A new paper paints a grim picture for the future of China's water supply - because the Chinese have chosen to believe in "virtual water".
The paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) estimate a full inventory of physical water transfers and 'virtual' water redistribution via trade between China's provinces. Their estimate determined that water stress is only partially mitigated by China's current two-pronged approach: physical water transfers to water-depleted regions, including the major South-North water transfer projects, or the 'virtual' water embodied in traded products between regions and countries.
Moreover, the efforts are exacerbating water stress for China's poorer water-exporting regions, with virtual water transfers accounting for more than one-third of the country's national water supply. Up to 65 percent of the water supply in some provinces is earmarked for virtual water redistribution, to be used for infrastructure and for producing exports. Well, that was what proponents of virtual water had to be done - now the Chinese.
Virtual water is a metric invented in the 1990s to try and account for hidden water - everything in the chain of food production. The problem is that it ignored that most water is recycled. Since the virtual water in the grain in just Egypt is more than all of the water in the Nile, there should have been water wars for 100 years, but there have not been. It does not really take 140 liters of virtual water to make a cup of coffee - where coffee grows most of that water is recycled every day.
Until China significantly improves its water use efficiency and addresses the impact its expanding economy is having on its natural resources, the situation will continue to deteriorate, the researchers conclude. An international effort led by the Beijing Forestry University (China), UEA and Leeds (UK) and the University of Maryland (US), the research analyses data from 2007 and looks ahead to China's water distribution plans in 2030. Water stress is likely to become more severe in the main water-exporting provinces, based on policy initiatives aimed at boosting development in wealthier regions to meet consumption demands.
Professor Dabo Guan of UEA's School of International Development said, "China needs to shift its focus to water demand management instead of a supply oriented approach if it is going to seriously address the overwhelming pressures on its water supplies.
"China's current transfer programme is pouring good water after bad: the problems of water-stressed regions aren't being alleviated and the provinces sharing their water are suffering greatly."
Guan, professor in climate change economics, together with his colleague, Prof Martin Tillotson of Leeds, published research in 2014 showing 75 percent of China's lakes and rivers and 50 percent of its groundwater supplies are contaminated, the result of urban household consumption, export of goods and services and infrastructure investment.
Tillotson, chair in water management and director of water@leeds, said, "Even allowing for future efficiency gains in agricultural and industrial water consumption, China's water transfers are likely to be insufficient to offset increased demand due to the effects of economic and population growth. A much greater focus needs to be placed on regulating or incentivizing reductions in demand-led consumption."
The research was partly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), Prof Guan's Philip Leverhulme Prize, a University of Leeds Cheney Fellowship and the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN).