Confronting the Water Crisis of Beijing Municipality in a Systems Perspective Focusing on Water Quantity and Quality Changes

Confronting the Water Crisis of Beijing

Municipality in a Systems Perspective Focusing on Water Quantity and Quality Changes

Jin Ma

Master of Science Thesis Stockholm 2011

Jin Ma

Confronting the Water Crisis of Beijing Municipality in a Systems Perspective Focusing on Water Quantity and Quality Changes

Supervisor: Ronald Wennersten

Examiner: Ronald Wennersten

Master of Science Thesis STOCKHOLM 2011

PRESENTED AT INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

TRITA-IM 2011:15 ISSN 1402-7615

Industrial Ecology, Royal Institute of Technology www.ima.kth.se SUMMARY

In recent decades, water systems worldwide are under crisis due to excessive human interventions particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions. In many cities, the water quantity situation has become more and more serious, caused either by absolute water shortage or water pollution. Considering population growth and fast urbanization, ensuring adequate water supply with acceptable water quality is crucial to socio-economic development in the coming decades. In this context, one key point is to (re-)address various water problems in a more holistic way.

This study explores the emerging water crisis events in Beijing Municipality so as to have a better understanding of water systems changes and to make more sustainable water-related decisions. The changes of water quantity and water quality in the region are analyzed in a systems perspective; and opportunities towards improved performance of Beijing‟s water systems are discussed. In order to aid in water systems analysis, a conceptual framework is developed, with a focus on identifying the most important interactions of the urban water sector.

The results of the study show that the emerging water crisis events in the Beijing region are caused by a variety of inter-related factors, both external and internal. The external factor is mainly the decreasing upstream surface water inflow into the Guanting and Miyun reservoirs. The internal factors include precipitation variation, excessive water withdrawals, increasing water demands for different purposes and a large amount of pollutants discharged to the receiving water bodies. These factors together have caused tremendous water systems changes in Beijing Municipality from both the water quantity and water quality perspectives.

In order to alleviate the serious water situation in Beijing Municipality, many further efforts are required in the dynamic socioeconomic and ecological context. Although tremendous work has been carried out by water-related institutions to prevent flood and ensure water supply, water resources development, planning and management must be addressed employing systems thinking and in a more holistic way. This is crucial for balancing the tradeoffs of water quantity and water quality in the Beijing region. Besides the experimental inter-basin water transfer activities, water demand management and pollution reduction and prevention should be the top priority on the agenda of the Beijing government in the long term. Moreover, only at a river basin level may various upstream-downstream conflicts be alleviated by wiser water allocation among administrative regions, as well as taking the ecological water demand into consideration.

Finally, considering the current water situation and water management system, the following three aspects of improvement are emphasized in the present study, including a promoted water- centric value, institutional capacity building and employing economic principles for water resources management.

Key words: Beijing, sustainability, systems thinking, urban water, water quality, water quantity

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis work is carried out at the Department of Industrial Ecology (DoIE), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm. I really appreciate the experiences of studying in the international master program of „Sustainable Technology‟. I have benefited so much from various courses related to Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Development. Absolutely many people have contributed either directly or indirectly to the thesis work.

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Ronald Wennersten, professor at the DoIE, for his constructive guidance, encouragement and valuable comments on the thesis. Thanks too to Xingqiang Song, PhD student at the DoIE, for his assistance in data collection and helpful comments on the earlier drafts of the thesis.

Further thanks to the teachers of all courses I took at KTH. Moreover, thanks to Karin Orve, the Education Administrator at the DoIE, and Monika Olsson, the Director of Studies at the DoIE, for their kindness and various help during my study period at KTH.

I am also grateful to Ms. Yingfang He at the International Office of KTH for her help during my living in Stockholm, especially for her encourage when I still hesitated to apply for this master program a few years ago. In addition, I would like to thank all my Chinese friends for their help.

Last but not least, I would like to add personal thanks to my family for years of support and understanding during the period of my study and living in Sweden.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY ...... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... ii

ABBREVIATIONS ...... v

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

LIST OF TABLES ...... viii

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 Background ...... 1 1.2 Water Stress in the Beijing Region ...... 2 1.3 Aim and Objectives ...... 5 2 METHODOLOGY ...... 6 2.1 Systems Thinking ...... 6 2.2 A Conceptual Framework for Urban Water Systems Analysis ...... 6 2.3 Data Collection ...... 7 3 WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT ...... 9 3.1 Sustainability and Water Resources ...... 9 3.2 Integrated Water Resources Management ...... 11 3.4 Urban Water Management ...... 12 4 MATERIALS...... 16 4.1 Beijing Municipality and its Water Systems ...... 16 4.2 Characteristics of Water Systems Development ...... 18 4.3 The Social and Economic Context ...... 20 5 RESULTS ...... 23 5.1 Water Quantity Changes ...... 23 5.1.1 Precipitation variation ...... 23 5.1.2 Surface water inflow (SWI) ...... 24 5.1.3 Surface water outflow (SWO) ...... 26 5.2 Water Uses and Regional Water Deficits ...... 29 5.2.1 Water supply and water uses ...... 29 5.2.2 Water deficits and decreasing groundwater table ...... 31 5.3 Water Quality Changes ...... 33 5.3.1 Point and non-point pollution ...... 33 5.3.2 Surface water quality...... 37 5.3.3 Groundwater quality...... 39 6 DISCUSSION ...... 41 6.1 Water Quantity Changes ...... 41 6.2 Water Quality Changes ...... 43

iii

6.3 Suggestions for Alleviating Water Stress in Beijing Municipality ...... 44 7 CONCLUSIONS ...... 47

REFERENCES ...... 49

ABBREVIATIONS

BSIN Beijing Statistical Information Net BMCUP Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning BMEPB Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau BRB Beiyun River Basin in the Beijing Region BWA Beijing Water Authority COD Chemical Oxygen Demand CRB Chaobai River Basin in the Beijing Region DRB Daqing River Basin in the Beijing Region GDP Gross Domestic Product GWP Global Water Partnership HRB Hai River Basin IWRM Integrated Water Resources Management IWT Inter-basin Water Transfer JRB Jiyun River Basin in the Beijing Region JWSC Jingmi Water Supply Canal MEP Ministry of Environmental Protection of China MDGs Millennium Development Goals NBS National Bureau of Statistics of China RFWR Renewable Fresh Water Resources SD Sustainable Development SWI Surface Water Inflow SWO Surface Water Outflow UN United Nations UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations UWM Urban Water Management WCOED World Commission on Environment and Development WRM Water Resources Management YRB Yongding River Basin in the Beijing Region YWSC Yongding Water Supply Canal

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Some influencing factors in the emerging water stress events 1

Figure 1.2 Location of Beijing Municipality and its water systems 3

Figure 1.3 Amount of water storage in the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir, 1999-2009 4

Figure 2.1 A conceptual framework showing the identified sub-systems in the study 7

Figure 3.1 We all live downstream at a watershed 10

Figure 3.2 The general components of IWRM 11

Figure 3.3 Ways in which human use affects the water cycle and freshwater ecosystems 12

Figure 3.4 The hydrological cycle in society 13

Figure 3.5 Stages of water use and pollution abatement 14

Figure 4.1 Average monthly precipitation in the Beijing region, 1956-2000 16

Figure 4.2 The five main river basins in Beijing Municipality 17

Figure 4.3 Population growth and urbanization in Beijing Municipality, 1949-2008 20

Figure 4.4 Growth of GDP and GDP per capita in Beijing Municipality, 1949-2008 21

Figure 4.5 Strategic structure of Beijing‟s urban spatial development described in the 21 “Overall Urban Planning (2004-2020)”

Figure 5.1 Yearly precipitation at the Beijing Rainfall Station (1724-1949) and in the 23 Beijing region (1950-2009)

Figure 5.2 Spatial distribution of annual average precipitation in the fiver river basins 24 and the Beijing region, 1956-2000

Figure 5.3 Surface water inflow of the Beijing region, 1961-2009 25

Figure 5.4 Changes of the surface water inflow of the YRB and the average annual 26 precipitation in the upstream area of the Guanting reservoir in the YRB, 1956-2000

Figure 5.5 Surface water outflow of the Beijing region, 1961-2009 27

Figure 5.6 Precipitation and the composition of surface water outflows of the BRB 28 (1961-2000) and the Beijing region (2001-2009)

Figure 5.7 Water used in different sectors in Beijing Municipality, 1988-2009 29

Figure 5.8 Yearly amount of tap water supply and well water supply, 1949-2008 31

Figure 5.9 Comparison of the annual amount of renewable freshwater resources, 32 surface water inflow, and water withdrawals in the Beijing region, 2000-2009

Figure 5.10 Decreasing groundwater table of the plain area in the Beijing region, 33 1960-2009

Figure 5.11 Amount of yearly wastewater discharge in the Beijing region, 1996-2009 34

Figure 5.12 Daily wastewater discharge and yearly wastewater treatment rate in the 35 Beijing region, 1954-2008 Figure 5.13 Amount of COD discharge from different sectors in the Beijing region, 35 1998-2009 Figure 5.14 Numbers of sewage outfall and amount of wastewater discharged in 2003 36

Figure 5.15 Amount of pollutants discharge in the five river basins in 2003 36

Figure 5.16 Amount of yearly fertilizer use in the Beijing region, 1949-2008 37

Figure 5.17 River water quality of the Beijing region, 2001-2009 38

Figure 5.18 Surface water quality of the Beijing region in 2008 38

Figure 5.19 Groundwater quality of the Beijing region in 2004 39

Figure 5.20 Fraction of the shallow groundwater quality in the Beijing region, 40 2003-2009

Figure 6.1 Changes of arable land area and irrigation area in the Beijing region, 43 1949-2008

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 3.1 The functions of urban water management 13

Table 4.1 Area of the five river basins 17

Table 4.2 Five main hydropower projects in the Beijing region 18

Table 5.1 Amount of water supplied from different sources and used in different 30 sectors in the Beijing region, 1980-2009

viii

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Water is essential to the existence of the earth and human. It is the bloodstream of both human society and ecosystems. Human has a very close relationship with rivers from the beginning of human civilization. The history of human society and rivers development is intermingled in many ways. In turn, rivers nourish various materials provided to human society or threaten to destroy it e.g. by flood or drought. Correspondingly, local inhabitants keep thinking about how to manage rivers since the ancient time, employing either controlling or adapting methods.

In recent decades, however, water systems are gradually degraded by intensive human activities. More and more water-related crisis events happen in many regions, which to some extent block the progress towards sustainable development in general and particularly towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Among them, water scarcity is the most obvious one worldwide, which is caused either by absolute shortage of renewable freshwater resources or relative shortage of usable freshwater resources due to serious pollution. In brief, water stress is caused by a variety of factors, e.g. population growth, socio-economic development, climate change, unsustainable water use pattern, and the sectoral water management. On the other hand, the aggravating water stress has brought up diverse challenges, e.g. difficulties of water supply with acceptable quality and emerging water allocation conflicts at all levels. A brief schematic cause-and-effect of water stress is shown in Figure 1.1.

Threats of sufficient water supply with acceptable quality

Precipitation versus Population evapotranspiration increase Economic growth WATER Water-use pattern STRESS Water pollution Climate variation & Land use changes Water-related institutions Emerging water allocation conflicts to meet all different water demands in river basins

Figure 1.1 Some influencing factors in the emerging water stress events

Nowadays various water crisis events need to be addressed from different perspectives particularly in the urban areas. With continuous population growth (from 6.1 billion in 2000 to 8.9 billion in 2050) and rapid urbanization (UN 2004), the capacity of water supply and wastewater treatment would be greatly challenged in many countries. In China, for example, the urbanization rate (urban population) would increase from 35.8% (0.45 billion) in 2000 to 60.3% (0.88 billion) in 2030 and to 72.9% (1.02 billion) in 2050 (UN 2007). In this context, urban water environment may undergo huge stress in many regions in the coming decades. It is widely accepted that one of the major challenges of the 21st century is to provide safe drinking water and basic sanitation for all (Vairavamoorthy 2008). In this regard, it is even more challengeable for urban water manager in such a megacity as Beijing Municipality. Moreover, climate variation may worsen the fragile urban water systems in many regions.

From the sustainability point of view, one of the characteristics of urban water systems is their complexity. Urban water is regarded as the lifeline of cities and the focus of the movement towards more sustainable and emerging „green‟ cities (Novotny & Brown 2007). Urban water systems are more or less linked with several other urban systems, e.g. energy, transportation and waste. Although a vast amount of money has spent on costly „hard‟ solutions like sewers and treatment plants, however, water supplies and water quality still remain a major concern in many urbanized areas (Novotny 2009). In this context, a more holistic analysis is crucial to having a better understanding of urban water systems changes and to moving towards improved water resources management employing systems thinking in a multidisciplinary context.

1.2 Water Stress in the Beijing Region Beijing Municipality (see Figure 1.2) is located in the semi-arid North China Plain (Hua Bei Ping Yuan) between east longitude 115°25‟ - 117°30‟ and north latitude 39°26‟ - 41°05‟. Its total land area is around 16,800 km2, among which 10,400 km2 (62%) forms the mountain area and 6,400 km2 (38%) is of the plain area. The mountain area is situated at an elevation of 1,400-1,600 m; and the elevation of the plain area ranges between 30 m and 100 m. The highest mountain, Ling Mountain, locates in Western Beijing at an elevation of 2,303 m above the sea level.

Along with the rapid socio-economic development, Beijing Municipality has been under severe water stress in recent decades from the viewpoint of water quantity. From 1956 to 2000, the average annual available freshwater resources is around 3.8 billion m3 and the average water resources per capita is less than 300 m3. In 2008, the amount of annual available freshwater per capita was only 220 m3, which accounts for roughly 1/10 of China‟s average and 1/37 of the global average.

Since the foundation of the P.R. China in 1949, there are four main quantitative water crisis events in the Beijing region (Zhang 2009). The first event happened in the 1960s. In 1960, there was only 61 mm precipitation from January to June, which was only half

2 of the average annual precipitation during the same period. In 1965, the annual precipitation was 377 mm and the urban water supply was under stress. During the period, the Guanting reservoir was almost dried up due to dry weather and the decreasing surface water inflow.

Figure 1.2 Location of Beijing Municipality and its water systems (Probe International Beijing Group 2008)

During the second water crisis event (1970-1972), the average annual precipitation decreased to 508 mm. The amount of water storage in the Guanting and Miyun reservoirs decreased so fast that supplied water only to the urban areas in the Beijing and Tianjin regions. In order to meet the agricultural water demand, around 30,000 wells were excavated in the plain area. Meanwhile, the Yongding River started running dry periodically in its downstream river courses.

The third event (1980-1986) was characterized as seven continuous drought years. During this period, the average annual precipitation was further decreased to 498 mm that was close to its lowest historical annual precipitation of 492 mm (1857-1870). By the

3 end of July in 1981, the total water storage in the Guanting and Miyun reservoirs was only 0.5 billion m3. In 1981, the state council decided that the Miyun reservoir would only supply water to the Beijing city since then. Meanwhile, some water conservation measures were put forward, e.g. by setting water use cap in the different water sectors.

The last water crisis event was from 1999 to 2007, with an average annual precipitation of 428 mm. The amount of water storage in the two main reservoirs also had a decreasing trend (see Figure 1.3). By the end of 2003, the amount of water stored in the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir was 211 million m3 and 723 million m3, which had reduced by around 320 million m3 and 2,120 million m3, respectively, compared to those in 1999. On the other hand, the Yongding River courses below Sanjiadian frequently ran dry since the 1990s. In 2001, for the first time, the Yongding River had been running dry for 58 days in total during the rainy season from May to August. Similarly, between July and August in 2003, the Guanting reservoir had no surface water inflow for 20 days in total. Those facts show that the upstream-downstream water conflicts are more and more serious in both river basins and municipalities.

3000 Guanting Miyun

2500

2000

1500

1000 water water storage, million m 500

0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Figure 1.3 Amount of water storage in the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir, 1999-2009 (based on data from BWA 2000-2010)

Besides various water quantity crisis events, Beijing Municipality has been experiencing the water quality crisis since the 1970s. In 2009, accounting for 45% of the monitored 2,323.7 km river courses was classified as Grade V Worst (GB3838-2002), which means that this water was essentially useless (BWA 2010). For the shallow aquifer, around 3,030 km2 – 48% of the plain area was classified as Grade IV & Grade V in 2009, which means that this water was only suitable for industrial and agricultural uses, respectively (BWA 2010). The serious water quality situation was caused mainly by a higher value of hardness, ammonia-nitrogen and nitrate-nitrogen. In contrast, the quality of deep groundwater was better. Only 563 km2 deep ground water – accounting for 16% of the monitored area – was classified as Grade IV & Grade V in 2009 (BWA 2010). At that

4 time, the main pollutants were ammonia-nitrogen and fluoride. In the near future, therefore, tremendous efforts are required to be put on pollution prevention in order to protect both the surface water and groundwater sources in the region.

1.3 Aim and Objectives The overall aim of the thesis is to analyze the changes of water quantity and water quality in the Beijing region in a systems perspective. Having a better understanding of water systems changes is crucial towards improved water resources management in such a mega-city as Beijing under water crisis. Specific objectives of the thesis work are to explore the challenges of the current water systems in the Beijing region and to discuss opportunities towards improved performance of Beijing‟s water systems from the sustainability point of view, taking the specific ecological and socio-economic context into consideration. Specifically,

 Exploring the challenging water situation in the Beijing region.  Developing a conceptual framework for aiding in urban water systems analysis, with a focus on identifying the interactions between human and rivers.  Identifying, analyzing and discussing the significant contributing factors of the emerging water crisis events.  Drawing up suggestions to improve the future water management practices in the region.

2 METHODOLOGY

2.1 Systems Thinking Systems science aims to study the interaction between man and his environment from multiple perspectives, holistically (Skyttner 2005). Due to the increasing complexity of the modern society, water systems need to be addressed from a more holistic point of view. Only in this way could the contributing factors of water crisis be better understood and may more sustainable solutions be developed. The formerly partial analysis of water supply and wastewater treatment is no longer suitable from the viewpoint of sustainability. In this context, the systems approach is inherent in a comprehensive historical, contemporary and futuristic outlook (Skyttner 2005). Therefore, addressing the emerging water crisis events in the mega city of Beijing, to a large extent, requires thinking in systems.

Aiming to achieve satisfied results of a systems analysis, first, we need to better understand the basic context of systems theory. An identified system is not a collection of different parts in isolation; in fact, a system is more than the sum of its parts. Specifically, a system is a set of elements so interconnected as to aid in driving toward a defined goal (Gibson et al. 2007). In Brief, there are four questions to ask whether we are looking at a system or just a bunch of stuff (Meadows 2008):

(1) Can the parts be identified? and (2) Do the parts affect each other? and (3) Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each other on its own? and perhaps (4) Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of circumstances? These four questions actually bring forwards some tips of developing a system. In brief, the most basic aspects of a system include: (i) system boundaries, (ii) subsystems, and (iii) interactions among the hierarchical/nested subsystems.

2.2 A Conceptual Framework for Urban Water Systems Analysis In order to have a better understanding of water systems development in the Beijing region, systems thinking and analysis is employed in the present study. Systems thinking could aid in identifying the contributing factors of the emerging water stress in recent decades, from both water quantity and water quality perspectives. Based on the Industrial Ecology-based approach developed at the DoIE (Song et al. 2011a), a conceptual framework (see Figure 2.1) is developed to aid in analyzing water systems changes including both the natural river systems and human society. In the present study, the system boundary is the whole Beijing Municipality (the whole Beijing region). Four subsystems are identified: (i) a freshwater resources (surface and underground water

6 bodies) subsystem, (ii) a water withdrawals and supply system subsystem, (iii) a water allocation and uses subsystem, and (iv) a wastewater collection and disposal subsystem. The four subsystems are inter-related by water flows and/or pollutants flows. There are three inputs of the system: upstream surface water inflow (SWI), local precipitation, inter-basin water transfer inflow (IWT). The outflow of the system is surface water outflow (SWO) in rivers. Because of data availability, other important factors of a water system are not included in the present study, e.g. groundwater movement, evapotranspiration and storm water.

Figure 2.1 A conceptual framework showing the identified sub-systems in the study, with an emphasis of the most important interactions of urban water systems (where P is precipitation, SWI is surface water inflow, IWT is inter-basin water transfer inflow, and SWO is surface water outflow) (based on Song et al. 2011a)

2.3 Data Collection This study attempts to provide a more holistic picture of water systems development in the Beijing region, with a focus on water quantity and water quality changes in recent decades. A variety of information had been collected from various sources and been synthesized. Data were collected mainly from the water-related governmental statistics and reports, e.g. the yearly „Beijing Environmental Statement‟ by Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau (BMEPB), the yearly „Beijing Water Resources Bulletin‟ by Beijing Water Authority (BWA), and the report „Investigation and Assessment of Surface Water Quantity in Beijing Municipality‟ by BWA and Beijing Institute of Water. Moreover, some relevant local policy documents were studied and some literature sources were reviewed regarding sustainable water resources management in river basins

7 and cities.

An interesting thing observed in the data collection process is that the same category of data from different sources sometimes is a bit different. Until now, it is very hard to find out the true reasons for explaining those differences. In the present study, however, we mainly adopt the published data from the relevant governmental agencies with their references in texts.

3 WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

3.1 Sustainability and Water Resources Sustainability, along with its various definitions, now seems to have different meanings for people working in different discipline. But it always focuses on the long-term improvement of human‟s well-being. The definition of “Sustainability” in the Brundtland Commission‟s report Our Common Future (World Commission On Environment and Development 1987) is: “Human has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Sustainability to some extent may be regarded as a philosophical concept without a precise state of being. However, the universally accepted vision of moving towards sustainability, first of all, could be facilitated by developing integrated resources management approaches for natural resources including the limited freshwater resources on earth.

Sustainability, to a large extent, is related to water issues and the capability of human society coping with the diverse water crisis events. The common water-related challenges globally can be classified into four groups, i.e. too little water (drought), too much water (flood), too seriously polluted (water pollution), and degradation of aquatic and riparian ecosystems. They are caused by both unevenly natural distribution and the behavior of water consumer. Therefore, freshwater scarcity may have severely limiting impacts on moving towards sustainable development and improving human well-being.

From the sustainability point of view, human society needs to address and solve various water-related challenges in order to meet various socio-economic and ecological demands. Hence, water resources management becomes of central importance in the context of sustainable development. To alleviate the emerging water stress, attentions have been paid to an integrated approach to sustainable water resource management through effective water governance (UNESCO 2003). Moreover, the water-related conflicts of upstream-downstream and human-nature need to be addressed with a higher priority, since we to some extent all live downstream at a watershed level (see Figure 3.1).

Ensuring a safe water supply with accepted water quality is crucial to achieving sustainable ecological, economic and social development (Cosgrove & Rijsberman 2000). Water resources play a crucial role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In the MDGs, there are two water-related goals, i.e. to halve the number of human beings who have no access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities respectively, by 2015. In 2002, there were 1.1 billion people (18% of the world‟s population) who have no access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion people (42% of the total) lack access to basic sanitation (WHO & UNICEF 2005). At the global scale, there seems to be tremendous challenges to achieve the two goals by 2015. One main point is how to manage the available freshwater resources more sustainable, involving all levels of stakeholders in the specific socio-economic and ecological context of different

9 countries.

Figure 3.1 We all live downstream at a watershed level (GWP 2000a)

The definition of sustainable water resources systems is put forward based on the concept of sustainable development. In terms of the definition developed by Loucks & Gladwell (1999), Sustainable water resource systems are „those designed and managed to fully contribute to the objectives of society, now and in the future, while maintaining their ecological, environmental, and hydrological integrity‟. In general, the purpose of water resources management is to wisely allocate water resources for socio-economic and ecological development. Therefore, the scope of water management are diverse, e.g. relevant to water supply, wastewater treatment, storm water management and flood prevention, hydropower, transportation, recreation, and water for the aquatic ecosystems. Within the context of sustainable water management, temporal and spatial dimensions are two key points. The aim of sustainable water management is to provide sufficient water with the right quality at the right place and at the right time. In practice, water management is strongly related to three aspects: preventing flood, ensuring the balance between water supply and water demand, protecting water ecological environment. The ultimate goal is water resources management for socio-economic development, while keeping ecosystem healthy.

Similarly to the definition of sustainable development, the criteria for sustainable water systems are usually divided into economic sustainability criteria, ecological and environmental sustainability criteria, and institutional and social aspects of sustainability. Until now, there are no specific criteria for sustainable water systems, depending on the specific socio-economic and ecological conditions in different countries. For the qualitative criteria, they to some extent are more often to be discussed, with a focus on identifying suitable systems boundary and subsystems for water management, e.g. river basin boundary vs. municipal boundary, water vs. land, and water vs. energy.

3.2 Integrated Water Resources Management Global Water Partnership (GWP) defined IWRM as “IWRM is a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximize the resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems” (GWP 2000b). The general components of IWRM are listed in Figure 3.2. The concept of IWRM is developed based on the understanding that water systems are an integral component of ecosystems at the scale of a river basin. To move towards IWRM, comprehensive issues together need to be addressed in river basins, including hydrological variation, institutional arrangements, land use, water infrastructure projects, and water use in human society.

Figure 3.2 The general components of IWRM (Mayfield 2003)

The components of IWRM to some extent implicate the complexity of water resources management, which includes several key water sectors and causes a variety of negative impacts on nature. In order to meet various socio-economic demands of water resources, various human activities have intensively disturbed the freshwater ecosystems in recent decades (see Figure 3.3). Until now, most of river water systems and human society are inter-related in several aspects, e.g. water quantity, water quality, and the function and structure of ecosystems.

Figure 3.3 Ways in which human use affects the water cycle and freshwater ecosystems (Carpenter & Biggs 2009)

The IWRM approach could improve the performance of water systems at a theoretical level; however, there are still some serious bottlenecks on the implementation of IWRM. One of them is simply uncertainty about how to get started on a process of creating an IWRM and water efficiency strategy in specific national decision-making (Lenton 2004). Furthermore, Lundqvist (2004) points out that a major challenge for IWRM refers to those conventionally outside the water sector, and an integrated thinking is still absent to follow water through the landscape and society. In this context, exploring various urban water flows is also crucial to having a better understanding of water systems changes in river basins and to ensuring water supply and protecting river ecosystems.

3.4 Urban Water Management Urban water systems are related to a variety of issues in urban areas, e.g. water supply, sanitation, wastewater collection and treatment, and storm water disposal. They are essential to the socio-economic development of cities as well as to having healthy aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Figure 3.4 shows the hydrological cycle in human society, which can be seen as a basis for urban water systems analysis. Since urban water systems have so many direct and indirect linkages with human society and nature, sustainable visions for urban water systems development are required in order to have a healthy water cycle at a river basin level in the long term.

Figure 3.4 The hydrological cycle in society (Lundin et al. 2000)

One of the main aspects of managing urban water systems may be to find the best way to maintain water services and to ensure various water demands. Table 3.1 lists some of the functions of urban water management. But these functions are mainly human-oriented, though recycling nutrients between human and nature is emphasized (Larsen & Gujer 1997). From a sustainability point of view, however, urban water management is a part of river basin management, and water allocation between human society and natural ecosystems needs to be balanced.

Table 3.1 The functions of urban water management (Larsen & Gujer 1997)

1 Urban hygiene Traditionally, urban hygiene meant solving the problems of removing faecal matter from urban areas, thereby minimizing the transfer of infectious agents. It should be extended to include the supply of water for production and cleaning purposes within households, trade and industry, including the handling of wastewater.

2 Drinking water and personal hygiene Water for drinking, for cooking and for personal hygiene is subject to strict quality requirements. Urban water management must supply such quality water and protect the appropriate resources.

3 Prevention of flooding in draining of urban areas Urban drainage is fundamental in many urban areas for preventing flooding. Although urban drainage has serious consequences for the water cycle and for the quality of receiving waters during storm events, it is not possible to maintain present population densities in urban areas without this service.

4 Integration of urban agriculture into urban water management Traditionally, urban water management was assigned responsibility for recycling the nutrients between city and countryside. With the introduction of inexpensive fertilizers, this responsibility was lost. Urban agriculture has a good potential for simultaneously increasing life quality and the possibility of nutrient recycling in urban areas. Urban water management is regaining importance in this area.

5 Providing water for pleasure and for recreational aspects of urban culture Water has always been an important aspect of urban culture. Without fountains, ponds, public parks, etc. urban life would lose important qualities.

One of the greatest challenges posed by the fast urbanization rate and rapid population growth is to guarantee safe, adequate and reliable water supply, as well as adequate sanitation conditions (Porto 2000). Considering water use and pollution abatement approaches, four stages (see Figure 3.5) have been identified showing the important stages in water and environmental management (Lundqvist et al. 2001). The first two stages adopt the conventional approaches, which assign nature and the public sector to take care of the discharged wastewater and various pollutants. During the two stages, the focus is on developing end-of-pipe solutions and alleviating negative impacts of pollutants discharge on the nature environment, regardless of the amount of water uses and what kinds of pollutants having been introduced into the water systems.

Figure 3.5 Stages of water use and pollution abatement (Lundqvist et al. 2001)

In contrast, the third and fourth stages aim to facilitate adopting the approaches of „reduction at source‟ and „reduction before source‟, respectively. These two approaches are more challengeable to be put into practice, because they need higher requirements on economic development, corporate social responsibility, institutional capacity, production and consumption styles, etc. But effectively employing the two approaches could result in reducing a large amount of water used in different sectors and in alleviating the negative impacts on water environment in cities and their nearby river basins.

To facilitate the transitions to the last two approaches in society, first of all, various water systems changes need to be better understood in a more holistic way. Here, it is also crucial to developing more sustainable water-related strategies in the specific national socio-economic and ecological context. In this context, a systems perspective is helpful to identify the most significant influencing factors of the emerging water crisis events and to analyzing alternative solutions from the viewpoint of sustainability.

4 MATERIALS

4.1 Beijing Municipality and its Water Systems

Beijing Municipality is located in the semi-arid and semi-humid monsoon climate zone. Between 1949 and 2008, the average annual temperature is 12.2 °C, with a maximum value of 41.9 °C (in 1999) and a minimum value of -22.8 °C (in 1951) (BMBS 2010). The average annual precipitation is 585 mm during the period 1956-2000, with an uneven monthly distribution (see Figure 4.1). Around 80% of precipitation occurs in the rainy season from June to September. The highest average monthly precipitation is 196.7 mm in July, while the lowest monthly precipitation is only 1.9 mm in December. Moreover, the annual average evaporation of the water surface is around 1,120 mm, and around 450-550 mm from the land surface. These characteristics together have posed huge challenges e.g. on flood and drought prevention in the region.

250.0

200.0

150.0

100.0 precipitation,mm

50.0

0.0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Figure 4.1 Average monthly precipitation in the Beijing region, 1956-2000 (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006)

In history, there were abundant renewable freshwater resources in the Beijing region, with healthy river ecosystems. In Beijing Municipality, there were around 100 running rivers with a total length of 2,700 km. Most of the rivers origin in the west and north mountain areas, flow from Northwest to Southeast, and finally enter into the Bohai Sea. There are five main rivers (river basins) in the Beijing region (see Figure 4.2), i.e. Daqing River (of the Daqing River Basin (DRB)), Yongding River (of the Yongding River Basin (YRB)), Beiyun River (of the Beiyun River Basin (BRB)), Chaobai River (of the Chaobai River Basin (CRB)), and Xun River (of the Jiyun River Basin (JRB)). All of the rivers (river basins) are in the Hai River Basin (HRB). Among them, the CRB has the largest area, while the JRB is the smallest one (see Table 4.1). Moreover, the five main rivers originate in different regions: the JRB, CRB and DRB from Hebei province, the YRB

16 from Shanxi province and Inner Mongolia, and only the BRB is a local river in the Beijing Region.

Figure 4.2 The five main river basins in Beijing Municipality

Table 4.1 Area of the five river basins Area (km2) River River Basin Mountain Plain Total Juma river DRB 1,615 604 2,219 Yongding river YRB 2,491 677 3,168 Beiyun river BRB 1,000 3,423 4,423 Chaobai river CRB 4,605 1,083 5,688 Xun river JRB 689 688 1,377 Beijing Municipality 10,400 6,400 16,800

Due to the uneven precipitation spatially and temporally, a variety of water infrastructure projects have been constructed since 1949. By 2004, there were 85 reservoirs in total, including 4 large-scale reservoirs1, 17 middle-scale reservoirs and 64 small-scale reservoirs, with a total planned storage capacity of around 9.4 billion m3 (BWA 2005). The four large-scale reservoirs are: Guanting, Miyun, Huairou and Haizi, with a total planned

1 In China, the large-scale reservoir refers to those with a planned storage capacity larger than 100 million m3; the middle-scale reservoir includes those with a planned storage capacity of 10- 100 million m3; and the small-scale reservoir is of a planned storage capacity of 0.1-10 million m3.

17 storage capacity of 8.8 billion m3. Among them, the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir are of the two largest ones, with a total planned storage capacity of 8.54 billion m3 (91% of the total reservoir storage capacity in the region). Moreover, by 2000, there were 51,699 constructed water wells in total, of which 51,454 wells were electromechanically operated. Moreover, 47,335 wells locate in the plain area, and 4,364 wells are in the mountain area.

Those water projects have contributed to flood prevention, water supply and hydro- electricity production. There are five main hydropower projects in the Beijing region (see Table 4.2). In 2008, the total hydro-electricity production was 489.95 million kWh.

Table 4.2 Five main hydropower projects in the Beijing region Total Electricity Installed storage Operational production Name Location capacity capacity year in 2008 (MW) (million m3) (million kWh) Yongding Guanting 4,160 350 1955 0.9 RB Chaobai Miyun 4,375 88 1960 3.67 RB Yongding Xiama Ling 14.3 65 1961 6.6 RB Yongding Xiawei Dian 3.77 30 1975 2.78 RB Shisan Ling Beiyun RB 73 800 1995 476

The Guanting and Miyun Reservoir are the two main surface water suppliers to the Beijing city. The Guanting Reservoir was completed in 1954, with a planned storage capacity of 2.27 billion m3 (updated to 4.16 billion m3 in 1989). It was China‟s first large reservoir since 1949. The Miyun Reservoir, located in the Chaobai River Basin (CRB) was constructed in 1960, with a planned water storage capacity of 4.375 billion m3.

Besides the two reservoirs, there are two main water transfer canals that are responsible for supplying water from the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir to the Beijing city. Firstly, the Yongding Water Supply Canal (YWSC), constructed in 1956 with a length of 25.4 km, is responsible for transferring water from the Guanting Reservoir to the central city. Secondly, the Jingmi Water Supply Canal (JWSC), in operation since 1966 with a length of 105.2 km, is responsible for transferring water from the Miyun Reservoir to the Beijing city.

4.2 Characteristics of Water Systems Development Since the foundation of the P. R. China, many efforts have been put on water systems development in the capital Beijing region. Along with socioeconomic-ecological development and climate variations, the emphases of water systems planning and

18 management vary since 1950. Until now, six water systems development periods can be summarized as follows (Ouyang et al. 2009): (1) Flood prevention and reservoir construction (1950-1959) It was characterized by the construction of the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir. Besides water storage function, they are the main measures of preventing rivers flood. (2) Preventing waterlogging and flood particularly in the urban area (1960-1969) In this period, the focus is on controlling the urban water systems, including lakes and rivers. Several former river courses and streams were buried under the cities. (3) Reservoir pollution and water shortage (1970-1979) In 1971, some toxic substances, e.g. hydroxybenzene, cyanogens and mercury, were detected in the Guanting Reservoir. Since then, it took three years to improve water quality in the reservoir until meeting the standard of potentially potable water. In 1978, the Daning Reservoir (located just below the Lugou Bridge) completely dried up, which signaled the era of rivers running dry in the downstream area of the YRB. (4) Municipal water supply under stress (1980-1989) In 1980 and 1981, water scarcity was very serious in the Hai River Basin and the total amount of yearly surface water inflow of the Guanting and Miyun Reservoir decreased dramatically to 0.514 billion m3 (about 1/4 of the average in the 1980s). Since the middle of the 1980s, the two reservoirs stopped agriculture water supply and only supplied water to the domestic and industrial sectors. The agriculture water use turned to groundwater and the era of overly groundwater withdrawal started since then.

Meanwhile, the Guanting Reservoir was seriously polluted once again, due to the large amount of wastewater discharged in the upstream area of the Yongding River. In order to protect water sources, wastewater treatment plants started construction since the end of the 1980s in the Beijing region. (5) Over-exploited groundwater (1990-1999) Since the middle of the 1990s, Beijing had been suffering from serious water scarcity. Beginning from 1999, there were continuous nine drought years, with average annual precipitation of 455 mm (21.9% less than the average annual precipitation of 585mm during the period 1956-2000). On the other hand, due to serious water pollution, the Guanting Reservoir was banned as a drinking water supply source. The Miyun Reservoir had been the only surface water source supplied to the Beijing city for years. (6) Continuous drought years since 2000 In august 2001, water bloom2 occurred in most of the urban rivers and lakes. In 2003, upstream surface water inflow of the Guanting reservoir decreased rapidly and its annual

2 Dense aquatic population of microscopic photosynthetic organisms produced by an abundance of nutrient salts in surface water, coupled with adequate sunlight for photosynthesis (for more information, see http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/636972/water-bloom). One visible phenomenon of water bloom is a fast growth of algae near or at rivers, lakes and ponds.

19 average water storage was less than 0.1 billion m3 since then. In 2003, the upstream river courses of the Miyun Reservoir ran dry. Meanwhile, the amount of water stored in the Miyun Reservoir decreased to 0.7 billion m3, only 0.25 billion m3 of water available for use after deducting its dead storage volume.

4.3 The Social and Economic Context The Beijing region has been experiencing fast population growth and a rapid urbanization rate during the last 60 years (see Figure 4.3). In 1949, its total population was only 4.2 million, of which 1.8 million (43%) inhabitants living in the urban area. In 1980, there were 9.04 million inhabitants in total, among which 5.2 million (58%) lived in the urban area. In 2008, however, the total registered population reached 16.95 million, of which 14.39 million (85%) lived in the city centre and near suburbs. The average population density in 2008 was 1,033 persons per km2. The large amount of population has posed huge challenges on its fragile water systems in the region, with respect to water supply, sanitation, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, etc.

18 rural area 16 urban area

population,million 6

1949 1952 1955 1958 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006

Figure 4.3 Population growth and urbanization in Beijing Municipality, 1949-2008 (based on data from BMBS 2010)

On the other hand, the regional gross domestic product (GDP) keeps growing since 1978. During the period 1978-2008, the regional GDP had increased from 10.9 billion Chinese Yuan to 1,048.8 billion Chinese Yuan. Correspondingly, the GDP per capita had increased from 1,257 Chinese Yuan in 1978 to 63,029 Chinese Yuan in 2008.

To cope with the emergent problems caused by rapid urban development, the Overall Urban Planning (2004-2020) was issued in 2005, which emphasizes the urban development scale, regional cooperation, and systematic solutions to ecosystems protection, traffic congestion, and higher standards for urban infrastructure construction. Successful implementation of the new urban plan is crucial to achieving the strategic development vision of moving towards a sustainable urban area.

1200 70

regional GDP

1000 60 Yuan 1,000 capita, per GDP GDP per capita 50 800 40 600 30 400

20 Regional GDP, billion Yuan 200 10

0 0

1976 1991 1949 1952 1955 1958 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1979 1982 1985 1988 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006

Figure 4.4 Growth of GDP and GDP per capita in Beijing Municipality, 1949-2008 (base on data from BMBS 2010)

The new “Overall Urban Planning” clearly puts forward four development aims, i.e., national capital, world city, liveable city, and cultural city. It brings forward a new urban spatial pattern, which can be summarized as “two axes - two belts - multiple centres” (see Figure 4.5). Furthermore, it is supposed to form new city-town structure, i.e. “central urban area - new city - county”. The central urban area will be the political, economic and cultural centre of Beijing region which is supposed to be around 1,085 km2 (Jiang 2004). However, the key problem is how to deal with the traditional urban development contradictions, e.g. water allocation between the rural area and the urban area, economic development vs. environmental protection, water supply management vs. water demand management.

Figure 4.5 Strategic structure of Beijing‟s urban spatial development described in the “Overall Urban Planning (2004-2020)” (after BMCUP 2005)

Moreover, this master planning also sets standards for population control, which is supposed to be about 18 million (8.5 million living in the urban central area) in 2020 (BMCUP 2005). This number is suggested based on a natural population growth rate and considering by the water resources carrying capacity in the Beijing region. Already in 2009, however, Beijing‟s population had reached 17.55 million (BSIN 2010), 0.6 million higher compared with that in 2008. During the three consecutive years – 2007, 2008 and 2009 – the population has increased with more than 0.5 million people per year.

In order to meet various socio-economic water demands since the 1980s, water systems in the Beijing region have been intensively disturbed. At present, the water situation in Beijing Municipality is far from satisfactory from both water quantity and water quality perspectives. Diverse water-related conflicts nowadays are more obvious in river basins as well as between nature and human society. In the near future, the vulnerable water systems may be further aggravated by many factors, e.g. urbanization, population growth, pollutants discharge, and potential climate change.

5 RESULTS

5.1 Water Quantity Changes

5.1.1 Precipitation variation Due to climate variation, yearly precipitation is unevenly distributed in the Beijing region (see Figure 5.1). During the period 1724-2009, the average annual precipitation is around 600 mm. Based on the monitoring data at the Beijing Rainfall Station from 1724 to 1949 (Gao et al. 1987), the highest yearly precipitation was 1,401.1 mm (in 1891) and the lowest was 242 mm (in 1869).

1600 precipitation 1400 average 1200

1000

800 mm 600

400

200

1784 1889 1724 1739 1754 1769 1799 1814 1829 1844 1859 1874 1904 1919 1934 1949

1200

precipitation 1000 average 800

600 mm

400

200

1992 1950 1953 1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007

Figure 5.1 Yearly precipitation at the Beijing Rainfall Station (1724-1949) and in the Beijing region (1950-2009) (based on data from Gao et al. 1987; Dou & Zhao 2006; BMBS 2010)

During the period 1950-2009, the maximum annual precipitation was 1,005.6 mm (in 1954); the minimum value was 373 mm (in 1999) in the Beijing region. However, the average annual precipitation is similar between the period 1734-1949 and 1950-2009. The former is 603.4 mm based on the data at the Beijing Rainfall Monitoring Station. The latter is 588.7 mm in the whole Beijing region.

On the other hand, precipitation is unevenly distributed spatially (see Figure 5.2). During the period 1956-2000, the average annual precipitation in the Beijing region was 584.7 mm (576.9 mm in the mountain area and 597.2 mm in the plain area). Among the five river basins, the Jiyun River Basin (JRB) had the highest annual average precipitation of 666.3 mm; and the Yongding River Basin (YRB) had the lowest value of 512.8 mm. Moreover, precipitation in the mountain area was higher than that in the plain area in the DRB and JRB; in contrast, precipitation in the plain area was more than that in the mountain area in the other three river basins.

800 mountain area plain area in total 700 666.3 604.9 590.6 581.7 584.7 600

512.8 500

400

300 Precipitation, Precipitation, mm

200

100

0 DRB YRB BRB CRB JRB Beijing Region

Figure 5.2 Spatial distribution of annual average precipitation in the fiver river basins and the Beijing region, 1956-2000 (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006)

5.1.2 Surface water inflow (SWI) Besides local precipitation, surface water inflow is the other main surface water source. In Beijing Municipality, there are four river basins with their main river streams flowing through the region, expect the Beiyun River Basin. In this context, the changes of renewable freshwater resources in the Beijing region to a large extent depend on the amount of surface water inflow from the upstream areas of river basins.

Similar to the trends of precipitation, the surface water inflows were unevenly distributed spatially and temporally during the period 1961-2009 (see Figure 5.3). The average annual surface water inflow of the Beijing region was 1,531.7 million m3, with a highest value of

4,334.3 million m3 (in 1964) and a lowest value of 303 million m3 (in 2009). In the YRB, the highest average annual surface water inflow was 1,889.2 million m3 (in 1967); but the lowest was only 44 million m3 (in 2009). Among the four river basins with the upstream inflows, the YRB accounts for around 50% of the total surface water inflow of the Beijing region. The second largest one is the CRB, which accounts for around 40% of the total surface water inflow.

5000.0 YRB

4500.0 CRB

4000.0 JRB

3500.0 DRB Beijing

3000.0 3 region 2500.0

million m 2000.0

1500.0

1000.0

500.0

0.0

2005 2001 2003 2007 2009

1993 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1995 1997 1999

Figure 5.3 Surface water inflow of the Beijing region (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006; BWA 2001-2010)

As can be seen from Figure 5.3, the amount of surface water inflow had a decreasing trend since the 1980s, compared with that between 1961 and 1980. This decreasing trend was much obvious since 2000. The average annual surface water inflow of Beijing Municipality was 2,396.9 million m3 in the period 1961-1980, 1,160.6 million m3 between 1981 and 2000, while only 445.3 million m3 from 2003 to 2009. For each of the river basins except the JRB, there was also a fast decreasing trend with respect to the surface water inflow. The YRB had the most obvious decreasing surface water inflow. During the period 1961-1980, there was 1,044.9 million m3 of surface water flowing into the region in average per year. However, it decreased to 333.3 million m3 between 1981 and 2000, and only 108.1 million m3 from 2003 to 2009.

During the period 1956-1969, the amount of surface water inflow of the YRB was consistent with the changes of the upstream precipitation; but their gaps had become larger since 1970 (see Figure 5.4). There are two main factors contributing to the decreasing surface water inflow. Firstly, the average annual precipitation in the upstream area of the Guanting reservoir in the Yongding River Basin has a decreasing trend. The

25 average annual precipitation between 1956 and 1969 was 429.9 mm; it decreased to 396.9 mm in the period 1970-2000. From 1980 to 2000, the average annual precipitation was 390 mm, which decreased by 9.3% compared with that during the period 1956-1969.

Secondly, excessive human interventions in the upstream area had substantially contributed to a fast decreasing amount of surface water inflow since the 1970s. Comparing the period 1956-1969 and 1970-2000, the average annual precipitation decreased only by 7.7%; however, the average annual surface water inflow of the YRB in the Beijing region decreased by 65.3%. Besides, various human activities in the upstream area are the other main contributing factor. A variety of water storage projects have been constructed in the upstream area of the YRB, including two large-scale reservoirs (named Cetian and Youyi) and 16 middle-scale reservoirs. Moreover, due to rapid socio-economic development, excessive water withdrawals in the upstream area of the YRB are popular. Those activities in the upstream of the YRB have greatly affected the natural river flows and resulted in a decreasing amount of surface water inflow of its downstream Yongding river reaches in the Beijing region.

700 30 precipitation surface water inflow 600

25 Surface water inflow, million m million inflow, water Surface

500 20

400 15 300

precipitation,mm 10

200

5 100

0 0

1978 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000

Figure 5.4 Changes of the surface water inflow of the YRB and the average annual precipitation in the upstream area of the Guanting reservoir in the YRB, 1956-2000 (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006)

5.1.3 Surface water outflow (SWO) The amount of yearly surface water outflow of the Beijing region shows a decreasing trend since the 1980s, compared with that in the 1960s and the 1970s (see Figure 5.5). In Beijing Municipality, the average annual amount of surface water outflow was 2,361.7 million m3 from 1961 to 1980; however, it decreased to 1,547.1 million m3 during the period 1981-2000, and to 837.7 million m3 between 2001 and 2009. The relatively less

26 amount of surface water outflow of the region happened in both the 1980s and the 2000s.

For the five river basins in the region, they have a similar trend with the whole Beijing region, regarding the amount of surface water outflow. However, the most obvious changes happen in the YRB. During the period 1961-2009, its highest value was 605.7 million m3 (in 1967); but there was zero surface water outflow for 15 years in total (1981- 1983, 1986-1993 and 1997-2000) from 1981 to 2000. The least changes happen in the BRB, which has the main drainage river system of Beijing Municipality. During the period 1961-2000, the average annual surface water outflow in the BRB was 903.3 million m3, accounting for 46.2% of the total surface water outflow (1,954.4 million m3) in the Beijing region. In contrast with the other four river basins from 2003 to 2009, the average annual surface water outflow in the BRB was 713.4 million m3, accounting for 85.2% of the total amount of surface water outflow in the Beijing region (837.7 million m3).

5000.0 YRB

4500.0 CRB

4000.0 JRB DRB 3500.0

BRB

3 3000.0 Beijing 2500.0 region

million million m 2000.0

1500.0

1000.0

500.0

0.0

2005 2001 2003 2007 2009

1969 1961 1963 1965 1967 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999

Figure 5.5 Surface water outflow of the Beijing region (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006; BWA 2001-2010)

In Brief, there are three significant factors – surface water inflow (SWI), local precipitation and wastewater discharge – that influence the amount of surface water outflow (SWO) of the region. As can be seen from Figure 5.3 and Figure 5.5, the peak period and changing trends of surface water inflow and outflow of the Beijing region are almost consistent. To some extent, this phenomenon may implicate that the total amount of SWI determines the total amount of SWO in the Beijing region if we do not consider the extreme climate variation locally.

Precipitation in the Beijing region is the second significant impact factor of the total amount of SWO. Here, the locally originated Beiyun River Basin (BRB) and the Beijing region can be taken as two examples demonstrating the impacts of local precipitation (see Figure 5.6). In general, the amount of SWO changes along with the amount of precipitation in the BRB during the period 1961-2000. This point is also reflected by the changes of the average annual SWO and precipitation in the Beijing region from 2001 to 2009.

1800 900

Beiyun River Basin 3 1600 800

1400 700 precipitation, mm precipitation, 1200 600 1000 500 800 400

600 300

400 200

200 100 Surface Surface water outflow,million m

0 0

1964 2000 1961 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997

freshwater wastewater precipitation

1200 700

3 Beijing Region 1000 600

500 mm precipitation, 800 400 600 300 400

200

200 100 Surface Surface water outflow,million m 0 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Figure 5.6 Precipitation and the composition of surface water outflows of the BRB (1961-2000) and the Beijing region (2001-2009) (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006; BWA 2002-2010)

The third impact factor of the SWO is the amount of wastewater discharge, which is reflected in the BRB having most of the Drainage Rivers in the Beijing region (see Figure 5.6). However, the proportion of fresh river water and discharged wastewater in the SWO is annually different. For the surface water outflow of the BRB, the average annual

28 discharged wastewater accounted for 19.02% in the 1960s, for 37.52% in the 1970s, for 51.88% in the 1980s, and for 9.6% from 1991 to 2000, with an average annual precipitation of 592.1 mm, 591.9 mm, 509.1 mm and 553.8 mm, respectively. For the Beijing region, the average annual discharged wastewater accounted for 69.7% of the total amount of SWO in the period 2001-2009, with an average annual precipitation of 485.3 mm. In the present study, however, there is still not any evidence to explain the fast decreasing amount of wastewater discharge in the BRB in the 1990s. The other explanation may be of data error from 1990 to 2000 in the reference source (Dou & Zhao 2006).

5.2 Water Uses and Regional Water Deficits

5.2.1 Water supply and water uses With rapid urbanization, industrialization and population growth, a huge amount of freshwater is required to meet different requirement. Considering the limited freshwater resources, the large amount of water demand will cause intensive water allocation conflicts among different water sectors (see Figure 5.7). The total amount of water use kept increasing from 4.11 billion m3 in 1990 up to 4.64 billion m3 in 1992. After 1992, the total amount of water use had a decreasing trend and was down to 3.55 billion m3 in 2009. From 2002 to 2009, the total amount of water use in different sectors was around 3.5 billion m3, around 14% less compared with that in 1990. This is mainly due to the tremendous efforts of water conservation particularly in the industrial and agricultural sectors. The amount of annual industrial water use had decreased from 1.55 billion m3 in 1992 to 0.52 billion m3 in 2009. Similarly, the amount of annual agricultural water use had decreased from 2.44 billion m3 in 1989 to 1.20 billion m3 in 2009.

5.0

4.5

3 4.0 3.5

3.0 environment 2.5 domestic 2.0 Industry 1.5 agriculture

1.0 Water used by sectors, billion m billion sectors, used Water by 0.5

0.0

2003 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 1988 Figure 5.7 Water used in different sectors in Beijing Municipality, 1988-2009 (based on data from BWA 1989-2010)

However, the amount of domestic water use kept increasing from 0.64 billion m3 in 1988 to 1.47 billion m3 in 2009. In 2000, the amount of domestic water use, for the first time, exceeded the amount of industrial water use. The other change is the amount of environmental water use, which kept increasing since 2003 and reached 0.36 billion m3 in 2009. Due to rapid population growth and increasing living standards, the amount of domestic and environmental water uses may continue increasing, which probably causes more water allocation conflicts among different water sectors in the near future.

The large amount of water demands for different purposes brings about a huge challenge to the vulnerable water systems in the Beijing region. Due to decreasing surface water inflow and precipitation in the Beijing region, the amount of surface water supply keeps decreasing in recent years (see Table 5.1). During the period 2000-2009, around 2/3 of the total amount of water supply was from groundwater, which was up to 78% in 2004. In 2008, for the first time, the amount of reclaimed wastewater use exceeded the amount of surface water use. Since 2004, the amount of reclaimed wastewater use kept increasing, which reached 0.65 billion m3 (18.3% of the total amount of water supply) in 2009. Correspondingly, the amount of groundwater withdrawal kept decreasing, which decreased to 2.18 billion m3 (61.4% of the total amount of water supply) in 2009.

Table 5.1 Amount of water supplied from different sources and used in different sectors in the Beijing region, 1980-2009 Water Supply (billion m3) Water Use (billion m3) Year Surface Ground Other3 Total Agriculture Industry Domestic Environment

1980 2.49 2.29 0 4.78 3.06 1.31 0.40 0.01

1985 1.22 2.60 0 3.82 2.11 1.04 0.63 0.04

1990 1.32 2.33 0 3.65 1.88 0.93 0.80 0.04

1995 1.24 2.71 0.01 3.96 1.84 1.05 1.03 0.04

2000 1.33 2.71 0.01 4.05 1.78 0.99 1.24 0.04

2005 0.70 2.49 0.26 3.45 1.32 0.68 1.34 0.11

2009 0.46 2.18 0.91 3.55 1.20 0.52 1.47 0.36 Source: based on data from BWA (1989-2010) and BWA (2006)

There are two main kinds of freshwater supply systems, i.e. tap water supply and well water supply (see Figure 5.8). The quantity of yearly tap water supply increased from 7.1 million m3 in 1949 to 829.9 million m3 in 2004. Most tap water is supplied to domestic and industrial water use, except a small proportion of agricultural water use between 1984 and 2000. From 1949 to 2008, the percent of domestic tap water use varied

3 Other water sources mainly refer to reclaimed wastewater. In this table, it also includes the amount of inter-basin water transfer (0.07 billion m3 in 2008 and 0.26 billion m3 in 2009).

30 between 93% (in 1951) and 48.7% (in 1973). From 2000 to 2008, the amount of domestic water use accounted for around 80% of the total amount of tap water supply. On the other hand, well water supply started from 1981. In the 1980s, water supplied from wells was mainly for the domestic and agricultural purposes; and the latter accounted for around 60% of total amount of well water supply. Since the 1990s, well water supply was mainly used for domestic and industrial purposes. In the 1990s, more than half of well water was supplied to industry; around 57.2% of the total amount of well water supply was used by the domestic sector from 2000 to 2008.

900

Tap Water Supply

3 800 700 600 500 domestic 400 industry 300 in total Water quantity, million m million quantity, Water 200 100

1952 1955 1958 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 1949

700 Well Water Supply

600

3 500

400 domestic 300 industry

200 in total Water quantity, million m quantity, Water 100

1983 2003 1981 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2005 2007

Figure 5.8 Yearly amount of tap water supply and well water4 supply, 1949-2008 (based on data from BMBS 2010)

5.2.2 Water deficits and decreasing groundwater table Although the total amount of water withdrawals has a decreasing trend since 2000, water systems in the Beijing region are still under tremendous pressure. It is mainly caused by

4 There are various types of wells in the Beijing region, e.g. drinking water well, industrial water well and irrigation well. Here, it refers to all wells in the Beijing region.

31 the large deficits between the amount of available freshwater resources and the total amount of water withdrawals. For the Beijing region, the available freshwater resources include two main parts: the renewable fresh water resources (RFWR) from local precipitation and the surface water inflow from the upstream area of the region. Here, one assumption is that the amount of total available freshwater resources would be used as water sources, regardless of evapotranspiration and ecological water requirements in river basins. This is not the case in practice; but it can greatly simplify the following brief comparisons. Under this hypothesis, therefore, the amount of water deficits discussed below is actually the minimum value and the actual amount of water deficit would be much larger.

As can be seen from Figure 5.9, water deficits in the Beijing region varied between 0.67 billion m3 (in 2005) and 1.62 billion m3 (in 2000) from 2000 to 2009. During this period, the amount of average annual water deficit is 0.93 billion m3. However, there is only one exception happened in 2008, then there was 0.64 billion m3 of water surplus. This is mainly caused by higher yearly precipitation. In 2008, the average annual precipitation was 638 mm, higher than the average annual precipitation of 607 mm during the period 1950-2000. Considering general relationship between precipitation and the RFWR in the region, it may implicate that the water surplus situation would happen more often given higher yearly precipitation level in the future.

4.5 700

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precipitation,mm 3 3.0

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1.0 Water quantity, billion billion quantity, m Water 100 0.5

0.0 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

RFWR (Beijing region) surface water inflow water withdrawals precipitation average precipitation (1956-2000)

Figure 5.9 Comparison of the annual amount of renewable freshwater resources (RFWR)5, surface water inflow, and water withdrawals in the Beijing region, 2000-2009 (based on data from BWA 1989-2010)

5 Here, the RFWR refers to the sum of locally available surface water and groundwater transformed from precipitation in the Beijing region.

In order to meet the large water deficits in the Beijing region, groundwater resources have been overly withdrew particularly in the 2000s, which had resulted in a decreasing groundwater table in the plain area of Beijing Municipality (see Figure 5.10). At the end of 1960, the depth to groundwater in the plain area was 3.19 m, and it was 7.24 m at the end of 1980. However, the depth to groundwater had increased fast from 11.88 m in 1998 to 24.07 m in 2009, with an average annual increasing rate of 1.02 m. In the end of June 2009, the ground water table reached 24.38 m that was the highest value since 1978. Compared the yearly groundwater situation in 2009 with that in 1980, the depth to groundwater have dropped by 16.83 m and the total groundwater storage in the region has decreased by 8.62 billion m3 (BWA 2010).

1981 1991 1998 2008 1960 1980 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2009

Depth to groundwater, tom groundwater, Depth 25

Figure 5.10 Decreasing groundwater table6 of the plain area in the Beijing region, 1960-2009 (based on data from BWA 2001-2010)

5.3 Water Quality Changes

5.3.1 Point and non-point source pollution Together with the limited water quantity, wastewater associated with pollutants discharged has caused huge pressure on the vulnerable water systems in the Beijing region too. During the period 1996-2009, the amount of average annual wastewater discharge was 1.292 billion m3; varying between 1.057 billion m3 (in 1996) and 1.365 billion m3 (in 2009) (see Figure 5.11). But the proportion of wastewater discharge from different sectors has changed greatly. From 1996 to 2005, the amount of average annual wastewater discharge from industry was 0.554 billion m3, while it decreased to 0.092 billion m3 between 2006 and 2008. This was mainly due to a decreasing amount of industrial water use, owing to water conservation measures and an increased rate of wastewater reclamation. In contrast, the amount of domestic wastewater keeps increasing, from 0.536 billion m3 in 1996 to 1.236 billion m3 in 2008.

6 It refers to the depth to groundwater monitored at the end of each year.

1.6 Wastewater Discharge 1.4 1.2

1.0 3 0.8 domestic industrial

billionm 0.6

total 0.4 0.2

0.0

1998 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Figure 5.11 Amount of yearly wastewater discharge in the Beijing region, 1996-2009 (based on data from BWA 1989-2010)

In order to alleviate the negative impacts of the increasing amount of wastewater discharge, the Beijing government has put many efforts on wastewater collection and disposal. As can be seen from Figure 5.12, the daily amount of wastewater discharge in the region had increased from 6.6×104 m3 in 1954 to 361.9×104 m3 in 2008, though it once decreased from 369.2×104 m3 in 1992 to 237.1×104 m3 in 2001. On the other hand, the average annual wastewater treatment rate varied between 6.6% (in 1991) and 10.9% (in 1982) from 1954 to 1991. The wastewater treatment rate of 1.2% was in 1992, due to the highest amount of yearly wastewater discharge then. Before 1992, wastewater in Beijing Municipality only was primarily treated, e.g. by means of stabilization ponds. With an increasing awareness of public health risk from polluted water, wastewater treatment plants construction was on the agenda of the Beijing government. Since then, the yearly wastewater treatment rate had increased from 3.1% in 1993 to 78.9% in 2008.

Due to many efforts on wastewater treatment and pollution reduction, the total amount of yearly COD (chemical oxygen demand) discharge keeps decreasing in recent years (see Figure 5.13). The total amount of COD discharge was 17.85×104 m3 in 2000 and 9.88×104 m3 in 2009, with an average annual decreasing amount of 0.797×104 m3. The amount of industrial COD discharge decreased from 4.93×104 m3 in 1998 to 0.5×104 m3 in 2008. Similarly, the amount of domestic COD discharge decreased from 15.7×104 m3 in 2000 to 9.63×104 m3 in 2008, though the amount of domestic wastewater kept increasing in the period. Even so, the total amount of COD discharge in 2009 was still higher than the theoretical annual maximum amount of COD carry capacity of 7.8×104 m3 (Ouyang et al. 2009), considering all river courses in the Beijing region.

400.00 90

80 % rate, treatment Wastewater

m 350.00 4 4 70 300.00 60 250.00 50 200.00 40 150.00 30 100.00

20 Daily wastewater discharge, 10 50.00 10

0.00 0

1954 2004 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2006 2008 daily WW discharge WW treatment rate

Figure 5.12 Daily wastewater discharge and yearly wastewater treatment rate in the Beijing region, 1954-2008 (based on data from BMBS 2010)

20 18 16 14

domestic 3 12

10 industrial

10,000 10,000 m 8 6 total

4 COD carrying 2 capacity

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Figure 5.13 Amount of COD discharge from different sectors in the Beijing region, 1998- 2009 (based on data from BWA 1997-2010; BMEPB 2001-2009; NBS & MEP 2009)

Another important characteristic of wastewater discharge is the uneven distribution in the five main river basins. This characteristic can be observed in terms of the statistics of the numbers of sewage outfall and the amount of wastewater discharge in 2003 (see Figure 5.14). In general, there are three kinds of sewage outfall: domestic, industrial and combined7. Among the five river basins, the Beiyun RB (BRB) has the largest numbers

7 A combined sewage system collects sanitary sewage and storm water runoff in one single pipe system.

35 for all of the three kinds of sewage outfall, and the Daqing RB (DRB) has only 1 domestic and 4 combined sewage outfall in 2003 (Dou & Zhao 2006). Correspondingly, around 80% of the total amount of wastewater was discharged in the BRB in 2003.

500 600 Amount of of Amountdischarge, WW m million 450

500 400 350 400 300 250 300 200 200 150

Numbers outfall sewage ofNumbers 100 100

50 3

0 0 Daqing RB Yongding RB Chaobai RB Beiyun RB Jiyun RB

domestic industrial combined sewage amount of WW discharged

Figure 5.14 Numbers of sewage outfall and amount of wastewater discharged in 2003 (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006)

Similarly to the uneven distribution of the sewage outfall and the amount of wastewater discharge, the amount of pollutants discharge is also different in river basins (see Figure 5.15). The proportion of the total amount of pollutants discharged in 2003 was as follows: COD accounted for 80.1%, nitrogen was 12.8%, ammonia-nitrogen was 5.7%, and Phosphorous was 1.4% (Dou & Zhao 2006). For the five river basins, the Beiyun RB (BRB) received around 86% of the total amount of pollutant discharged; and the Daqing RB (DRB) had only 1.2% that was the least.

160000

140000

120000

100000 N

80000 P

60000 NH3-N Pollutants,tons COD 40000

20000

0 Daqing RB Yongding RB Chaobai RB Beiyun RB Jiyun RB

Figure 5.15 Amount of pollutants discharge in the five river basins in 2003 (based on data from Dou & Zhao 2006)

For the non-point pollutants, the collected data in the present study only is the amount of yearly fertilizer use. As can be seen from Figure 5.16, the amount of fertilizer use increased fast in the 1960s and the 1970s. From 1961 to 1980, the amount of yearly fertilizer use increased from 8,609 tons to 123,000 tons. Although it decreased to 82,000 tons in 1985, it increased to the highest amount of 197,000 tons in 1997. After 1997, it had a decreasing trend and reached to 136,000 tons in 2008. Besides the point source pollutant of COD from domestic and industrial wastewater, the non-point source pollution from agriculture – e.g. using pesticide and fertilizer – are other contributors to water pollution of both surface water and groundwater.

tons

20 4

5 Amount of fertilizer use, use, 10 fertilizer Amount of

1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

Figure 5.16 Amount of yearly fertilizer use in the Beijing region, 1949-2008 (based on data from BMBS 2010)

5.3.2 Surface water quality Due to a huge amount of wastewater and pollutants discharge, river water has gradually been polluted since the 1980s. In recent years, water quality issues have received many and more attentions. This may be reflected from the yearly increasing length of river courses monitored by BWA. In 2001, there was only 952 km river courses monitored; but it increased to 2,323.7 km in 2009. As can be seen from Figure 5.17, the fraction of river water quality kept changing between 2001 and 2009 (BWA, 2002-2010). The most obvious change was the river length classified as Grade I-III and Grade V worse. The proportion of the river length classified as Grade I-III was 72.3% (788.6 km) in 2004, which decreased to 47% (1,078.6 km) in 2009. On the contrary, the river length classified as Grade V worse was 26.2% (286.1 km) in 2004, which increased to 45% (1,064.7 km) in 2009. During the same period, however, the percentage of the river length classified as Grade IV and Grade V had changed very few.

Due to the centralized wastewater treatment and different water sources protection strategies, water quality is largely different in the five main river basins (see Figure 5.18). Regarding the four large-scale reservoirs in 2008, on the one hand, three of them – Miyun, Huairou and Haizi – were classified as Grade II; but the Guanting Reservoir was

37 classified as Grade IV (BWA 2009). On the other hand, it is not surprising that most of the river courses classified as Grade II or Grade III are in the upstream area of the Beijing city, because they are of the water protection area so as to ensure surface water supply with acceptable quality. However, most of the river courses in the BRB are seriously polluted and classified as Grade V worse in recent years.

80 2500 Length of monitored river course, km km course, river monitored of Length

70 2000 60 monitored river course 50 1500 Grade I-III

40 Grade IV 1000 30 Grade V 20 500 Grade V worse

Fraction of river Fractionof river course quality,% 10

0 0

2007 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2009

Figure 5.17 River water quality of the Beijing region, 2001-2009 (based on data from BWA 2002-2010)

Figure 5.18 Surface water quality of the Beijing Region in 2008 (after BWA 2009)

5.3.3 Groundwater quality Due to the lower wastewater treatment rate for many years in the Beijing region, groundwater has been polluted too. A large amount of wastewater has been directly discharged into river courses and seepage wells. Moreover, there are a huge amount of pollutants discharged by using fertilizer and pesticide in agriculture. As can be seen from Figure 5.19, the groundwater quality is changing spatially; but those classified as Grade IV and Grade V are located in the BRB and the downstream of the other river basins. This kind of water quality situation also reflects the strong upstream-downstream conflicts in river basins.

Figure 5.19 Groundwater quality of the Beijing region in 2004 (after BWA 2005)

In recent years, with increased rate of wastewater treatment, the proportion of seriously polluted groundwater quality has decreased slightly (see Figure 5.20). For the shallow aquifer (the depth of monitor well less than 150 m), those classified as Grade V had decreased from 25% in 2003 to 22.7% in 2009, while those classified as Grade III also decreased from 55% in 2003 to 52% in 2009 (BWA 2010). This is caused by a higher value of hardness, ammonia-nitrogen and nitrate-nitrogen.

As a result of pollutants seepage and excessive groundwater withdrawals, shallow aquifer and even deep groundwater in some areas, has been under higher risk of pollution for years. Water quality of deep groundwater (the depth of monitor well between 150 m and 300 m) is better, compared with that of the shallow aquifer. In 2009, those classified as Grade III and Grade IV-V was 84% and 16%, respectively. The main pollutants were

39 ammonia-nitrogen and fluoride (BWA 2010). In 2006, however, deep groundwater classified as Grade III and Grade IV-V was 85.6% and 14.4%, respectively, with higher concentration of ammonia-nitrogen, iron and manganese (BWA 2007). This may show that the deep groundwater is gradually under crisis, caused by a variety of pollutants discharge.

40 Grade III 30 Grade IV

20 Grade V

10 Fraction of groundwaterquality , of % groundwaterquality Fraction 0 2003 2004 2005 2007 2008 2009

Figure 5.20 Fraction of the shallow aquifer quality in the Beijing region, 2003-2009 (based on data from BWA 1989-2010)

6 DISCUSSION

6.1 Water Quantity Changes Within the scope of the present study, the water quantity system in the Beijing region is affected by a variety of factors, both the internal factors (precipitation and the prevailing water use pattern) and the external factors (upstream surface water inflow and inter-basin water transfer). These factors vary at different spatial and temporal scales, which may be similar to other countries in arid and semi-arid regions. However, water systems changes must to be discussed in the specific socio-economic and ecological context at different scales. Based on the results of the present study, we could conclude that both the internal and external factors contributed to the current severe water situation in the Beijing region; but human interventions may play a more important role than climate variations in water quantity changes.

For climate and precipitation changes, their overall impacts on water systems in the Beijing region is not very clear based on the evidence collected in the present study. There are nine continuous drought years from 1999 to 2007, with a yearly precipitation below the average value since 1956. However, one question is whether it is one of the main contributors to the current water scarcity? Here, the following two points may aid our understanding of the local water quantity environment employing a retrospective perspective. Firstly, there were similar continuous drought years happened in history, e.g. during the period 1728-1936 and 1739-1760. Secondly, the diversity of the annual average precipitation is not large during the two periods 1724-1949 (603.4 mm) and 1950-2009 (588.7 mm). In this regard, perhaps we may conclude that the recent continuous dry years seem normal in history; but the main difference is the environment of human society in the past and now.

Compared to the „doubtful‟ impact of precipitation on the current water scarcity situation, one fact without doubt is the total surface water inflows of the Beijing region that has kept decreasing since the 1980s (cf. Figure 5.3). This is mainly due to the upstream human intervention of excessive water withdrawals to meet rapid socio- economic development. Here, the problem is how this kind of upstream-downstream conflicts can be effectively addressed in the near future. In terms of the general principles of IWRM, the best unit for water management is a river basin, with its hydrological boundary. In practice, however, water resources are usually managed in terms of its administrative boundary, e.g. a city, a region and a country. In this context, the local/regional water planning mainly compete for more upstream surface water inflows, while often neglecting its surface water outflows into the downstream region. To some extent, we could say that we all live in both the upstream and downstream of a river basin (cf. 3.1), depending on how to set out the systems boundary. However, we all live on the same river in a river basin. The health of a river system depends on the activities of all its upstream-downstream water users, and vice versa.

This kind of upstream-downstream water allocation conflicts are not easy to negotiate among different administrative regions in a river basin. Based on the institutional framework for water resources management in China (Song et al. 2011b), the State Council has the right to judge such regional water conflicts issues as those among provinces. In order to alleviate water stress in Beijing Municipality, the State Council had also issued a regulation in 2007 on ensuring the upstream surface water inflow of the Guanting reservoir in the Yongding River Basin (State Council 2007). In terms of the regulation on the minimum amount of surface water flowing into the Guanting reservoir, the upstream Hebei province must ensure 300 million m3 of water during years with normal precipitation and 60 million m3 of water during extremely drought years. This regulation sounds rational; but the point is that Hebei province is also suffering from a severe water supply crisis to meet its various socio-economic development water demands. In brief, the question still doesn't change in essence: how to wisely manage the limited water quantity in a river basin to meet the various socio-economic and ecological water demands?

In a river basin, we to some extent agree that a clear river basin water allocation plan/permit among the relevant region is helpful to ensure the downstream surface water inflow of each region, even the minimum amount of water flow in the river. However, this water supply management is probably not the best solution, compared to water demand management. Even located in a semi-arid area, water stress in the Beijing region may be alleviated if water conservation, together with a sustainable urban development strategy, could be kept emphasizing. In this way, besides technological innovations, tremendous efforts should be put on water resources planning and management, e.g. shifting to water demand management, improving the rate of water/wastewater recycling rate, and institutional capacity building for IWRM.

To move from water supply management to water demand management, first of all, the historical water allocation and uses need to be investigated in different sectors. When exploring the reasons for water scarcity in the Beijing region, one popular opinion is that it is located in a semi-arid area with much less precipitation particularly in recent years. This opinion is impartial from the perspective of system‟s inputs.

However, we may have another complementary opinion that a systems perspective is required so as to investigate the „black box‟ of the system under investigation, e.g. with a focus on specific water use sector. Here, we can take the historical agricultural water use in the Beijing region as an example. As can be seen from Table 5.1, the amount of agricultural water use keeps decreasing since 1980. However, it is not due to improved agricultural irrigation efficiency in the all time. As can be seen from Figure 6.1, the total arable land area in the Beijing region has decreased fast, e.g. from 413,000 hectares8 in 1991 to 236,000 hectares in 2004, with a relatively stable period between 1991-1995, 1996-2000 and 2004-2008. Figure 6.1 shows the other reason for the decreasing trend

8 A metric unit of area, 1 hectare = 10,000 m2

42 particularly since 2000, i.e. the decreasing amount of arable land area and irrigation area. In a similar way, the trend of domestic and industrial water uses also worth further detailed investigation in order to have a more holistic picture of water quantity changes in different sectors. This is prerequisite to find out more sustainable water resources planning, development and management in the Beijing region.

70.0

arable land area 60.0 irrigation area

50.0 hectare

40.0 4

30.0

Land area, 10 area, Land 20.0

10.0

0.0

1997 1949 1952 1955 1958 1961 1964 1967 1970 1973 1976 1979 1982 1985 1988 1991 1994 2000 2003 2006

Figure 6.1 Changes of arable land area and irrigation area in the Beijing region, 1949-2008 (based on data from BMBS 2010)

6.2 Water Quality Changes Similar to the water quantity changes, the water quality issue is also affected by a variety of contributors. Based on the results of the present study, the main factors can be summarized as non-point pollutants from agriculture and the rate of wastewater treatment. On the one hand, the total amount of COD discharge from industrial and domestic wastewater keeps decreasing since 2000, as mentioned in Chapter 5. However, only the point source pollutants (COD from industrial and domestic wastewater) was higher than the total pollutants carry capacity of all rivers in the Beijing region (cf. Figure 5.13), though the wastewater treatment rate had reached 78.9% in 2008. This implicates that the quality of treated wastewater also needs to be improved substantially in the future. Moreover, the non-point pollutants from agricultural pesticide and fertilizer uses deserve more attentions as well.

On the other hand, the present study finds that the location of polluted river reaches is determined by the spatial distribution of wastewater discharge. The most polluted river courses in the Beijing region are in the Beiyun River Basin, into which most of municipal wastewater is discharged. Moreover, the spatial distribution groundwater quality is similar

43 to that of surface water quality. The most polluted area of groundwater is located in the downstream river courses, which is close to river courses flowing out of the Beijing region.

In the near future, the Beijing region, along with its huge population and a fast urbanizing rate, probably would continue facing up to tremendous challenges of wastewater reduction and pollution prevention. Here, the question is whether wastewater can be re-allocated among different river basins in the future? How to carry out water sensitive planning in such a water-centric Overall Urban Planning (2004-2020), ensuring adequate water supply with an acceptable water quality?

Considering the four stages of water use and pollution abatement (cf. Figure 3.5), Beijing is not still at the second stage characterized as building of effluent treatment plants by the public sector. Beijing may stay at the stage in the coming years to further improve its overall wastewater treatment rate (around 80% at the moment) and the quality of treated wastewater. On the other hand, Beijing is moving toward the third stage characterized as reduction at source. Actually cleaner production techniques have been introduced in China since the 1990s and the amount of industrial COD discharge keep decreasing in recent years in the Beijing region. However, there are still many challenges to effectively reduce pollutants discharged into nature, not only of nutrients like COD, Nitrogen and Phosphorous but also other hazardous substances like heavy metals. Towards improved water environment and more healthy ecosystems in the capital region, therefore, both socio-technical systems innovation is required so as to reduce the quantity of water use/wastewater, and to improve the quality of treated wastewater and of surface water and groundwater.

6.3 Suggestions for Alleviating Water Stress in Beijing Municipality The emerging water crisis events in the Beijing region are caused by both water scarcity and water pollution. Technological innovations – both on water conservation and wastewater treatment – are crucial to achieving improved performances of water systems in river basins. Considering the complexity of water systems, advances in technology alone are not sufficient in many ways. Besides achieving socio-economic development, humans should learn how to better live with rivers in a more harmonious way (ecological sustainability). Absolutely, this requires a variety of efforts at all levels. Furthermore, the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) may alleviate Beijing‟s water crisis in a short time from the water quantity perspective; however, it can only be regarded as one complementary measure, rather than a fundamental solution, in the long term.

Considering the current water situation and water management system, the following three aspects of improvement are emphasized in the present study, including a promoted water-centric value, institutional capacity building and employing economic principles for

44 water resources management. Definitely, there are several other aspects that are equally important but less discussed in the present study, such as effective upstream-downstream conflicts resolution as well as balancing water between human society and nature.

To alleviate the water crisis in Beijing Municipality, first of all, there should be a better understanding of water values for decision-making, main stakeholder and the public. For a rather long time, the popular value is that “Water is of renewable natural resources, and humans can withdraw and consume it randomly”. It works well but only under a much lower level of socio-economic development. In this context, various (large-scale) dams have been constructed so as to ensure water supply.

With the development of modern society, however, various human activities have severely disturbed the natural water cycle as well as resulting in such more water stresses as water scarcity and pollution. In this context, the former value should be shifted to such a promoted water centric one as the first Dublin principles (GWP 2000b): “Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment”. Here, the challenge is how to improve the understanding of water resources in developing countries. This holds true to decision-makers and water managers in Beijing municipality. The point is to emphasize that knowing the general principles of IWRM is just a starting point and acting guided by the principles is of the most importance.

Besides a better understanding of catchment systems (e.g. water flows, pollutant flux, and aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem transitions), water institutional capacity building is the other key aspect towards improved practices of water resources management. (Jury & Vaux 2005) summarize a series of deficiencies that water institutions tend to embody, including a focus on narrow interests, artificial divisions between the management of water quality and the management of water quantity, multiple and fragmented management jurisdictions across fundamental hydrologic units such as basins and watersheds, and an absence of institutions that are designed to deal with the fundamental problems of water scarcity. Considering the multiple water problems in Beijing Municipality, further water institutional reforms are required in the near future as to having holistic approaches to address the emerging water crisis events. Only in this way, partially optimized measures may be avoided at a river basin level.

Moreover, employing economic principles, such as cost-recovery of water services and the polluter-pay-principle (Song et al. 2010), could further contribute to improved performances of water systems in the region. The current water price and wastewater treatment fee is still very low, including that of agricultural water use (Dou & Zhao 2006). This has indirectly contributed to the increasing water demand trend especially since the 1980s. Developing effective economic measures, together with technological innovations, to a large extent could reduce the amount of water used in different sectors and pollutants discharge to the nature environment. However, one important aspect with respect to a rational water price system is to subsidize people with a lower income. This

45 aspect is very important to ensure everyone having access to the municipal water supply system and the basic sanitation services, as well as to move towards a sustainable urban development in the metropolitan region of Beijing.

7 CONCLUSIONS

This thesis has attempted to provide a comprehensive picture of the water situation in Beijing Municipality, with an emphasis on water quality and water quantity. In order to address water systems changes in a systems perspective, a conceptual framework is developed to aid in understanding various water flows and pollutant flux at a scale of river basin. The results of the present study show that a variety of factors have contributed to the emerging water crisis events in the Beijing region, both the internal/local factors (hydrological variation and water use patterns) and the external factors (upstream surface water inflow and inter-basin water transfer).

From the water quantity perspective, the current water deficits and decreasing groundwater tables are caused mainly by the following factors: hydrological variation, surface water inflow, and water supply and used in different sectors. The hydrological variation is characterized as unevenly distributed precipitation spatially and temporally. The decreasing trend of local precipitation since the 1980s is one contributing factor of water scarcity.

However, the most important impact factors of the water quantity changes may be the human-oriented intervention to the water systems both in the upstream area and in Beijing Municipality. The upstream human activities have resulted in a decreasing amount of surface water inflow of the Beijing region. This fact could be demonstrated by the case of the Yongding River, according to the trends of upstream precipitation and the surface water inflow of the Guanting reservoir. For water supply and water used in Beijing Municipality, the available freshwater, both surface water and groundwater resources, have been overly exploited to meet the vast amount of socio-economic water demand in recent decades. Although the total amount of water use has a decreasing trend since 2000, tremendous efforts are needed to offset the current water deficits and to balance water allocation to meet all water demands. Moreover, the negative impacts of the two main inter-basin water supply projects – the YWSC and the JWSC – on the downstream river courses should be effectively addressed, so as to prevent river courses running dry.

On the other hand, the water quality changes are mainly caused by the large amount of pollutants discharge from different sectors. Both point and non-point source pollutants have contributed to the decreasing water quality situation, for both the river systems and groundwater. Although the wastewater treatment rate has been increased and the amount of COD discharge have been decreasing in recent years, the total amount of COD discharge in 2009 was still higher than the maximum annual carry capacity of the river systems in the Beijing region. Moreover, the spatial distribution of wastewater discharge should be re-balanced, considering environmental water demands with an acceptable water quality.

To improve the water performances in the Beijing region, a variety of efforts are required

47 in the near future from both the perspective of technological innovation and integrated water resources management. Developing advanced technologies is important to water conservation and pollution prevention. Moreover, a holistic institution approach is crucial to facilitate the practices of integrated water resources management, including employing economic principles. Finally, the various water stress problems in Beijing Municipality must be addressed from the viewpoint of systems, which is prerequisite to move towards a sustainable urban development in the metropolitan region of Beijing.

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