Water shortages in important grain-producing regions of China may
seriously compromise China's agricultural production potential.
Rapidly increasing industrial and domestic water consumption and
expanding irrigation have drawn down groundwater tables and disrupted
surface-water deliveries. The problem is most severe in north-central
China, where most of China's wheat and cotton is produced and irrigation
is essential to maintaining high yields. The situation may worsen
unless effective water conservation policies can be put into place
rapidly.
China is responding to these concerns on several levels. At the
national level, the Ministry of Water Resources began promoting
water conservation through various measures in the late 1990s, such
as strengthening the authority of National River Basin Commissions
to enforce water withdrawal limits and promoting irrigation management
reforms. Provincial and other local officials are mediating conflicts
between users to improve overall water management. In villages,
local water managers and farmers are adopting water management reforms
and water-saving techniques, such as forming water user associations
and alternating wet-dry irrigation for rice. In addition, reforms
in the pricing and fee collection system may provide farmers with
better incentives to conserve water. Pricing water deliveries to
farms based on volume could improve efficiency, but would be costly
to monitor since China has over 200 million farm households, each
tending several tiny plots of land.
As water for agriculture becomes more scarce, changes in the pattern
of crops are more likely than a reduction in cultivated acreage.
Wheat is most likely to suffer declines, since wheat is irrigated
in much of north China and brings low returns to water. Production
of a variety of crops—corn, cotton, and high-value fruits and
vegetables—may increase as farmers switch from irrigated wheat.
High-value fruits and vegetables are often more water intensive,
but are also more suited to water-saving irrigation technologies,
such as drip irrigation and greenhouse production.
The success of current efforts to encourage water conservation
in China will depend on a variety of factors. Policy reforms will
depend critically on the enforcement of withdrawal limits both from
surface-water systems and from ground water. Also important is the
extent to which policies and local management practices motivate
water users and water managers to conserve water resources.
