China's Water Crisis

The most comprehensive and up-to-date analysis and reference on the enormous water resource crisis confronting the People’s Republic of China.

China’s Water Crisis (Zhongguo Shui Weiji) describes in detail the history of floods, water scarcity, and pollution problems in all seven of China’s major drainage basins and proposes solutions for future sustainable management.

The author explores issues from the inadequate flow of the Yellow River in the north to deforestation and excessive dam construction along the Yangzi River in central China to the serious and persistent drought conditions in the cities of the southeast and the impact of pollutants on the high plateau of Tibet.

Mr. Ma concentrates on the condition of China’s two major rivers, the Yellow and the Yangzi, which face massive reductions in water flow caused by man-made problems threatening the very existence of the Yellow River, on the one hand, and the violent cycle of flood followed by drought in the Yangzi River basin, on the other. The same is true of China’s multitude of smaller but no less vital rivers where the same issues of soil erosion and agricultural runoff are played out on a smaller yet more intensive scale. He also investigates the major problems stemming from defects in many of China’s large-scale reservoirs, diminishing underground water tables, and the abuse of aquifers in the name of urbanization and industrialization.

The author investigates these and other aspects of the crisis as he paints a picture of a nation which, over the course of the next several decades, will see a dramatic deterioration in its clean water resources if major steps are not taken soon to adjust development to these harsh realities.