Initial Provincial Water Rights Dynamic Projection Pursuit Allocation Based on the Most Stringent Water Resources Management: A Case Study of Taihu Basin, China

Min Ge,Min You,Feng-Ping Wu

doi:10.3390/w9010035

Abstract

Clarification of initial water rights is the basis and prerequisite for a water rights trade-off market and also an effective solution to the problem of water scarcity and water conflicts. According to the new requirements for the most stringent water resources management in China, an initial provincial water rights allocation model is proposed. Firstly, based on analysis of multiple principles for initial provincial water rights allocation including total water use, water use efficiency, water quality of water function zones, regional coordination and sharing, an index system of initial provincial water rights allocation is designed. Secondly, according to dynamic projection pursuit technique, an initial provincial water rights allocation model with the total water use control is set up. Moreover, the self-adaptive chaotic optimization algorithm is applied to tackle the model. Finally, a case study of Taihu Basin is adopted. Considering the multiple scenarios of three different water frequencies (50%, 75% and 90%) and planning year 2030, the empirical results show Jiangsu Province always obtains the most initial water rights. When the developing situation of provinces are given more consideration, Shanghai should acquire more initial water rights than Zhejiang Province; but when the dynamic increment evolving trend of provinces is taken more into account, Shanghai should obtain less initial water rights than Zhejiang Province. The case about Taihu Lake further verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and provides a multiple-scenarios decision making support for entitling the initial water rights with the most stringent water resources management constrains in Taihu Basin.

Highlights

China is facing a great challenge as water is still a major constraint on the nation’s economic and social development due to the growing population, urbanization, and industrialization at a time when there are serious water shortages, growing pollution, severity of droughts, and declining aquatic ecosystems
Under the new background of the most stringent water resources management in China, an effective and reasonable allocation of initial provincial water rights following the benchmark of the three red lines is the basis and prerequisite for a water rights trade-off market
The dynamic projection pursuit allocation method proposed to obtain the multiple scenarios of solutions for initial provincial water rights has met the requirements of controlling the total water use, improving water use efficiency, and controlling pollution of water function zones

Summary

Introduction

China is facing a great challenge as water is still a major constraint on the nation’s economic and social development due to the growing population, urbanization, and industrialization at a time when there are serious water shortages, growing pollution, severity of droughts, and declining aquatic ecosystems. China is rich in water resources and ranks sixth in the world in terms of water volume, the available water in China is only 1998.6 m3 per capita in 2014 and less than one-quarter of the world average which can be shown by the data from China Statistical Yearbook (2015). China’s amount of water use reached 609.5 billion m3 (Figure 1) in 2014. Water 2017, 9, 35; doi:10.3390/w9010035 www.mdpi.com/journal/water water scarcity across the country exceeded 50 billion. M3billion on average to the datatofrom annual water scarcity across the has country has exceeded m3 onaccording average according the Global Water Partnership.

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Results

Conclusion