Urban water security of China’s municipalities: Comparison, features and challenges

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Current urban water security studies failed to incorporate sustainability concerns and the objectives of urban water management practices. China’s municipalities, namely Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing, have faced great pressure on water security, however, literature has not yet investigated their features and concerns of urban water security. To address these challenges, this study suggested a water security assessment framework which incorporates the features of urban water management transitions and sustainability aspects to analyze the urban water security condition of the four municipalities during 2011–2017. In addition, the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method was employed to detect the weights of indicators without incorporating personal value judgements to enhance the results robustness. The results point out that Beijing has had the best water security condition, followed by Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing. In addition, Shanghai has had the largest improvement of water security condition among the municipalities during the investigated period. The condition of water use efficiency, river quality, pollutant discharge, wastewater treatment capacity, green covered area and crop area affected by droughts and floods has showed a great variation between the four municipalities. River quality improvement, and mitigation of droughts and floods damages have remained top priority in Tianjin and Beijing. The Shanghai government should lay a particular concern on water use reduction and the regulation of wastewater and pollutant discharges. The Chongqing government should reinforce the coverage of sewage and drainage infrastructure, advance water use efficiency and balance water intensity of economic activities to avoid long term damages on water security. The assessment framework and approach are conducive to investigate and communicate water security condition of cities and can assist tailoring policy measurements to cities in different water security contexts.