Abstract
This article reflects the past years of Sino-German cooperation in water governance. Starting with the challenging task of goal setting, both China and Europe have developed toward a holistic understanding of sustainability by setting emission-immission values, taking resilience into account and introducing bioindicators into legislation. Chinese traditions in health-conscious behavior as well as its new concept of “Beautiful China” link to European efforts of revitalizing rivers also for human health and recreation. Secondly, functional administrative structures are fundamental for legal implementation. Integrality and subsidiarity need to be taken absolutely seriously as decisive factors for success. In European countries it has been proven advantageous that only 1 ministry is primarily responsible for water resource management, whereas China manages its water resources jointly by up to 12 different ministries. As this basic structure remains the same from the national level down to the provinces, it guarantees a more similar overall framework than is the case in most European countries. Thirdly, two innovative tools are introduced that allow a holistic comparison, visualization, and evaluation of different water governance systems: within a comprehensive 3D process , model interactions between different stakeholders are represented. A universal indicator system for water governance is able to obtain measurable values to gauge internal performance of a specific water sector. Lastly, urban systems are chosen to exemplify application considerations.
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- 1.
The results are from many years of cooperation between the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection (StMUV) and the Chinese Research Academy for Environmental Sciences (CRAES), the Technical University of Munich, and scientists from China (including Tongji University).
- 2.
See also https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS. Accessed 19 April 2018
- 3.
At present, the observers have a European-German-Bavarian focus, while in China, particular observations were conducted in regions like Beijing, Shanghai, Liaoning, Kunming, and the Tarim Basin.
- 4.
Examples are “Canticle of the Sun” from Franz von Assisi and the romantic nature understanding in German literature.
- 5.
Prof. Dr. Dr. hc Wolfgang Haber: “Nature itself has no standard for species, for the regulation of their growth or decrease.”
- 6.
Wittfogel developed the theory of hydraulic societies.
- 7.
An in-depth analysis has already been undertaken for about 60 of these water governance systems including countries like India, China, Iran, and Uganda. These studies on institutional arrangements of the water sector were led by the StMUV and mostly carried out in cooperation with TUM.
- 8.
SINOWATER is a Sino-German cooperation project funded by BMBF aiming at good water governance, management, and innovative technologies for the improvement of the water quality in the Liaohe and Dianchi catchment area.
- 9.
REACH = Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals
- 10.
“Beautiful China” is part of the 13th 5-year plan (“We must work to build through tireless efforts, a Beautiful China where the sky is blue, the land is green, and the water runs clear.”).
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Grambow, M., Disse, M., Chen, K., Patalong, H., Uhl, HD. (2019). Sustainable Water Resource Management in China – Reflections from a Comparative Governance Perspective. In: Köster, S., Reese, M., Zuo, J. (eds) Urban Water Management for Future Cities. Future City, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01488-9_13
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