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BIZCHINA> Top Biz News
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Water shortage threatens China
By Li Jing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-09 08:01 With combined pressures from rising water demand and limited supplies, combined with severe water pollution, China is faced with mounting challenges for supplying safe, clean water to its 1.3 billion residents, as well as maintaining sustainable development.
In its report "Addressing China's Water Scarcity", which was released at the end of last month, the World Bank urged China to reform and strengthen its water resource management framework. The report said current policy failures in China's water management include, an underdeveloped system of water rights administration, weakness in water demand control, lack of market-based instruments and insufficient financing for pollution control.
The report suggested China should further reform its water pricing mechanism in order to promote efficiency. "In order to provide appropriate incentives for adopting water saving technologies and behaviors, water prices need to be raised to reflect its full scarcity value," the report said. In China's major cities, water for residential use is priced between 1 and 3 yuan per cu m, compared with between $0.65 and $ 0.80 in Brazil, and between $2.2 and $ 2.7 cu s in England and Wales. The World Bank said the social impact of water price increases, especially those affecting the poor, would need to be addressed by establishing social protection measures. "It is essential to make sure that low-income group will receive the basic water supply service when the water price is adjusted," Xie Jian, a senior environmental specialist from World Bank said. The report recommended an Increasing Block Tariffs (IBT) structure to eliminate possible impacts for the low-income group. IBT refers to a two-part tariff system in which people pay higher bills when they consume over a government quota. The structure can be used to reflect the true cost of water for consumers who use large volumes of water, while ensuring the poor are able to obtain sufficient water for basic demand. The report also proposed that China should try market-oriented mechanisms for ecological compensation, for instance, the payments for ecological services will help to protect the upstream ecosystems, which are essential for the long-term supply of good quality water sources. (For more biz stories, please visit Industries)
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