Producing a Chinese hydrosocial territory: A river of clean water flows north from Danjiangkou

Abstract

Hydrosocial territories are produced not just through concrete water infrastructure, but through flows of people, water, money, and ideas at multiple scales. As part of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project, water drawn from the distant Danjiangkou Reservoir now supplies the megacities of Beijing and Tianjin with the majority of their drinking water. To provide this new service – supplying drinking water of sufficient quality and quantity – the Reservoir and its upper reaches are in the midst of socio-economic and ecological transformations. In this article, we outline the tools being mobilised to send a river of clean water north, including administrative interventions, displacement, and discursive imaginings. We argue that what is being attempted is a wholesale reorganisation that marginalises local territorialities, reflects China’s particular governing rationalities and practices, and highlights new spatialities of water governance. Our analysis of the remaking of Danjiangkou pushes hydropolitical scholarship to more precisely define the geographies of power in hydrosocial territories.