River Basin Management

Water scarcity and stress have attracted increasing attention, as water has become increasingly regarded as one of the most critical resources in the world’s sustainable development. In order to achieve a more sustainable water resource management at river basin level, this chapter takes Heihe River Basin (HRB) in Northwest China as a representative example to address the water scarcity situation and gives an outlook of strategies and innovations for river basin management. Since a good understanding of the water stress situation is a prerequisite to make proper water strategies, by applying the Water Poverty Index (WPI), the water stress situation in HRB and the driving factors are evaluated first. Results indicate that water stress has become more severe over time in the HRB. Then water resource management strategies and innovations from supply and demand side are discussed, especially for the effects of water conservancy project and water price reform in HRB. Furthermore, with comparable characters and similarities in the hydrological contexts, a comparative study between HRB and two other river basins Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) in Australia and the Colorado River Basin (CRB) in the USA was conducted. Comparisons in water allocation, water organizations, water acts, and scientific projects are analyzed. Finally, recommendations for integrated river basin management for the HRB have been proposed.

Forecasting the industrial water demand accurately is crucial for sustainable water resource management. This study investigates industrial water demand forecasting by case-based reasoning (CBR) in an arid area, with a case study of Zhangye City, China. CBR uses past experience to solve new problems. Since CBR is a methodology rather than a technique, this definition makes case-based reasoning system be an open system, which can constantly absorb new technologies and methods, and be more conducive to the development of itself. This research constructed a case base with 420 original cases of 28 cities in China, extracted six attributes of the industrial water demand, and employed a back propagation neural network (BPN) to weight each attribute, as well as the grey incidence analysis (GIA) to calculate the similarities between target case and original cases. The forecasting values were calculated by weighted similarities. The results show that the industrial water demand of Zhangye in 2030, which is the target case, will reach 11.9 million tons. There are ten original cases which have relatively high similarities to the target case. Furthermore, the case of Yinchuan, 2010, has the largest similarity, followed by Yinchuan, 2009, and Urumqi, 2009. This research also made a comparison experiment in which CBR is more accurate than the grey forecast model and back propagation neural network in water demand forecasting. It is expected that the results of this study will provide references to water resources management and planning.

Urban ecosystems coupling social and biophysical processes require interdisciplinary effort. An integrated framework is explored by linking a hydrological model (SWAT- Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and an economic model (CGE- Computable General Equilibrium) for allocating the water resource to maximize the water use efficiency in a river basin in China. A case study of the Heihe River Basin is presented to illustrate how the framework can be used to analyze the water supply and demand in the process of urbanization. The industrial transformation will happen along with the urbanization, both of which will lead to rapid increase of water consumption. In addition, the rate of urbanization mainly characterized by the economic development, population growth, and water resource limitations. Therefore, the study analyzed the water demand of each county using the CGE model, with the population growth, capital accumulation, and technical progress used as exogenous variables. Simultaneously, the land use/cover change with urbanization will back to influence water supply through the hydrological process. The results indicate that the total water consumption in the middle reach of the Heihe River Basin will increase from 21.74 × 10⁸ m³ in 2010 to 24.35 × 10⁸ m³ in 2050. In addition, the results indicate that the runoff in the lower reach of urban will increase by 9.14%. The groundwater infiltration will decrease in 2050, indicating that more water can be withdrawn from Heihe River to meet the increasing water demand due to urbanization in the middle reach on condition that the ecological water demand in the lower reach remains unchanged.

It is well known that there are huge land use and land cover changes (LUCC) all over the world in recent decades, and plenty of instable effect appeared on the energy and water balance. This study aims to analyze the impacts of land use and land cover changes on the energy and water balance in the Heihe River Basin of China during 2000–2010, and four key study sites with representative hydrological stations and dramatic LUCC in the past decades were selected to illustrate the responses of the energy and water balance to LUCC. First, LUCC of the Heihe River Basin from 2000 to 2010 was analyzed based on the interpretation of remote sensing images. Then a series of indicators of the energy and water balances were simulated with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and corresponding land use and land cover data. Thereafter the impacts of LUCC on the surface energy and water balance were detected and analyzed. The spatial–temporal variance of the impacts of LUCC on energy and water balance in a typical arid inland river basin was specifically presented in the following analysis. The land use conversions can lead to the fluctuation of energy balance, and among those changes, the most significant impacts on surface energy balance occurred when grassland was converted to barren or sparsely vegetated land. As for water balance, the impact is measured with variations of precipitation, runoff, and evapotranspiration induced by LUCC, which were also remarkable, although seasonal trends of the effects are similar among various land use/cover conversions during 2000–2010. At last, policy suggestions, e.g., shifting the water balance by LUCC to improve the water management, are given to conclude this study.

Water scarcity is a hot issue in river basin management, especially in ecologically fragile areas with arid climate, such as the Heihe River Basin (HRB) in Northwest China, where water availability is at the core of sustainable socioeconomic development and ecological conservation and the effects of land use changes on the hydrological process are crucial to rational allocation of water resources. In this chapter, first, we identified that the severity of water scarcity problems can be associated with imbalance between water supply and demand, irrational water consumption structure and low water efficiency, deficient systems and institutions for water management, as well as unreasonable water allocation scheme. Further, we investigated the hydrological responses to land use changes in the upper and middle reaches of the HRB based on scenario analysis. In one case, the results indicated that the forest land has “sponge” effects on the water resource in the upper reach of the HRB; in the other case for the upper and middle reaches, the results showed that the forest land and grassland will expand with increase in water utilization ratio, and further the quick-response surface runoff would decrease significantly due to forest and grassland expansion, which may cause an overall decreasing trend of the water yield. This indicated that water resources should be reasonably allocated for different land use demand, which is critical for sustainable development. The results of this chapter will be informative to decision-makers for sustainable water resource and land management.

Water and land resources play vital roles in agricultural growth. They not only remarkably support overall economic growth but may also restrict agricultural development. To document the influence of water and land on agriculture, we examined the “drag effects” of these two resources in limiting agricultural production. In this study, data from eight counties collected during 2000–2012 from the Heihe Agricultural Production Area in Gansu Province were used to analyze the drag effects of water and land resources on agricultural growth. These effects varied largely among the eight counties, which were consistent with the availability of these resources. Also we used a three-stage data envelopment analysis for examining agricultural water use efficiency (WUE) and related issues in Heihe River Basin from 2004 to 2012. This method adjusts technology efficiency (TE), pure technology efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE). Results show that WUE-related efficiency varies according to scale. TE and SE decreased in the study area, while PTE increased. This means the effects of pure technology on improving overall technology are very limited, and scale adjustment is vitally important to the agricultural production area in the Heihe River Basin. The results provide recommendations for decision-makers to plan efficient use of water resources in arid and semiarid areas. This study will give scientific support to coordinating development with the availability of water and land resources in agricultural areas of China.

Agricultural irrigation consumes about 80% of total worldwide water consumption, and agricultural intensification has led to negative consequences including ecosystem degradation and decreases in biodiversity, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Thus, it is crucial for sustainable development of economy and ecosystems to effectively manage agricultural water. We model the spatiotemporal surface of agricultural water requirement (AWR) in the Heihe River Basin (HRB) using multiple methods, such as multi-temporal normalized difference vegetation-water index (NDVWI) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Penman-Monteith formula. We also discuss the reasons and policy implications for AWR changes. The results show that AWR increases upstream-to-downstream within the HRB from 0 up to 150 mm and between 300 and 450 mm. From 2007 to 2012, annual mean AWR increased from 339.95 to 370.11 mm. Monthly mean AWR initially increased before decreasing in concert with crop growth, and the largest values for this index were recorded during June. Mean AWR for oilseed rape, corn, barley, and other crops all increased by 33.37, 43.75, 21.91, and 26.01 mm, respectively. While the mean AWR of wheat decreased by 14.84 mm. Mainly because of changes in crop planting structure and climate, the total AWR for the HRB in 2012 reached 2692.58 × 10⁶ m³, an increase of 332.16 × 10⁶ m³ (14.07%) compared to 2007. Thus, to maintain both the sustainable development and ecological security, the cultivation of water-demanding crops and the further expansion of agricultural land should also be avoided.

The Heihe River Basin (HRB) in Gansu Province is the second largest inland river basin in the arid region of Northwest China. An agricultural oasis is a typical landscape in arid regions providing precious fertile soil, living space, and ecological services. The agricultural oasis change has been one of the key issues in sustainable development in recent decades. In this chapter, we examined the changes in the agricultural oasis in HRB and analyzed the socioeconomic and climatic driving forces behind them. It was found that the agricultural oasis in HRB expanded by 25.11% and 14.82% during the periods of 1986–2000 and 2000–2011, respectively. Most of the newly added agricultural oases in HRB were converted from grassland (40.94%) and unused land (40.22%). The expansion in the agricultural oasis mainly occurred in the middle reaches of HRB, particularly in the counties of Shandan, Minle, Jinta, and Jiuquan. There has been very limited research on the water-use efficiency for soil conservation in the lower Heihe River Basin, a typical water-scarce area where the soil conservation service plays a key role in guaranteeing the ecological safety of the northern part of China. The soil conservation service based on soil conservation amount was estimated with an experiment-based model in this study. The water-use efficiency has direct impacts on the water consumption of agriculture production and is vital for water conservation at both local and regional extent. Taking the HRB as the case study area, this study also explores the changing trajectories of agricultural water use based on the input-output data of 2003–2012 and estimates the water-use efficiency using data envelopment analysis, Malmquist total productivity index, and the decomposition of total factor productivity. Further, the influence of driving factors on the water-use efficiency is analyzed with the Tobit model. The research results indicate that the average agricultural water-use efficiency in different counties is all lower than 1 during 2003–2012, indicating that there is still improvement space in the agricultural water-use efficiency. In addition, there is obvious heterogeneity in the agricultural water-use efficiency among different counties, especially prior to 2009. The research results from the Tobit model indicate that agricultural investment and production, economic growth, industrial restructuring, and agricultural plant structural adjustment have significant influence on the agricultural water-use efficiency. The research results can provide significant references for agricultural water-use management in the middle reaches of the HRB and other similar regions in Northwest China.

In ecologically fragile areas with arid climate, such as the Heihe River Basin in Northwest China, sustainable social and economic development depends largely on the availability and sustainable uses of water resource. However, under the influence of the rapidly changing climate and human activities, the Heihe River Basin undergoes serious water shortage and water productivity decline. In this chapter we adopted a semi-distributed conceptual hydrological model (SWAT – Soil Water Assessment Tool) coupled with a glacier melting algorithm to investigate the sensitivity of streamflow to climatic and glacial changes in the upstream of the Heihe River Basin. The glacier mass balance was calculated at daily time-step using a distributed temperature-index melting and accumulation algorithm embedded in the SWAT model. Specifically, the model was calibrated and validated using daily streamflow data measured at Yingluoxia Hydrological Station and decadal ice volume changes derived from survey maps and remote sensing images between 1960 and 2010. This study highlights the effects of glacier melting on streamflow and their future changes in the mountainous watersheds. Further, we used improved CGE model to analyze the difference and change between different industries in middle stream of the Heihe River Basin. Simulation results indicate that industrial transformation and development of water-saving industries will also improve water productivity. Lastly, we put forward some strategies on how to mitigate climate change impacts for optimizing water productivity from three perspectives: (1) scientific research needed by scientists, (2) management and institution formulation needed by governments, and (3) water resource optimal allocation by the manager at all administrative levels.

Provisioning services for socioeconomic development are important hydrological ecosystem services that humans obtain from freshwater. The conflict between water scarcity and economic development in arid regions affects water utilization among different sectors. A water resource embedded social accounting matrix (SAM) can help to analyze the relationship between water resource utilization and socioeconomic development. In this paper, a water resource embedded SAM was constructed in Gaotai County, Northwest China, and the SAM multiplier model was applied to explore the economic structure, feedback mechanisms, and water flows among different sectors. Furthermore, scenario analyses were conducted to simulate the impacts of different policies on regional economic development and water resource utilization patterns. Through the multiplier analysis, we found that agriculture is less productive than the secondary industries because of its low development stage and lack of deep processing chains. However, the influence of agricultural sectors on the whole economic system outweighs the influence of the secondary and tertiary industries. Results also indicated that expanding agricultural exports can promote rural employment and improve rural household welfare, but will also lead to water resources outflow and aggravate water conflicts among different water users. At last, the simulation results of price reform showed that agriculture water price increase will cause a chain effect among different sectors. Water price increases by one unit will lead to the price of agricultural products, industrial products, and labor increase by 0.03, 0.018, and 0.005 units, respectively, and the Consumer Price Index increases by 0.005 units.

Water scarcity in arid regions can be addressed by using the virtual water concept in water resources management. This chapter used a compiled county-level input–output table to analyze virtual water flows for the Heihe River Basin in 2012 by applying a multiregional input–output (MRIO) model. The results showed that the Heihe River Basin is a net virtual water exporter at a scale of 1.05 billion m³, which accounts for one third of the total amount of the basin’s water resources. The midstream area of the basin imports 96.31% of virtual water (2.04 billion m³) and exports 88.84% of virtual water (0.94 billion m³). In contrast, the upstream and downstream parts have limited virtual water flows. The agricultural sector largely consumes water in each county; maize or wheat production accounts for approximately 50% of the total water consumption. For most sectors, the virtual water content from surface water is greater than that from groundwater. The ratio of virtual surface water to virtual groundwater ranges from 1.20 to 2.91. The results for the water stress index indicated that most counties experienced water stress due to maize production. Greater attention needs to be paid to the adaptation and assessment of virtual water strategies in arid regions.

The water crisis is one of the three crises that is persecuting the world. China is among the countries that face severe water shortages. Water scarcity and water pollution have seriously affected China’s sustainable development in terms of the economy and society. Water resources per capita of China are only one quarter of world’s average, and as much as 70% of China’s rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are affected by pollution. Due to limited water resources, a crucial issue for the sustainable development of river basins relates to how to optimally allocate water resources and achieve a coordinated development of the economy, society, and ecology. On the basis of defining water consumption for production, living, and ecology, this chapter proposes a framework for forecasting and optimally allocating water consumption for production, living, and ecology (WPLE) in integrated water-ecosystem-economy system. Using Zhangye, in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin as the case study area, we forecasted and optimally allocated WPLE under three development scenarios, i.e., the conventional development scenario (CDS), the economy-priority development scenario (EPDS), and the environment sustainable development scenario (ESDS). In 2010, the proportions of WPLE in Zhangye were 87.73%, 2.74%, and 9.53%, respectively. In 2020, the proportions of WPLE will be 74.80%, 4.50%, and 20.70% under the CDS; 76.16%, 5.27%, and 18.57% under the EPDS; and 74.99%, 4.51%, and 20.50% under the ESDS. In the future, the proportion of production water consumption of Zhangye will drastically decrease, while the proportion of ecology water consumption will significantly increase. The main contradiction of the coevolution of WPLE of Zhangye is the competitiveness of production and living water consumption with ecology water consumption.

This chapter provides valuable information for integrated water resources management through evaluating the research on the interaction mechanism among land use changes, regional hydrological ecosystem services, and human well-being. Firstly, the driving mechanism of land use and land cover changes is introduced in this chapter. Secondly, the overview of the interaction mechanism among land use and land cover changes, regional hydrological ecosystem services, and human well-being is given. Based on the meta-analysis, land use changes have a profound influence on regional hydrological ecosystem services, and the variation of hydrological ecosystems could benefit or impair human well-being. Taking Wuhan City as an example, the ecological and ecological services of the river basin were analyzed synthetically, and the ecological environment sensitivity and ecological service function of Wuhan were measured respectively, in accordance with the requirements of creating national ecological city, on the basis of ecological function zoning at the provincial level, making an ecological function regionalization in Wuhan area according to the Ecological functional partition specification. Finally, two suggestions are emphasized for policy makers for the future integrated water resources management: (1) Proper land use makes for the water resource management; (2) Blindly pursuing the provisioning services weakens other services of hydrological ecosystems.

Water resource management has attracted increasing attention, as water has become increasingly regarded as one of the most critical resources in the world’s sustainable development, especially in arid areas such as Northwest China. This is the result of a lack of effective administration and management of water resources. In this study, a decision support system for integrated and adaptive governance of water resources (IAGWR-DSS) was designed and developed to support integrated water resource management in river basins. IAGWR-DSS is based on integration of a geographical information system platform (ArcGIS Engine 10.2), a database platform (Microsoft Access), and a plug-in development framework. Some economic models and land use models have been integrated into IAGWR-DSS, such as computable general equilibrium (CGE) models. Four parts are included in IAGWR-DSS: (1) a basic information subsystem including the fundamental geographic information, landform, soil type, land use, hydrology, meteorology, spatiotemporal relations of the social economy, and water attributes of the basin; (2) a scenario simulation environment for the CGE model; (3) a data management subsystem to update the water consumption data, land change data, and socioeconomic data in the database; and (4) a decision support subsystem to visualize and map the results of the simulation and generate a decision report for decision makers. This study focused on the second largest inland river basin in China – the Heihe River Basin, located in an arid area – as an example to illustrate the proposed decision support system prototype for integrated water resource management, coupling the socioeconomic system and the hydrological cycling process. The key tasks of the decision support system for integrated water resource management in the Heihe River Basin are to rationally allocate water resources between the upper, middle, and lower reaches (the spatial dimension) and also between the industrial, living, and ecological sectors (the structure dimension). The change in the regional water resources and arable land can be observed visually, intuitively, and rapidly. The developed DSS is very useful to deal with complex water resource management problems in river basins.