1

One of the socio-economic problems China now

confronting is short supply of such resources as

water, energy etc. China has the largest national

population in the world (territorial area of 9.6

million km2, national population of 1.31 billion as of

2006), and demand for resources has rapidly been

expanding in accompany with economic growth.

Accordingly, as far as actually available resources

per capita are concerned, the per-caput levels of

many important resources are lower than those of

world average.

Above all, water, indispensable for human life and

economic activities, has been seriously in short.

Though the annual mean quantity of water

resources is ranked 3rd in the world, annually

supplied amount of water per capita is as low as

one-fourth of the world average. Among around 600

cities in China, two-thirds have been suffered from

water insufficiency. In rural areas, arable land of

about 200,000 km2 has annually suffered from

drought where 24 million inhabitants have problem

of potable water insufficiency. On the other hand,

every year flood damages have been reported in

various regions in China, thus vulnerability is

conceivable in coping with national disasters. In

other words, it can be said that outstandingly biased/

heterogeneous distribution of rainfall and stream

water can been observed both in terms of time and

space.

Recognizing such socio-economic features, China

has constructed many dams throughout the country,

Brief-Note of JICA Projects

Republic of China, Capacity Development Project for Management Plan of Dam in China - Capacity development of staff operating large- and medium scaled dams in China

Workshop on Operation Manual（November 2009）

１． Background and Issues of the Project

PJ Model Dam Sites

PanJiaKou dam,

DaHeiTing dam

LuBu dam

LuShui dam

LiuDuZhai dam

Location Map of Model Dam Sites

2

counting 98,0021, in order to procure water resources

for increasing population and accelerated economic

development. In contrast with the number of dams

in Japan, 2,892 including those completed April,

2008 or later (according to Dam List): China has

about 30 times as much dams as those in Japan.

Considering the ratio of national territories (0.38

million km2 of Japan, or ratio 1:25), this figures

shows how rapidly the number of dams has been

increased.

Many of Chinese dams were constructed during

the period of 1950s ~1970s, implying that 50 ~ 60

years has elapsed since their construction, thus

problems on functions of facilities by dilapidation etc

have been arising.

Coping with these problems, China has

rehabilitated and repaired them in the period of 10th

(2001 ~ 2005) as well as 11th (2006 ~ 2010) five-year

plans investing huge amounts of 29.8 billion Yuan in

10th and 34.8 billion Yuan in 11th 5-year plan,

respectively, or 64.6 billion Yuan (equivalent to

around 970 billion Yen) in total. In addition, as

measures for improper operation/ management of

dams or for dilapidation of facilities, China has

taken effect of such regulations as “Ordinance on

safety management of reservoirs (1991)” and has

issued “Strengthening safety management of

reservoirs (2006)” thus striving for their diffusion.

In this respect, the system of safety operations of

or comprehensive technology for risk management is

not enough in China; urgent need arises to extend

techniques on proper operation/ management of

dams. Under such circumstances, Ministry of Water

1 Reference: Ministry of Water Use and National Bureau of Statistics of the People’s Republic of China “Bulletin of First National Census for Water 2011”. The number of large-scaled dam is 756, medium scaled dam is 3,938 and small scaled dam is 93,308.

Use of China requested Japan to provide technical

cooperation on the operation and management of

dams in August 2007. After the completion of

detailed design thereof in January 2008, this Project

has been started since September 2009. The project

aims at taking measures on a soft-ware basis to

strengthen knowledge and capacity of those who

operate and manage dams.

(1) System of the project implementation

System of Chinese side: Human Resource

Development Center under Ministry of Water Use is

responsible for the coordination and management of

this Project. Under the instruction of Construction

Management Officer of the Ministry of Water use,

Human Resource Development Center provides

coordination with such stakeholder organizations as

network agencies of Ministry of Water Use, Dam

Safety Management Center, Model Dams, each

Water-shed & Dam Management Sector etc. and

planning of training courses.

Dam Safety Management Center of Ministry of

Water Use, the headquarters of which is located in

Nanjing jointly manages the Project who provides

technically advices to the Project.

System of Japanese Side: Japanese Team consists

of a long-term expert team regularly stationing in

Beijing during the Project period and a short-term

one who provides advices on specific items. The

former takes charge of planning and management of

the entire Project, while the latter gives technical

advices on the process thereof.

２． Approach to solve the Problems

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4

methods of dam management and providing a dam

management manual.

4 sub-committees and 6 working groups are

established under manual provision sub-committee

as shown below:

2. Identification on the standards of dam

management in China and in Japan, institutions

and manuals

In China, national level laws, “Water law” and

“Flood control law” are regulated by The National

People’s Congress or its Standing Committee. Under

these laws, administrative regulations regulated by

the State Council, Sector Rule regulated by the

Ministry and Standards for technical requirement

issues necessary for unification are consolidated.

Even number of collected laws/ standards/

regulations is more or less than 100, thus laws/

standards/ regulations in China are well

consolidated.

Although laws/ regulations/ standards related to

dam management has gradually been consolidated,

but systematically and comprehensively edited

manual has not yet been available. Accordingly, it

has become clear the standards with binding force

were not required but dam management manual

with supporting those standards was required.

3. Real situations and issues found in dam

operation / management in China are made clear by

referring to such data/ information as existing

standards, existing manuals and literatures etc.

The tasks for dam management have been

clarified as shown in Fig. 4 in the workshops in

which related Chinese engineers gathered.

4. Real situations and issues found in dam

operation / management in China are made clear by

the site survey in 4 model sites in HeBei Province,

HuBei Province, HuNan Province and ZheJiang

Province and also through exchanging opinions with

the managers of these dams who are engaged

therein.

Fig-3. Organization Chart of the Dam Management Manual Provision Committee

【Superior Goal】 Diffusing dam management manual throughout China thereby improving the level of dam operation and management 【Project Goal】 Capacity of the trainees in charge of managing large- and medium- scaled dams in China who trained in the Project training is improved. 【Outputs】 Output1: Dam management manual (draft) is provided. Output 2: Proposals to the revision of dam the management manual are summarized. Output 3: Training is carried out by using dam management manual (draft). Chinese dam managers understand Chinese and Japanese dam management techniques, thereby acquiring proper methods of dam management.

Fig-2. Framework of the Project

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5. Really necessary but currently insufficient

articles are clarified through scrutinizing the

existing Chinese dam management manuals.

① Almost all the existing manuals do not

comprehensively cover overall components of

operational/ managing works of the existing dams,

although innumerable standards are available by

theme.

② In the existing standards, no schematic or readily

understandable explanatory example is

accompanied.

③ In the existing standards, there found cases of

providing concrete operational standard/ figures is

indicated.

6. Examination is made on Japanese dam

management manuals so as to understand the

methods of operating/ managing Japanese dams.

The following is the proposed concrete method of

the examination.

① Need of Chinese side is learned through reports

on training in Japan and views exchanged in the

training, discussions in the sub-committee of manual

provision etc.

② Extraction, arrangement and translation of such

Chinese references as manuals, literatures and case

studies by Japanese experts.

③ Summarizing them as case-collection of Japanese

dam management.

7. Deepening understanding on Japanese dam

management through training of Chinese staff in

Japan.

Considerable progress has made in the

understanding of Chinese staff on Japanese dam

management after 8 courses in total of training in

Japan throughout the Project Period.

In particular, interests of Chinese staff were

concentrated on the referred Japanese cases on

“Dam management at an exigency state”,

“Environment conservation”, “explicit share of roles

and costs bearing among stakeholders on dam

management”, “Publishing on roles of dams” etc.

Since the Government of China emphasized resource

saving and environmental conservation, as basic

national policy in the 18th National Congress

(November 2012), Chinese interest on water quality

Site observation of storage dams & exchanging views

6

and conservation of ecologic system has been raised.

8. Taking the above cited activities into

consideration, the team realzed current situations

and issues on Chinese dam management, so as to

arrange knowledge and concrete contents of works

required for providing the adequate project

activities.

The following was identified as required

knowledge and concrete contents of works through

the discussions in the sub-committee of dam

management manual provision, workshops and the

occasion of exchanging views at the model dams:

9. Provision of dam management manual (draft)

Japanese experts provided the original draft of

dam management manual based on information

obtained through the above-mentioned activities. On

the basis of this draft, the draft manual was refined

in collaboration with Chinese engineers taking

opinions in the appraisal sub-committee into

account.

(4) Test operation at the model dams and the

proposals on the revision of the dam management

manual.

Contents of the activities: “PanJiaKou Dam” in

HeBei Province, “LuShui Dam” in Hubei Province,

“LuBu Dam” in Zhejiang Province and “LiuDuzhai

Dam” in Hunan province were participated in the

testing as model dams where testing activities were

deployed in these dams. More concretely, 1)

Japanese dam managing techniques were tested by

applying them to the corresponding individual issues

in PanJiaKou Dam and in LuShui Dam, and 2)

testing application of the entire dam management

manual to all four model dams. The objective of this

testing was put in the identification of the effect of

Japanese dam management techniques to Chinese

dams and also in elucidating issues arising from the

manual application to them.

Characreristics of the model dams : PanJiaKou

Dam and in LuShui Dam are managed/ controlled by

“HaiHou Water-Use Committee” and “ChangJiang

Water-Use Committee”, respectively, while Lubu

dam and LiuDuZhai Dam are under the jurisdiction

of regional water-use sector ( YuYao City in ZheJiang

Province and ShaoYang City in HuNan Province).

Since these dams have zonal features that can serve

Outline of training in Japan

7

as models for other areas and also have capacity of

project implementation, they have been selected as

models as proposed by Chinese side. Many of the

Stakeholders of these dams have participated in a

series of project activities and training in Japan.

State of activity development: Examination on

individual issues had initially been carried out in all

four model dams, but later characters of these dams

and project budget were reviewed to judge the

feasibility. As a result, it was finally decided in the

2nd Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) held in

Novemver 2012 that the test trials with the input of

introducing and applying Japanese managerial

techniques as well as equipment/ materials should

firstly applied to LuShui Dam for “establishing a

system of warning system to the downstream

watershed” and also to PanJiaKou Dam for

“countermeasures to deterioration of structure by

freezing and thawing effect”. As regards 2) test

application of dam management manual has been

carried out at all four model dams.

(5) Provision of training with a dam management

manual for Chinese managers of dams

Chinese side drafted a training plan in line with

the contents of dam management manual by each

theme after the practice of making plan in

collaboration with Japanese expert. Cadre members

of Ministry of Water Users and researchers of Dam

Safety Management Center who participated in

training in Japan took charge of lecturer and

Japanese experts were dispatched for introducing

cases of Japanese dam management.

(6) Implementation Schedule

Implementation schedule is shown in following

table. Much time has been consumed for activities of

Output 1.

(7) Evaluation of the Project

Project was rated as “high” in terms of all 5

evaluation aspects in final evaluation at project

completion.

(1) Provision of the dam management manual

For this provision, the purpose of providing the

dam management manual, the composition of the

contents and concrete description in the manual etc

were examined in a committee and working group

meetings held by the participation of Chinese

stakeholders related to dam management.

The dam management manual consisted of a

main text and a separately edited case collection of

Japanese dam management, of which the first draft

of the main text was provided in July 2011. After

several, repeated revising works, with the approval

of the Appraisal Sub-committee of Dam

Management Manual Provision Committee of

Ministry of Water Use, it was formally published

from HouHai Publishing Firm in May 2012. Though

Result of materializing approaches

8

it had originally been scheduled to include Japanese

example cases on Japanese dam management

technologies in the main text, it was finally put into

a separate edition for reference to be used for

domestic training, due to the time limit after

consuming long period of revising works.

In providing the manual, Japanese experts took

part in preparing the draft, while Dam safety

Management Center of Ministry of Water Use

provided technical knowhow and Human Resources

Development Center thereof, as counterpart of this

Project, took charge of the entire coordination of the

related activities including coordination of manual

committee and sub-committees.

(2) Application test of the manual at model dams

Eestablishing of a warning system to the

downstream watershed: Training in Japan led to

participant’s growing interest focused on Japanese

managerial method with the priority on safety.

Although the interest was also concentrated on this

method in other model dams, the trial was made

only in LuShui Dam because its management

organization has high capacity of operation and

maintenance after introducing the system and high

demontrative effect is also expected at this dam.

In this damsite, a warning station for downstream

watershed etc was established, thus a modern

warning system for downstream watershed has been

created coupled with another management system

independently introduced by LuShui Dam managing

organization. It is expected that operational rules

will be upgraded during the process of the system

operation.

Countermeasures to degradation of structure by

freeazing and thawing deterioration: Deterioration

of concrete by freeazing and thawing effect has been

a task to find solution in concrete structures in cold

areas of northern China. Repairing work had been

made in Panjiakou Dam, but no proper treatment

was so far resulted. It was decided to try repairing

again in this Project by means of both Chinese and

Japanese materials. At first, it had been planned to

import RF thick-smearing mortar as a repairing

material with high viscosity for the repairing work

at such part of steep gradient as overflowing crest in

the spillway. However, as it contains a component

that is a contraband material in China, the plan was

altered to import polymer cement mortar and a

surface modifier from Japan (though these had not

been included in the original plan), and deteriorated

Dam management manual and a scene of publishing ceremony of the manual (in May 2012)

Warning system to the downstream area at Lushui Dam（Left） Warning Station at the downstream （Right）Central Management Office

9

part was repaired with plastering these materials.

Due to delay of custom clearance, the work started

as late as November 2012, resulting in the

construction and curing during severely cold winter.

As a result, hexagonal cracking appeared over the

repaired part. In the following year, repairing work

was re-tried by utilizing surface covering material of

polyurea that is available in China and again with

Japanese materials. As a result, an evaluation was

made in which the work with Japanese materials

brought the best quality in the test trial among the

repairing experiences obtained in the past by

Chinese side with polymer-cement mortar, though

hairy cracking slightly appeared on the surface. This

result also did not pose any mechanical problem at

the laboratorial test. As to the flexibility against

freeazing and thawing effect, it will be verified after

several years with severe winter.

(3) Domestic training and Remote training

In total, domestic training with the provided dam

management manual was carried out 6 times in

which total number of participants was counted at

480, all of whom passed the completion test.

Outline of domestic training

Date（place） Theme No. of participants

4th Dec.(Wuhan) Controlled operation/ maintenance of dam reservoir

97

‘5th Dec. (Nanjing) Safety monitoring and maintenance repairing

69

‘8th Dec. (Sianing) Management of dam reservoir and its surroundings

77

‘11th Dec. (Hanzhou) Informatization/ automation of dam management

75

‘13th Mar.(Zhangjiajie) Exigent (Crises) management of dams

104

13th Mar.( Guilin) Water quality management of dam reservoir

58

In this context, Japanese lecturers were

dispatched and lectured in these training courses for

the purpose of introducing Japanese dam

management with such contents as “Controlled

operation of dam”, “Safety management of Japanese

dams”, Japanese dam’s approach to environment”,

“Water quality conservation and monitoring of

Japanese dams” etc. Besides, a symposium was held

in May 2012 with an objective of sharing the latest

knowledge on dam management between Chinese

and Japanese sides. In the symposium, two

Japanese experts presented on 4 agendas, in which

presentation was made from Japanese side on

“State of damages on dams caused by the 2011 off

the pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake in Japan” and

“An approach to rationalized measurement on

deformation of fill-type dams”. In addition, an

on-line remote reaching educational text was

prepared from dam management manual and texts

for domestic training. Thereby, it is expected that

further training for dam managers is continued even

after the completion of the Project.

(4) Proposals to the revision of the manual

Proposals towards the revision of the manual has

The site of constructing concrete repairing work at Panjiakou Dam and state of curing

10

been briefed as follows through the examinations of

Appraisal Sub-committee by analyzing such

references as the result of a questionnaire to the

participants of domestic training, a survey on the

opinions of revising dam management manual,

another questionnaire study on current status of

utilizing the existing dam management manuals,

report on training in Japan etc.

No particular necessity of revising the provided

manual arises since it does not contain any

evident error or omission, or no radical change

made in the existing standards at the examined

stage.

It is anticipated that dam management will

shift to a new stage by the revision of

“Regulation on safety management of dams” in

2015 or so. It will be timely to revise it coincided

with such a shift. Also, as to the revision, it is

advised that an examination assembly by

experts is necessary, similar to the case of this

manual provision, in revising the manual.

(1) Elicitation of self-initiative and mutual

collaboration among stakeholders

Project stakeholders comprise people of

geographically and organizationally diverse origins,

also counting fairly large number. Therefore,

unification of their awareness/ consciousness was

considered as the top-priority policy issue. In order

to encourage them to involve themselves as the

persons of direct concern, though it takes a long time,

various activities were provided around the Human

Resources Development Center, including site visits

to model dams and Dam-safety Management Center

etc and the following discussions/ consultations, also

workshops by Committees and working groups.

Chinese side provided making the dam management

manual generally purchasable publishing for its

wider and easier diffusion even after the completion

of the Project. Besides, it has continued the training

for developing managerial capacity of dam staffs,

also making such devices toward aggressive

extension as providing on-line lessons taking

account of accessibility of dam managing

organizations scattered over the entire territory.

These are considered as a manifestation of

self-initiative of Chinese side.

It is expected that the established network among

stakeholders in this Project is also effective on the

revision of the dam management manual, judging

from the predominant opinions in which the fact

that the established linkage among Chinese

stakeholders of dams in this Project was highly

evaluated at the occasion of appraisal meeting on the

proposals to the revision thereof.

(2) Sufficient mutual understanding at the stage of

detailed plan formulation

Unified understanding on the dam management

manual to be provided in this Project had not been

made between Chinese and Japanese sides. At the

initial stage of the Project, this basic discrepancy

between both sides fairly caused inducing confusion,

affecting the later progress of the Project activities.

In particular, as linguistic difference of nuance, at

the stage of detailed plan formulation, “manual” had

been translated into Chinese meaning “guiding rule”

with a binding force, but later, in the manual

ultimately provided at the stage of intermediate

４．Devices/ lessons in implementing 3.

11

evaluation, it was agreed that it meant just

“manual” . The study on detailed plan formulation

should have been implemented with ample spare

time so as to deepen and share understanding with

the counterpart staff, which would have led

eventually to more rational activities without much

wasting time.

In this project, the team made efforts to manage

to reach consensus among stakeholders through

workshop and other occasions including induction of

self-initiative among stakeholders as mentioned

above.

(3) Earlier confirmation on role-sharing

Provision of “dam management manual” carried out

in this Project required participation of a host of

stakeholders gathering from vast areas. It was really

felt essential in efficiently summarizing advices/

knowledge of these stakeholders and in obtaining

highly valuable outputs to share image of the

desirable outputs with them, to explicitly clarify the

individual role-sharing among them thus obtaining

their prior understanding to the actual work.

Because dam-stakeholders of Chinese side have

routine work/ services of actual dam management

they would have difficulty in sparing time for

directly drafting a part of dam management manual,

and this is why Japanese experts played role of

drafting it. Since very many standards on dam

management were available in Chinese side, so it

took formidable time to translate them into

Japanese. In addition, documents provided by

Japanese who have different life-style/ customs from

those in China had a lot of points to brush-up.

This work for brushing up the drafts could be

performed by receiving much support from retired

researchers of Dam Safety Management Center etc.

Besides, in the process of summarizing advices/

proposals on the revision of the manual, they took

charge of nuclear-part of the work thus provided a

great contribution thereto. Whether it’s able to

procure adequate supporters in the earlier stage of

the project activities or not, is considered as an

important determinant to the outcome of the Project.

(4) Schedule of testing activities

Test trials of Japanese dam management at model

dams were carried out in the 4th year of the Project

period affected by a delay attributable to the

drafting work of dam management manual. It is

imperative to formulate activity plans with ample

spare time fully considering the limitation of the

project period in order to verify the result of test trial,

considering countermeasures as necessary and

promotion of introduced technology.

(5) Coordination of other projects

Water quality management in the dams poses a task

in the future. Water quality conservation was one of

the highly interested themes in the test trial issues

at model dams. However, it was anticipated that this

theme had to be pursued for a long time. Thus,

coordination with JICA “The project for

Development of the Capacity on Water

Environmental Management in Heihejinpan Dam

River Basin (Year 2012 – 2015)” that has been

implemented with the major theme of water quality

conservation was sought. In concrete, the expert of

“Heihejinpan” project serves as a lecturer of the

domestic training of this Project, thus introducing

lessons learnt in his project to trainees. It is

expected that information on the activities in

12

“Heihejinpan” project is supplied to this project as

references for training activities Chinese side

hereafter plans to continue.

(Project period thereof: September 2009 ~ December

2013)

References:

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

(2013) “Capacity Development Project for

Management Plan of Dam in China” Report of

Detailed Plan Formulation

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

(2013) “Capacity Development Project for

Management Plan of Dam in China” Report of

Intermediate Review,

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

(2013) “Capacity Development Project for

Management Plan of Dam in China” Report of Final

Evaluation at project Completion