Sustainable Water Resource Management in China – Reflections from a Comparative Governance Perspective

This article reflects the past years of Sino-German cooperation in water governance. Starting with the challenging task of goal setting, both China and Europe have developed toward a holistic understanding of sustainability by setting emission-immission values, taking resilience into account and introducing bioindicators into legislation. Chinese traditions in health-conscious behavior as well as its new concept of “Beautiful China” link to European efforts of revitalizing rivers also for human health and recreation. Secondly, functional administrative structures are fundamental for legal implementation. Integrality and subsidiarity need to be taken absolutely seriously as decisive factors for success. In European countries it has been proven advantageous that only 1 ministry is primarily responsible for water resource management, whereas China manages its water resources jointly by up to 12 different ministries. As this basic structure remains the same from the national level down to the provinces, it guarantees a more similar overall framework than is the case in most European countries. Thirdly, two innovative tools are introduced that allow a holistic comparison, visualization, and evaluation of different water governance systems: within a comprehensive 3D process, model interactions between different stakeholders are represented. A universal indicator system for water governance is able to obtain measurable values to gauge internal performance of a specific water sector. Lastly, urban systems are chosen to exemplify application considerations.