Tuning to Water Sustainability: Future Opportunity for ChinaRunbin Duan,†,* Clifford B. Fedler,‡ and George J. Hochmuth†

†Soil and Water Science Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States 32611‡Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States 79409

China is a legendary country that supplied 22% of theworld’s population with food and fiber by planting only

7% of the world’s arable land in the past decades. Recently, withrapid economic development, increasing water and energydemands, a huge growing population, urbanization, climatechange, and farmland shrinkage, China’s economic develop-ment will be met with a few unprecedented bottlenecks. Chinais aware that its food security and rural poverty alleviation areprimarily being restricted by severe water shortages in northernChina and high-frequency flooding in southern China. Chinahas determined to significantly increase its investment in waterresources conservation in order to efficiently and effectivelysecure its food production and, thus increase farmer’s income.A Central Government statement was released on January 29,2011 with a focus on developing a water resources conservationplan by investing 606 billion U.S. dollars from 2011 to 2020.Efforts will be taken to upgrade China’s infrastructure related towater quality improvement, high efficient farmland irrigationsystems, water transport, and reservoir building, rebuilding, andmaintenance.1

However, it is time for China to take action to address watersustainability while making water policies in order to realizesustainable economic development and improve quality of life.Water sustainability can continuously supply people and eco-systems in a defined area with sufficient water quality and waterquantity in a sustainable manner.2 Currently, high demands forwater in northern China have caused sharp declines, or evenceased flows, in the middle and lower reaches of the rivers.Surprisingly, climate change was proved to be the primaryreason responsible for flow rate decline in some northern Chinarivers. Consequently, people in those areas with limited surface

water supplies have to heavily depend on groundwaterresources.3 Overextraction of groundwater has caused severedeclines in the water table in major aquifers or worse, causedthem to become dry in the North China Plain. On one side ofthe problem, water demands are continuing to increase as thepopulation increases and more irrigation water is required; onthe other side, recharge of aquifers is reduced caused by lesseffective and dependable precipitation compared to previousyears, and land use change, including rapid urbanization. Thenonpoint water pollution is spreading from urban areas to ruralareas resulting in less available high quality fresh water. There-fore, the current water crisis in China requires a plan forsustainable water management.Sustainable water management must take into full consid-

eration the potential adverse impacts brought upon by climatechange. The development of mitigation strategies for theimpact of climate change on water resources is a large-scale,multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary systematic project. Thesolutions necessitate abundant collaborative work between uni-versities, industries, and national governments. The challengerequires fully linked teamwork from hydrologists, climatologists,ecologists, soil experts, economists, and sociologists. Sustainablewater management inevitably requires re-evaluation of irrigationsystems used for both agricultural and municipal uses. Theresearch thrusts should concentrate on state-of the-arttechnologies to increase agricultural water use efficiency and toimprove water quality in the context of a changing climate. Thosetechnologies must fully consider their potential adverse impactson soil and groundwater.China attempts to divert fresh water from the frequently

flooded southern areas, primarily along the Yangtze River, tothe frequently drought-stricken northern areas by three routesin order to ease the unbalance of spatial and temporal distribu-tion of water resources. This South-to-North Water DiversionProject is a step forward in China’s effort to provide sustainablewater management at the national level. Unfortunately, quantityof water diverted is insufficient to satisfy water demands innorthern China in both the short-term and even the long-term.Therefore, more importantly, sustainable water managementmust consider direct and indirect potable water reuse. Waste-water reuse as agriculture irrigation is a practice in semiaridwest Texas4 and other arid and semiarid areas. As indirectpotable reuse of water, artificial recharge of aquifers withtreated wastewater should be implemented in a timely mannerin northern China.

Received: May 9, 2012Accepted: May 10, 2012Published: May 18, 2012

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Although China has substantial experience in utilizingstormwater for agricultural irrigation, it should look for moreadvanced technologies to improve stormwater use efficiency,both on farm and off farm. As a part of sustainable watermanagement, stormwater utilization should be extended torecharge of aquifers. The precious rainfall in northern Chinamountain areas often occurs in late summer and early fall. Theclustered rainwater often forms large volumes of runoff or evenflooding in a short time that rapidly leaves the arid and semiaridwest toward the east, and finally to the Pacific Ocean, withminimal recharge into aquifers. Therefore, it is necessary forthose areas to construct systems to increase aquifer rechargewhile decreasing flooding loss during monsoon seasons, sub-sequently increasing available surface water, and enhancing thelandscape.The policy making for water sustainability calls for com-

prehensive consideration of environment sustainability, eco-nomic development, and social equity. China was warned byCyranoski 5 that “nearly 30% of China’s natural wetlandsvanished between 1990 and 2000”. It is urgent for China torestore those wetlands while realizing water sustainability.Tuning to water sustainability will bring opportunities for China’sfuture economic development, redevelopment of university water-related curricula, and improvement of current public extension andadvisory service associated with water resources.

■ AUTHOR INFORMATIONCorresponding Author*Email: duanttu@gmail.com.NotesThe authors declare no competing financial interest.

■ REFERENCES(1) Water our future, Xinhua News Agency. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-01/31/c_13714627.htm (accessedMarch 26, 2011).(2) Schnoor, J. Water sustainability in a changing world. The2010 Clarke Prize Lecture. http://www.nwri-usa.org/pdfs/2010ClarkePrizeLecture.pdf (accessed March 26, 2011).(3) Xia, J.; Zhang, L.; Liu, C.; Yu, J. Towards better water security inNorth China. Water Resour. Manage. 2007, 21, 233−247.(4) Duan, R.; Fedler, C. B. Field study of water mass balance in awastewater land application system. Irrig. Sci. 2009, 27, 409−416.(5) Cyranoski, D. Putting China’s wetlands on the map. Nature 2009,458, 134.

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