China’s Massive Water Problem 中國須對水危機嚴陣以待

2013年 07月 31日 16:35

中國最嚴重經濟危機：水危機

Reuters

中

國正面臨一個嚴峻問題﹐一個比製造業增長放緩或者房地產價格泡沫還要嚴重的問題。這個問題就是水﹐中國的水危機可能影響到亞洲其他國家﹐乃至全世界。

美國的外交關係協會(Council on Foreign Relations)亞洲部門負責人伊科諾米(Elizabeth Economy)上週在向美國參議院發表證詞時說﹐中國正面臨水危機﹐如果未來幾年政府不能控制住這個問題﹐則將產生深遠的影響。

據中國水資源官員說﹐去年超過400個中國城市缺水﹐其中110個城市嚴重缺水。

相關報導

中國土地之殤

工 業是這個問題的罪魁禍首。伊科諾米說﹐中國工業的單位GDP用水量是同類經濟體的四到10倍﹐而且工業正在以令人擔憂的速度污染中國的現有水資源。她引述 中國地質調查局2013年2月份的一份報告說﹐中國90%的地下水受到污染。中國環境保護部說﹐中國主要水系約25%的水污染太過嚴重﹐甚至無法用於工業 或者農業。

她說﹐中國的自來水大多不適宜飲用﹐飲用這種水的人會有患重大疾病的風險。而且水污染正在進入食品系統﹐導致出現鎘污染大米等威脅。

並不是政府沒有意識到這個問題﹐而是提高水價等解決辦法推進速度太慢。伊科諾米對美國議員說﹐中國政府目前在環保上的支出佔國內生產總值的1.3%﹐而這部分支出有一半被用到基礎設施開發等其他地方優先項目上。

所 有這些問題可能會在中國引發健康危機﹐並使中國與鄰國產生直接沖突。中國控制著亞洲多個重要水系的源頭﹐比如額爾齊斯河(Irtyush)、湄公河 (Mekong)和雅魯藏布江(Brahmaputra)﹐隨著中國在上游制定可能會對下游水域產生嚴重影響的計劃﹐這方面的地區緊張關係日益加劇。

點擊收聽里巴克(Chris Riback)的“對話思想者”(Conversations with Thinkers)節目對伊科諾米的採訪錄音。

Michael Kitchen

本文譯自MarketWatch

觀點

中國亟需政治改革以應對水危機

斯科特·穆爾 2013年03月30日

Stephen Crowe

本月，在巴拿馬運河工程完成100年後，中國預計將完成其規模宏大的“南水北調”工程的第一階段，“將水從南方輸到北方”。這句話讓人想起了毛澤東的設想，“南方水多，北方水少，借一點來是可以的。”
為了實現毛澤東的夢想，從水資源豐富的地區把大量水轉移到那些缺水的地區，北京正在打造一個現代奇蹟：本世紀的巴拿馬運河。只不過，巴拿馬運河開啟了一個相信人類創造力可以改變自然的世紀，而南水北調工程卻見證着工程技術在解決自然資源稀缺問題上的能力的有限。

中國是世界上儲水量最豐富的國家之一。但就像毛澤東觀察到的一樣，中國的水資源分佈是不平均的，大部分集中在南方和西部。水資源短缺一直以來在中國北方都是個問題，而隨着經濟的高速發展，其缺乏程度已經到了危險的水平。
在20世紀90年代的大多數時間裡，中國北方的主要河流黃河基本斷流，而北京和其他主要北方城市的地下水水位已經降到如此之低，以致於現有的水井已 經采不到地下水。作為應對措施，政府已嘗試促進水資源保護，限制用水。但是這些措施收效甚微，很簡單，就是沒有足夠的水來滿足日益增長的飲用、灌溉、能源 生產和其他需求。
在這些相互矛盾的利益之間分配水資源會帶來政治上的挑戰，而這是中國政府所不願面對的，它轉而將希望寄於工程學的偉大成就，來為日漸乾涸的北方解 渴。南水北調工程最終目標是，每年從中國東線、中線和西線向北方輸送450億立方米的水。這三條線路都帶來了巨大的技術挑戰。東線和中線將穿過黃河，而西 線則涉及從喜馬拉雅山脈的一部分抽水。
650億美元（約合4037億元人民幣）的預算肯定是過低的，這還不包括社會和生態影響帶來的損失。工程建設已經導致了數以十萬計的人搬遷，對於可 能出現的介水性傳染病的增加也沒有經過足夠的調研。但中國政府是從政治方面考慮的，不惜一切代價增加水資源的量，會比把有限的水資源分給相互矛盾的利益各 方要容易。
對於一個政府機構薄弱的專制政權來說，這種不情願是可以理解的。但這同樣把中國的經濟和生態前景置於危險境地，因為中國政府並不能無限度地增加水資 源供應。現在一些計劃把水往北運的南方地區自己都在面臨水資源短缺。從長遠來看，喜馬拉雅山地區的變暖可能將減少中國主要河流的流量，加劇全國範圍內的水 資源短缺。
更多的工程壯舉將幫助中國應對其中一些影響，但無法解決水資源短缺的根本問題。想要從根本上解決問題，就必須進行有爭議的水資源再分配，包括大幅增加農民用水的成本，而這些都是共產黨不願意做的。
最終，中國需要進行重大的政治改革來應對水資源短缺帶來的挑戰。為了作出誰能得到多少水的艱難決定，中國需要有活力、透明和參與式的決策機制。此 外，為了讓諸如用水優先權改革之類的政治決策奏效，法律體系和法治必須得到加強。最後，中國政府必須停止依賴科技手段來避免就短缺資源作出艱難決定。美國 和世界其他國家必須推動中國政府進行政治改革來確保其發展更具可持續性，以免危及中國經濟和社會穩定。
巴拿馬運河的建築師以一個巨大的工程壯舉打通了一片狹長的陸地，克服了兩座大洋隔離帶來的不便。但解決中國的水資源短缺的問題可並不這麼簡單。中國 政府將會發現，簡單地調整水資源或其他關鍵資源的供應是不夠的，有一天，政府必須決定誰得多少這個問題。而如果不進行大幅的改革，這一過程很可能會讓共產 黨陷入無援的困境。

斯科特·穆爾(Scott Moore)是哈佛大學貝爾福科學與國際事務研究中心(Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs)的喬治·魯福洛可持續科學博士研究員(Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow in Sustainability Science)，和牛津大學(Oxford University)的博士研究生，他在那裡學習了中國的環境政策。
翻譯：林蒙克

Op-Ed Contributor

China’s Massive Water Problem

By SCOTT MOORE March 30, 2013

 

This month, a hundred years after the completion of the Panama Canal, China is expected to finish the first phase of its gigantic South-North Water Transfer Project, known in Chinese as Nanshui beidiao gongcheng — literally, “to divert southern water north.” The phrase evokes the suggestion, attributed to Mao, that “since the south has a great deal of water, and the north very little, we should borrow some of it.”
In realizing Mao’s dream of moving huge quantities of water from areas of plenty to those of want, Beijing is building a modern marvel, this century’s equivalent of the Panama Canal. But whereas the canal inaugurated a century of faith in the ability of human ingenuity to reshape the natural world, the South-North Water Transfer Project is a testament to the limits of engineering solutions to problems of basic environmental scarcity.

China is one of the most water-rich countries in the world. But as Mao observed, its water resources are unevenly distributed and overwhelmingly concentrated in the south and far west. Water scarcity has always been a problem for northern China, but shortages have reached crisis levels as a result of rapid economic development.
For most of the 1990s, northern China’s major river, the Yellow, failed to reach the sea, and the water tables around Beijing and other major northern cities have dropped so low that existing wells cannot tap them. In response, the government has tried to promote water conservation and limit water use. But these measures have had little impact, and there simply isn’t enough water to satisfy growing demands for drinking water, irrigation, energy production and other uses.
Rather than face the political challenge of allocating water resources among these competing interests, Beijing has placed its faith in monumental feats of engineering to slake the north’s growing thirst. The South-North Water Transfer eventually aims to pipe 45 cubic kilometers of water annually northward along three routes in eastern, central and western China. All three pose enormous technical challenges: The eastern and central routes will be channeled under the Yellow River, while the western route entails pumping water over part of the Himalayan mountain range.
The estimated cost of $65 billion is almost certainly too low, and doesn’t include social and ecological impacts. Construction has already displaced hundreds of thousands, and issues the like possible increases in transmission of water-borne diseases have not been properly studied. But Beijing’s calculus is political: It is easier to increase the quantity of water resources, at whatever cost, rather than allocate a limited supply between competing interests.
For an authoritarian regime with weak institutions of governance, this reluctance is understandable. But it also puts China’s economic and ecological future at risk, because Beijing cannot keep increasing supplies of water indefinitely. Already, the southern regions slated to pump water northward are facing water shortages themselves. In the long run, warming in the Himalayas is likely to reduce the flow of China’s major rivers, increasing water scarcity throughout the country.
Further feats of engineering can help China manage some of these impacts, but will not solve the underlying problem of water scarcity. Doing so requires contentious reallocations of water, including by dramatically increasing the cost of water for farmers — something the Communist Party is loath to do.
Ultimately, China needs significant political reform to meet the challenge of water scarcity. In order to make difficult decisions about who gets how much water, the country needs robust, transparent and participatory decision-making mechanisms. Moreover, in order to make policy ideas like water-rights reform work, the legal system and the rule of law must be strengthened. Finally, Beijing needs to stop relying on technology to avoid making hard choices about scarce resources. The United States and the rest of the world need to push the Chinese government to make its development more sustainable through political reform, lest China’s economy and social stability be endangered.
The architects of the Panama Canal overcame the inconvenient separation of two oceans by a narrow strip of land with a gigantic feat of engineering. But solving the problem of water scarcity in China is not so simple. Beijing will find that simply adjusting the supply of water, or of any other critical resource, is not enough: At some point it has to decide who gets how much. And that is a process that, without dramatic reform, is likely to leave the party high and dry.

Scott Moore is Giorgio Ruffolo Doctoral Research Fellow in Sustainability Science at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, where he studies Chinese environmental politics.