The economics of water management on the north China plain: Water resource policy and planning on the Hai River plain, 1985.

摘要

Ecological conditions on China's Hai River plain have drastically changed since the late 1950's. Once regularly devastated by floods, by the 1980's plain surface channels were dry save for effluence, groundwater tables were falling precipitously, and severe groundwater depressions were developing. Industry, water starved, operated at greatly diminished capacity. Urban rationing was instituted and farmers resorted to waste water irrigation. Water conflicts were ubiquitous.;These changes are responses to population growth, economic development and institutional change in agriculture. Changes in plain water cycles have not been fully understood or anticipated by resource managers. Instead, resource policy has been reactive and ad hoc. Chinese water resource planning has suffered from an inattention to analytic separation of the economic behaviour of farmers and planners, a neglect of the externalities present in conjunctive use systems and an inadequate discussion of farm response to policy.;This research develops a deterministic, steady state mathematical model, multi-level in structure, employing taxation instruments to analyze the externalities contained in water use systems on the plain. The behaviour of policy makers and farmers is explicit in different levels of the models. Farm response to policy is directly simulated. Policy shifts are represented by changes in model structure or parameters. Some constraints limit policy makers and not farmers. These are transformed into taxes or subsidies that are imposed on farmers' water related activities.;The experimental results demonstrate that comprehensive control over plain water systems brings large productivity and income gains. These gains are realized by increasing diversions to downstream saline areas and by changing cropping patterns, reducing peak water demands and improving utilization of monsoonal precipitation. These results are derived given conservative estimates of water supply and are robust to large changes in factor and product prices, water loss parameters, groundwater depth and resource allocations. They require sophisticated conjunctive stream aquifer management techniques be employed to ensure efficient water allocation. Specifically, public control of groundwater withdrawals through subsidies or taxes and enabling investments in drainage works are critical elements of optimally coordinated conjunctive surface and groundwater management on the plain.