drawing water from the reservoir without any payment, due to the agreement can not be reached between local government and the project managing body, until now (20 years after the regulation drawn), the affair is still under discussion.
3.2.3 Water price for tape water
Tape-water supplying industry is managed by government in China, and the charge for tape-water is based on the amount of water to be used (usually to be metered). To ensure each resident can accesses to the tape-water, the price is usually set lower than the cost, only considered past of the cost of taking and treating water. Each year the government should subsidize it in order to keep their operation. Although the low rate of price guarantee most of residents access to the tape-water, but standing in other point, this price policy also encourage inefficient water use and meaningless for public environmental-friendly awareness arising. Also the arrangement place too much financial burden on the government, and made the operation fund for water company is not so abundant, therefore the maintaining of the water transfer network will be lagged, and led more water lost before the water reach consumers tapes.
In recent years, some reform was made on the tape-water price. The price of tape water is raising in some cities, and the sewage discharge, which occupy public sewer system, is also be charged and include into the tape-water price based on the amount of water each household use. But irrational pricing policy still exists. For industry using tape-water, the price rate will be low down if the amount of water exceeds a certain quota.
In addition to the measures mentioned above, water saving techniques is widely used. At present, the emphasis of water saving in Changjiang River Basin is put on the modification of irrigation projects and channel lining as well as the irrigation pattern changing. In cities, several water saving measures are also be taken, such as: water saving facilities used in public toilets; domestic recycling waste water for irrigation; recycling water using within enterprises, etc. Furthermore, to minimize the water lost from the tape net, some provincial administrative departments give supports to the enterprises to do water balance testing work, and it contribute a lot to those enterprises for water saving.
l Rising the water price to promote efficient water use and sustainable development of water resources
The current water prices, either water resources fee or tape-water price or water charge for water supply projects, are set too low due to several causes, and the rate for same type of charge are set un-flexiblly, also the payment from users can not recover the cost. All kinds of irrationals in water pricing can not promote the initiative of water supply sector, and it is no help for improving the public awareness.It is suggested that water prices for all types can be risen based on current water supply and managing system. The price rates charged by water supply project can be set at different levels, such as: subsidized price, planned price and non-planned water price (water supply project contracts the amount of water used monthly with the users, and give a profit price to it. In case that the water used exceeds the contracted one, the higher price rate will be implemented); seasonal price (water price will be changed with the wet and dry seasons), etc.. The water supply managing units will shift to cost-recovering and financial independence step by step. For tape-water price, it is suggested that full cost-recovery with low benefit pricing rate could be implemented in the economic well-developed regions. For water resource scare regions, the water resource fee should be risen up to some degree, especially for ground water with good quality withdrawing.
l Educating people more frequently by multiple ways to improve public awareness
Water saving is always be encouraged in China, and it is considered as one of basic national developing strategies. In each ‘Water Week of China’ (22th-28th, March), many educating activities are held and presented to the public through televisions, newspapers and broadcasting etc. by water management sectors. But the education is not only the responsibility of water sectors; it should involve all stakeholders, including enterprises, companies, schools and each householder.
l Enhance current laws and regulations, and speedy up the step of stipulating of new related laws and regulations
Due to the imperfect of some present laws and regulations, there are difficulties existing in implementing those laws and regulations in practice. Now the Water Law is under amendment. It is suggested that regulations for water fee charged by water supply projects should be amended and enhanced soon according the implementing difficulties existing in practice. Several regulations or laws, which is under consideration, should also be enhanced and published soon.
l Reform current water supply system, privatization of water supply can be tried in some region
Now private tape-water supply companies, which were invested and operated by foreign companies, have already put into use in Guangdong Province and Shanghai City. It seems that the water use efficiency of those companies is much better than the ones under the traditional operation. To ensure water consumers can get good quality service and protect the public health, the government and private companies make contracts on the guarantee degree of water supply and water price, moreover the government has the rights to check the water quality without informing the private companies at anytime. It is recommended that this kind of water supply system could be experienced in more cities and regions.
l Favorable policy should give to the utilization of water saving technique
The government should stipulate favorable policy to encourage and support the utilization of water saving technique. Grants and soft loans can be supplied to water users that wish to invest in water saving measures, such as: give subsidies to irrigation projects for water saving measures taking; low interest rate loans can be given to enterprises which are willing to invest in water circling use or other water saving measures; water saving facilities should be sale in low benefit or non-benefit.
Demand management has contributed a lot to integrated water resources management in the Changjiang River Basin, but it still has a long way to go. Water resources manager should help and encourage water users to use water saving measures and restructure water use pattern according to the local water resources conditions, while they implement economic and legal instruments for demand management.
Reference
[1] Introduction of modern development for water resources management, Water Administrative and Water Resources Department of MWR, 1995
[2] The proceedings of Sino-Japanese symposium on water resources management, Japan, 1998
[3] Water resources management concepts and tools, Savenije H.H.G, IHE, the Netherlands, 1997
[4] Handbook for water resources management in Changjiang River Basin (1),(2),(3),(4),(5), 1991—1998