日本財団 図書館


This introduction to China's water resources first compares the conditions in China and India, the countries of primary concern to the present volume. It then discusses water use by sector and current projections into the next century. Finally, it touches on two areas where stresses are already beginning to show: the Huang He (Yellow River) and urban water supply.

 

1. Comparing China and India

 

The populations of China and India, already comprising over half the third world, are growing and growing closer in size. In many ways both substantive and superficial, the two countries are also quite similar when it comes to water and its uses (Table 1). China is virtually tied with Canada as the third most water-abundant country in the world (after Brazil and Russia), while India is seventh, after Indonesia and the United States. Because of their different populations, per capita water is only slightly higher in China (2,200 cf. 2,100 cu. m./cap./ann.). Both are well below the world average of 6,900 cu.m., but above the 1,000 cu.m. per capita that is commonly used as a rule of thumb to indicate serious water stress.

Nonetheless, there are regions within both countries that do already fall well under the 1,000 cu.m. per capita level. In China these include the Huang He (Yellow River) basin (593 cu.m. in 1990)3 and the overlapping north China region comprising Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Nei Monggol, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan (556 cu.m. in 1990).4 In India, river basins comprising most of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh states in the south and Gujarat and southern Rajasthan states in the west, are identified by the Tara Energy Research Institute as suffering from scarcity (below 1000 cu.m. /cap.), or absolute scarcity (criterion unclear).5

 

 

 

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