Freshwater management in China-A case study of the Beijing supplying Miyun reservoir-JSM

FRESHWATERMANAGEMENT
INCHINA
–AcasestudyoftheBeijingsupplying
MiyunReservoir
JonasSabitMisimi
PWX550
MasterthesisinAgriculturalDevelopment
Supervisors;MarinaBergenJensen,JakobMagidandZhouGuoyuan
7thofDecember2012
UniversityofCopenhagen
FacultyofSciences
ForestandLandscape
Rolighedsvej23
1958FrederiksbergC
Denmark

Freshwater management in China – A case study of the Beijing supplying Miyun Reservoir
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ABSTRACT
Water scarcity in the northern part of Peoples Republic of China (PRC) threatens the
water safety in the region, especially Beijing that is dependent on groundwater aquifers
and the nearby deteriorating freshwater resource, Miyun Reservoir (MYR). The
catchment area of the reservoir is under pressure of the fast growing urban and
economic development in PRC, affecting the reservoir with among other things
nutrients and reduced inflow. With the objective of assessing the conditions and
analysing the protection strategies of MYR, a three months stay in the region was made.
In addition to obtaining data from interviews with key-informants, informal interviews
with a number of stakeholders, and transect walks, relevant literature was studied. Land-
use activities and management measures was analysed from the retrieved data using a
SWOT-analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to provide the
overview.
MYR has been under high pressure of point and non-point pollution of nutrients and
other contaminants throughout the history. A number of previous activities have now
been banned, but still the lake quality seems to be rather unchanged, resulting in a
mesotrophic lake with the risk of going to the eutrophic state. To overcome the potential
risk, the catchment has been under heavy management, and still is. Management of the
polluting activities in the catchment is a complex situation with a wide range of
stakeholders with different interests involved. Despite strict governance and
environmental protection zones in the catchment, there is still pollution from farming
and upstream industries. These activities could be driven by the economic inequality
present in the area, and the lack of monitoring of the regulations set by the government.
The water consumption in Beijing is further increasing due to urbanisation, putting
more pressure on the water resources, enhanced by low prices on water. This is
increasing the incentive to reduce water consumption by investing in techniques for
better recycling of water.
The results revealed the importance of integrated watershed management, such as
public participation, local responsibility and conflict resolution mechanisms in the
management of the watershed. These three elements seem distant for a one-party state
like PRC, but should be improved to maintain the ecological status of MYR.

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PREFACE
Since the first year on my bachelor in biology I have been interested in freshwater
ecology and environment, and have made several projects in this subject. The Bachelor
thesis was about the variability in the morphology of the aquatic plant Littorella
uniflora from wet to dry environment in Rævsø - Denmark. However, I wanted my
future career to include people and to have a more direct societal impact, which is the
reason why I chose the MSc in Agricultural Development. With the change of study,
my focus also changed from the Danish freshwater environment to the problems in
developing countries, hence sustainable development became the primary focus. I
believe that the developed countries can use the knowledge that scientists have gained
through experience and research to ensure sustainable development in those areas in the
world where over exploitation and poor management of natural resources is the main
constraint for development (WorldBank 2007).
To find ways for improving natural resource management at a global level it is
necessary to understand the local and nation specific conditions. I decided to apply the
investigating techniques learned during my MSc, such as questionnaires, semi-
structured interviews and participatory rural appraisal to analyse the freshwater
management situation in a specific nation, which ended up being China. I choose China
because I got aware of the issues they have with water scarcity in the northern parts. So
I wanted to learn more about the water scarcity itself and the problems related to it, such
as the on-going high rate of development and inequalities in China.
Increased cooperation between Denmark and China in trading and knowledge, e.g. the
Sino-Danish cooperation between the universities made me aware of the opportunities I
had in China. Further, I was curious about the conditions for making a field study as a
foreigner, in the still somewhat closed China.
Date of Submission:____________________________
_____________________________________________
Jonas Sabit Misimi – PWX550

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements go to my supervisors Marina Bergen Jensen and Jakob Magid from
the University of Copenhagen, and prof. Zou Gouyuan from Beijing Academy of
Agriculture and Forestry Sciences (BAAFS). A big thanks to Feng Zeren a student from
Wageningen University who was my interpreter and to the students at the office at
BAAFS. Also thanks to all the others who helped. Lastly, a big thanks from all the
funding’s that made the project possible: “University of Copenhagen, Hedvig og
Johannes Sørensens mindelegat, Københavns Kommune, Fonden til støtte for
studerende fra det Biovidenskabelige fakultet, and Professor Sigurd Tovborg Jensens
legat”.

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ABBREVIATIONS
BAAFS - Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences
BWA – Beijing Water Authorities
CCP – Chinese Communist Party
GTR – Guanting Reservoir
MYR – Miyun Reservoir
MWR – Ministry of Water Resources
NWR – Non-Revenue Water
PES – Payment for Ecological Services
PRC – Peoples Republic of China
SNWTP – South-North Water Transfer Project
SSI – Semi-structured interview

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract.................................................................................................................1!
Preface...................................................................................................................2!
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................3!
Abbreviations .......................................................................................................4!
Introduction..........................................................................................................6!
Objective ...............................................................................................................8!
Materials and Methods........................................................................................8!
Study site......................................................................................................................8!
Water situation..........................................................................................................10!
Administrative system ..............................................................................................12!
Stakeholders...............................................................................................................14!
Assessment methods..................................................................................................16!
Data analysis..............................................................................................................18!
Findings and Discussion ....................................................................................19!
Quality of data collection..........................................................................................19!
Polluting activities in Miyun catchment area .........................................................21!
Historically pollution and measures........................................................................21!
Observed sources of pollution.................................................................................23!
Main protective measure ..........................................................................................24!
Protection zones ......................................................................................................24!
Payment for Environmental Services......................................................................28!
Actors influenced in water management in Beijing...............................................29!
SWOT-analysis..........................................................................................................31!
Results of SWOT-analysis ........................................................................................41!
Recommendations for a positive scenario...............................................................43!
Conclusion...........................................................................................................45!
Perspectives for further research .....................................................................46!
References...........................................................................................................47!
Appendix.............................................................................................................52!

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INTRODUCTION
PRC is the highest populated country in the world with 1,35 billion people, equivalent
to 20% of the world’s population and is the fourth largest by area. China’s GDP has had
a growth of around 8% the past 10 year. This places PRC as one of the BRICS (Brazil,
Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries, which consist of a group of countries
that are seen as those who have the best economic potential (Subhash 2006). BRICS
countries are targeted by a number of developed countries for future market relations.
Due simply to its growth and size, the decisions and practices of PRC in terms of
resource management are of general interest to everybody (Jianguo Liu & Diamond
2005; OECD 2007).
PRC is a single-party state, a system that preventing the opposition from getting power
and, a system that is criticized for having economic focus on heavy industry at the
expense of consumer goods, this can sometimes lead to shortages of fundamental
products or famine (Hubbard 1939).
An important factor for the development in PRC is the industrialization of the country
and subsequent increase in wealth. This development has given rise to serious troubles
in the environment, where one of many concerns is related to water resources, expressed
as water shortages, desertification, and poor quality of both groundwater aquifers and
freshwater sources. Lack of pollution control, lack of monitoring of water bodies, and
ineffective use of water resources predominantly in agriculture are some of the obvious
shortcomings, which PRC needs to deal with in order to manage the problems of water
scarcity and unsafe drinking water (J. Xie 2009).
Problems with water are particularly present in the northern parts of PRC where the
annual amount of precipitation has a decreasing tendency (Zhai et al. 2005; C Peisert &
Sternfeld 2005). Precipitation are unevenly distributed throughout the year, with 85% in
only three months, July, August and September (Probe-International 2010). Drought in
the dry and warm months, heavy rain events and frequent flooding in the three rainy
months are typical, and add to the challenges (Q. Lu et al. 2009).
One of the main cities in the northern parts is Beijing. Beijing relies on both
groundwater and surface water to supply the 20 million people with sufficient water.
Groundwater below and in the vicinity of the city provides 2/3 and surface water from
MYR provides 1/3 of the total supply (Probe-International 2010). Both water sources

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are threatened by overexploitation and contamination, which in combination with the
rapid urbanization in the downstream cities of Beijing and Tianjin calls for high-level
planning and protection programs. PRC has a grading system for their surface waters
ranging from 1 to 5 and 5+ where 1 is clean and 5+ is not to be used and is severely
polluted. The monitored water sections in the Hai river system around Beijing are
ranked poor with 78% graded from 4 to 5+ (Jiang 2009). The challenge for Beijing in
relation to water is to ensure enough water for the population, and to maintain a high
quality in the surrounding water bodies.
For the outside world to understand the economic and environmental situation in China
independent data collection is important. In the beginning of the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP)’s time from 1949, PRC was restricted for field-based research to both
foreigners and Chinese researchers. It was only a few specially trusted “friends” who
were allowed to conduct their research. This changed in 1979, when Deng Xiaoping
opened up for foreign researchers, in order to promote contacts with the western world.
However, some setbacks have happened, such as researchers who were not allowed to
bring questionnaires home because they had questions that seemed threatening to the
CCP. Since the 1990’ies, it has become easier to do fieldwork, although access to
fieldwork is limited and it has to be in collaboration with Chinese academic partners
because, foreign researchers are not allowed to run projects independently (Heimer &
Thøgersen 2006).
Focusing on the deteriorating MYR and its associated catchment the intention of this
project is to provide an overview of Beijing’s freshwater situation and to assess to what
degree the CCP is capable of protecting this vital resource.

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OBJECTIVE
The general objective of this study is to understand the freshwater protection situation in
China. The specific objectives are to:
1. Describe and verify polluting and water using activities as well as the physical
and organisational freshwater protection measures in the catchment of MYR.
a. Historical and todays activities and measures
b. Verification of the activities and measures
2. Describe the organisational frame for freshwater protection
a. Who are the actors and how do they collaborate
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This section will be divided in two parts where the study site and information about
water consumption in Beijing will be clarified. An introduction of the administrative
division in PRC and relevant stakeholders in the study site is provided, followed by the
methods used to generate and analyse data.
Study site
As study site has been selected the Miyun reservoir (MYR) which provides the city of
Beijing with 1/3 of its freshwater. MYR is located in the northern part of PRC 80km NE
of Beijing (40°28'57.28"N, 116°57'12.20"E). The size of the catchment is 15788km2
(C
Peisert & Sternfeld 2005) (equivalent to twice the size of Zealand), in a mountainous
area (Figure 1). It belongs to the Beijing Municipality and Hebei Province. In the
following basic information about the case is presented. This includes information on
weather conditions, water production and consumption, water administration and water
stakeholders.

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Figure 1: Top left: China. Top Right Beijing Municipality and Tianjin Municipality
surrounded by the Hebei Province. Bottom: Location of the Miyun Reservoir (NE of
Beijing. Google maps 20 September 2012)
Spring and autumn are typically dry and short with strong winds giving small
sandstorms in Beijing. Summer and winter are both long seasons, the winter is cold with
below zero temperatures, and summer is wet and warm.
74% of the annual precipitation of 580mm is concentrated on three month; June, July
and August (Figure 2), with high risk of flooding events.

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Figure 2: Shows the annual precipitation and temperature. The temperature is calculated
with an average from night and day temperatures (DMI-Beijing 2012).
Water situation
The rivers in Beijing are a part of the Hai river system which is ranked among the
lowest of the bigger river systems in PRC in terms of total runoff and average annual
quantity of renewable freshw4ater per capita (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005). The surface
runoff varies with the precipitation with some years where there are extremes with more
than 600mm annually, and around 400mm in the driest years, but the average annual
precipitation has declined. The average from 2001-2007 was 469 mm, and 600 mm of
precipitation per year is the threshold for groundwater exploitation and recharge (Q. Lu
et al. 2009). The extractable water resource range from 3 to 4,12*109
m3
y-1
. This
corresponds to 150 to 210 m3
y-1
per person for the 20 million large Beijing population,
which is, 1/25 of the world’s per person average (C. Zhang et al. 2007). This situation
has been markedly altered with the South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP),
which since 2008 has diverted water from the Yellow River in South to Beijing through
a 600 km long canal, starting with 7,3*106
m3
y-1
but not increasing. The amount of
water from the SNWTP corresponds to 2,1% of the water use in one year where 3,5*109
m3
is used. It should be mentioned that water recycling is increasing, for instance the
use of reclaimed water for watering of parks.
"5!
0!
5!
10!
15!
20!
25!
30!
0!
50!
100!
150!
200!
Jan! Feb! Mar! Apr! May! Jun! Jul! Aug! Sep! Oct! Nov! Dec!
C°#
Climate#Beijing#
Precipitation!(mm)! Average!temperature!

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Upstream agricultural and industrial activities, dams and diversion, have resulted in a
declining inflow to MYR (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005) and increased non-point
pollution in terms of nitrogen and phosphorous (Xiaoyan et al. 2002). These factors
increase the risk for eutrophication in an already mesotrophic lake (Ou & X. Wang
2008; Jing et al. 2009) and dry rivers. This has made Beijing more dependent on
groundwater resources and in consequence a dramatic drop in groundwater table in the
Hai River basin of 0.5 m per year is now taking place (Foster et al. 2004).
The water consumption in Beijing in both the agricultural and industrial sector has
decreased during the past decades, because of improved irrigation systems and removal
of industries. As seen from Figure 3, there is a decreasing trend in water use for both
agriculture and industry (50%), and an increase in both domestic and urban environment
(350%).
Figure 3: Water use by sector in the years 1975 – 2005 (Probe-International 2010).
0!
500!
1000!
1500!
2000!
2500!
3000!
3500!
4000!
4500!
5000!
1975! 1985! 1995! 2005!
Total#water#use#1066#m3#y61##
Year#
Water#use#by#sector#in#Beijing#
Agriculture! Industry! Domestic! Urban!Environment!

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Administrative system
The administrative system in PRC has for a long time been split up in several levels,
which seems logical considering the size of the country, and the large population. PRC
has five levels of local governance: Province, Prefecture, County, Township and
Village, with administrative power associated with the level. For each level several
types of units are associated, making the whole system quite complicated to understand.
In Table 1 the levels with associated units is presented. In addition to these five levels,
PRC operates with Municipalities and Autonomous Regions. The four big cities
Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing are municipalities with the same power as
provinces. Autonomous regions are regions as Inner Mongolia and Tibet defined by
having its own local government and a higher population of a particular ethnic group
(Wikipedia 2012b).
Provinces have boundaries that were established long ago. They are the most well-
known term when describing different areas in China, and they play an important
cultural role since the Chinese people tend to identify themselves with the province they
come from. In the 1980’ies the former prefectures have been renamed to prefecture-
level cities, which is now the dominant title but still has the same function as before. It
typically consists of a main central urban area with a surrounding rural area that
contains smaller cities, towns and villages. An example of a prefecture-level city is
Chengde, which is one of the 11 prefecture-level cities in Hebei province.
At the third level the most common division is the counties followed by the districts.
Chengde is divided in 11 counties/districts that are locally governed by the head called
the county governor. The Qin Dynasty set up the counties and the amount has gradually
increased since then. They played an important role since it was the lowest level that the
government reached (Wikipedia 2012a), but now they reach to the fourth level.
The fourth level of the administrative system is the township level, where towns are
larger rural areas, and townships are smaller. They are the main subdivision at this level,
but there are also small urban areas known as sub-districts and ethnic townships that are
designated ethnic minorities.
The village level does not have much purpose other than serving as an organisational
unit since there is not much political power. There is a head for each village or
neighbourhood and they have a committee to administer the citizens.

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Level Name Types
1 Provincial level
• Provinces
• Autonomous regions
• Municipalities
• Special administrative regions
2
Prefectural
level
• Prefectures
• Prefecture-level cities
• Autonomous prefectures
3 County level
• Counties
• Districts
• County-level cities
• Autonomous counties
• Special districts
• Forestry areas
4 Township level
• Towns
• Townships
• Subdistricts
• Ethnic townships
5 Village level
• Village committees
• Neighbourhood committees
Table 1: The administrative system in PRC. There are 5 levels where
the provincial level is the most powerful. Each level encompasses
various types of executing units. Table originates from (Wikipedia
2012a).

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Stakeholders
Urban water management is about ensuring the most appropriate allocation and use of a
limited resource, satisfy social needs, environmental sustainability and economic
objectives (Cosier & D. Shen 2009). Stakeholders with different interest and power are
involved and the case for MYR is not an exception. Decision makers in terms of
government are split up in divisions, each with different interests. This has caused
problems and conflicts, even with a top-down controlled system like PRC. Agriculture
and industry hold important issue in relation to environmental sustainability, and the
needs from the farmers and company owners have to be taken into account when
managing the fragile and scarce water resource of MYR.
Communities upstream from the MYR
Upstream communities consist mainly of rural settings with the interest to maintain an
adequate and secure livelihood and to conserve the local resources on which they
depend. They include; Farmers, subsistence farmers, and local tourism industry.
Downstream water users (Beijing)
The residents of Beijing, industries and institutions are interested in securing their water
supplies as well as improving the recreational values in terms of better forests when
they are visiting as tourists. Thus the downstream water users include tourists, citizens,
and companies.
Government
This stakeholder group consist of the different levels of government from village
committees to Beijing municipality, all the sectors e.g. forestry, water and
infrastructure. This is a large group and is further described in the previous section with
administrative divisions and as a part of the ‘water management in Beijing’.
Government ranges from province- to village-level so they are present in both the
previous stakeholder-groups. Their main interest is to obtain the development goals for
their given area and to optimize watershed management (Figure 4).

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Researchers and academics
These represent the NGO’s universities and research institutes and are an important
source of information for policy making. They include: Universities, Foreign
researchers, and NGO’s.
Figure 4: The catchment area of MYR. The administrative borders are shown between
Beijing Municipality and Hebei. Hebei is further divided into counties as shown on
map.

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Assessment methods
The data collection was based on qualitative methods and literature research. The
qualitative methods include:
- Semi-structured interviews (SSI)
- Transect walk
- Informal interviews
The literature study focused on retrieving detailed information on the land-use activities
in the area, and to research historical and present events in terms of management
measures. It was partly done in China and Denmark online.
Methodological triangulation (Mikkelsen 2005) was used as a technique to check the
validity of the data.
Data collection to describe the physical and organisational freshwater protection in
MYR was done using all the methods mentioned in Table 2 and with an interpreter. The
historical data about the area has mainly been collected from scientific articles, but also
from SSI’s, especially interview no. 2 (Table 2). Verification of information on
protection measures and polluting activities, was based on transect walks and SSI’s.
SSI’s where conducted with key-persons who had thorough knowledge about the area,
either by living (SSI no. 1 Table 2) or working there (SSI no. 4 Table 2). In a village
nearby BAAFS research station, I did informal interviews and a transect walk (Transect
walk no. 1 Table 2). Besides the transect walk, a trip around both Guanting Reservoir
(GTR) and MYR was done by car (Transect walk no. 2 & 4 Table 2) together with a
local researcher to get an overview of the landscape, land-use and management
programmes, both in a historically perspective, and in present and future perspective.
Mail correspondence has been made with key-persons after returning from fieldwork, as
well as information sharing with a Chinese PhD. at University of Copenhagen.

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Method Intended information Approach
SSI
In-depth information on a
higher level. Information
about government decisions
and problems in the area
regarding management and
environment.
1. Head-farmer in a
village
2. German scientist
3. Forest manager of
Miyun
4. Local researcher
Informal interviews
Information on local scale,
what the farmers and villagers
are doing and if they know the
regulations.
Farmers working in the
field.
Transect walk
To get an idea of the activities
and characteristics in the area
1. Transect walk through
a village
2. One trip around
Miyun by car
3. One trip upstream
along Chao He
4. Trip in the area
around GTR.
Literature
Information in the broader
context as well as in the more
local scale on a scientific
level.
The source of information
is mainly scientific articles
but also books and
newsletters are used.
Table 2: Showing the intended information from each method and the approach used
for obtaining the data.
The SSI’s took from one hour and up to 5 hours, and was the main source of
information together with literature; an SSI guide was made in both English and
Chinese (Appendix 1 & 3) to keep a structure during the interview. Questionnaires took
from 10 up to 30 minutes and consisted of both open-ended and closed questions, they
and were more like informal interviews.
Questionnaires were prepared, and SSI’s conducted with the help of an MSc student at
BAAFS, who is studying urban wastewater management at the Wageningen University
- Netherlands.

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The fieldwork progress was registered in a notebook and used later for further analysing
of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ experiences relating to the investigations during the data
collection for the first objective.
Data analysis
To identify the primary factors of relevance for the protection of the MYR a SWOT
(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the different findings
was performed. A description of the SWOT analysing tool can be found in (Mikkelsen
2005).

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FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Quality of data collection
The findings in the following sections should be understood on the basis of the
conditions I had for obtaining the data. It was not possible to apply the prepared
methods fully, due to misunderstandings and lack of cooperation. The major events are
illustrated on the timeline in Figure 5 with positive ‘breakthroughs’ and negative
‘breakdowns’ incidents. A full description of fieldwork progress and challenges can be
found in Appendix 3.
As it also is a literature study, I was forced to search for articles online, but online
activities in China are limited compared to Denmark so it was associated with a lot
frustration. Using western services like Google is, if working, really slow and I had
troubles with downloading PDF-files and entering databases. There is a way around
“the great firewall of China” and a smaller guide is provided in Appendix 4.
Some useful articles were found during the literature research concerning, among
others, nutrient inflow and general status of the reservoir, but they were in Chinese.

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Figure 5: Green text are the positive things and breakthroughs, red text are negative things and “breakdowns” during fieldwork.
WeekWeek
Week 0 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13
Meeting with researchers, working with wetlands in both
MYR and GTR
Week 1
Leaving
Week 13
Interpreter arrived, making communication at all levels
possible
Week 4
Informal interviews with farmers close to BAAFS research
station and transect walk in village, giving an overview of
land-use activities
Week 7
Interview with head farmer in the first protection zone -
Answers was questionable
Week 10
Try to set up meeting with Hai He river basin commission,
but got redirected to BWA where I got rejected
Week 8
Fieldtrip to wetland, giving an overview of activities in GTR
Week 2
Arrival
Week 0
A trip around the whole of MYR, observing land-use
activities
Week 10
SSI with drunk forest manager in MYR - Answers was
questionable
Week 4
No help from BAAFS to set up a meeting with waterworks
in Beijing.
Week 9
SSI Christoph Peisert, a key-person with a long history in
MYR catchment area
Week 9
Fieldtrip to MYR giving overview of upstream rivers and
nearby land-use
Week 4

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Polluting activities in Miyun catchment area
Development is a natural part of any society and the area around MYR is not an
exception, especially because of the big income gap between the rural areas and Beijing.
Income generation for the local livelihoods has never been a problem as long as the area
was inadequately regulated, but conditions have changed throughout the history. It has
been necessary to adapt the income generating and livelihood activities towards the new
regulations. This resulted in various changes of land-use activities since the reservoir
was completed in the late 1950’ies. The main income is derived from agriculture, but
there is a necessity to have additional income from non-agricultural activities (Jing et al.
2009).
The main purpose of MYR was to control floods and to provide water to Beijing and
Tianjin. However, Beijing suffered a drought in 1981 so the state council decided to
block the water going to Tianjin and reserve the water for domestic supply, leaving out
industry and agriculture (Probe-International 2010). Their plan was to protect the
reservoir but the inevitable development has made some serious threats against the
ecological status of the reservoir.
By searching the literature and results from the SSI with Christoph Peisert, I have
gathered the findings in the following sections.
Historically pollution and measures
Tourism started to develop in the early 80’ies resulting in the water to be polluted by
household sewage, garbage, chemicals and E-coli. The consequence of this was
demolition of the new hotels and cottages, as well as regulations on commercial
activities in the area.
Fishery in cages was then encouraged by Miyun county government to generate income
for the locals, believing it was an environmentally friendly way of production. But the
pollution from the fisheries was equal to the amount of wastewater discharged by a
large city. Beijing municipality shut down the caged fishery.

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Mining then started, again encouraged by Miyun county government leading to
deforestation and erosion causing sedimentation in the reservoir. Residues from the
mines made the worst pollution in the history and the mining activities have been
banned.
Livestock has since 2002 increased in the catchment area, due to reallocation of
farmland and more forest areas. The effect of this has been more non-point pollution,
meaning that the areas closest to reservoir now are restricted and livestock production
has moved out to the outer suburbs and counties (Jing et al. 2009).
Industries have been minimized in Beijing municipality around the reservoir. However,
upstream in the Hebei province there have been heavy industries such as chemical
production and papermaking that contributes to both pollution and water scarcity. The
amount of industries has been decreasing since the 1990’ies (pers. Comm. Peisert).
Forestry has always been one of the main income generating activities for the locals in
the area, meaning that the natural diverse vegetation is transformed into an
overexploited monoculture forest generating less income and less environmental
benefits than it has potential of. Programmes with training of the locals have been
initiated in the beginning of 2000 to ensure sustainable forestry and secure income.
Agriculture has together with forestry always been important for the locals for self-
sustainability and income. No restrictions on both irrigation and fertilizers have resulted
in less inflow of water to MYR but also non-point pollution. However, regulations have
been made towards the use of fertilizers and pesticides to decrease the non-point
pollution. Furthermore, water intensive farming as rice has been replaced with wheat,
sorghum, corn and vegetables (Probe-International 2010).
Wastewater in rural areas was mostly discharged without any treatment until 2006 or
disposed into small channels where parts of this was lead to settling tanks which
removed solids by sedimentation, however, these tanks are gradually permeable for
nutrients resulting in direct discharge into the soil (Kröger et al. 2012)

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Due to all the accidents in MYR, Beijing started to shut down factories and resettle
people to reduce the pollution. Of today there is a range of different on-going schemes
e.g. protection zones around the reservoir to reduce non-point pollution and change the
land use from agriculture to forest and fruit orchards. The results of this is placing MYR
as a grade 2 freshwater resource (Q. Lu et al. 2009), meaning that the water is safe to
use as a centralized drinking source. However, the local communities still use the
natural resources as an income source, and polluting activities are still present in the
area, but to a limited extent.
Observed sources of pollution
Many of the activities mentioned above are not relevant today when talking about the
polluting activities. As for tourism the most popular place to visit is the Great Wall, far
away from the reservoir. Fisheries are from my observation, limited to a few “hobby”
fishermen sitting by the shore fishing. The amount of livestock should at this point be
reduced to a point where it is only for own use. I did notice some small herds on around
10-20 sheep’s grazing at the riverbank but nothing larger than this. All the water-
intensive and polluting industries are being relocated, and the majority of the remaining
industries are in the Hebei province (Christoph Peisert 2012) and they are still seen as
one of the major water users together with agriculture.
Agriculture, forestry and wastewater treatment are still some major issues in the
catchment, and are described more detailed in the following sections.
Agricultural activities were observed during my trip to MYR both close by the reservoir
and further away. The main crop was maize but small subsistence gardens with
vegetables were also found. The farmers in the area were given 1mua
per person, this
forces them to use fertilizers and pesticides to optimize the yield, even in the protection
zones where it is not allowed. Large greenhouses were present around the reservoir,
with the purpose of producing enough vegetables for selling. During my visit to one of
them, located less than 1km from the reservoir. I was told they used some nutrient
enriched soil as fertilizer, but I noticed also some chemical fertilizers around.
a
1mu = 1/15ha

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Fruit orchards has substituted some of the agriculture and is now used as an income
source for some of the locals in the areas (Enders 2005). The effects of the orchards
could result in an increased input of fertilizers and especially pesticides. Higher use of
pesticides is needed because the quality of the fruits needs to be high to get a high price
on market since a fruit with signs of disease cannot be sold.
Wastewater treatment is still not developed in all rural settings, and I was told from a
researcher at BAAFS that only around 50% of the villages and rural settings had
treatment (pers. Comm. Li Peng). A study made on the wastewater treatment in the
catchment area concludes that most of the treatment plants are built of poor material
resulting in point source nutrient leaching to groundwater, upstream rivers and MYR
after just 5 years from the building date. The cleaning efficiency of the treatment plants
also showed to be really low due to lack of maintenance and plants not running in
optimal mode (Kröger et al. 2012).
Main protective measure
Protection zones
An urban reform plan was made in 1985 titles “Protection of the Miyun Reservoir,
Huariou Reservoir and Jingmi Canal”, it represented a model for Chinese water
protection. This regulation was substituted in 1995 with a more detailed administrative
regulation that made the boundaries and created the three concentric protection zones
around Miyun reservoir (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005). The characteristics vary from
zone to zone (Table 3), where the zone, which is the closest but also with the most
restrictions, is the first one. In this zone, no residents and agricultural activities are
allowed (Regele 2008); it is also restricted for tourists. In zone 2, it is allowed to have
limited agriculture, but not to use fertilizer and in zone 3 any agricultural activity is
allowed, but with controlled fertilizer use. Common to all the protection zones is that
there is no mining or industry are allowed (Christoph Peisert 2012; Jing et al. 2009)

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Zones
1 2 3
Agriculture No Limited Yes
Fertilizer No No Controlled
Residents No Yes Yes
Mining No No No
Industry No No No
Table 3: Shows the different regulations within
each zone.
The boundaries for the protection zones were difficult to verify because of the
information from the different sources did not match. Answers from SSI’s were not the
same, since one said that the first zone was defined by the first natural break in
elevation, and another said that the big road around the reservoir was the border. If a
natural brake in elevation is defined by a smaller hilltop, google earth can give an idea
of how much the borderline can differ. In some places it fits well with the road and the
natural break, but in other places there can be a difference of more than 3km. The
literature says that the first 300 meters from the basin is the first zone (Jing et al. 2009)
and the full area is covering 4500km2
(Enders 2005) but there is no information
concerning the borders of the second and third zone. In the regulations from 1995 the
first ring road, using the nearest cities as fix points, characterizes the borders of the first
protection zone. Lastly there is a report from IUCN that got the information about the
protection zones, in the same way as I did, but they were able to extract some different
information. The zones are turned around, starting with the third zone as the innermost,
limited by the ring road. The second zone has no information on the border and the first
one is described as the one that covers most of the upland area. The results I ended up
with (Figure 6) were made by using the regulations from 1995. I choose to only draw
the first zone because of lack of information on the second and third zone.

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Figure 6: Miyun reservoir surrounded by the first Protection zone shown as the green
area. Yellow area is the catchment. (map from google earth)

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Own inspection of protection zones
I was able to visit the first zone with a local official, and do an interview with the head
farmer of the village. This gave another picture than the literature and SSI’s regarding
land use in the area.
Figure 7: Chemical fertilizers, confirmed by PhD Li Liu, my interpreter and the
website from the bags (Humon 2012). Picture was taken at a greenhouse with
‘green farming’.
Agricultural activities were present all the way to the edge of the reservoir on land that
was under water before. I was told that they only used green fertilizer on those fields.
Close by, they had a vegetable farm where it seemed like they had a lot of fertilizers (
Figure 7), even though I was told that it also was green farming through some enriched
soil that was lying in piles around the area.
My original plan was to visit three villages, one in each zone and do some
questionnaires and transect walks. Due to the conditions for doing fieldwork in PRC
(see the first section in findings and discussion) this plan was substituted with the
meeting with the head farmer in the village in first protection zone.
After an SSI with the official and the informal interviews, I got the impression that the
locals did not know, or care, about the protection zones. This was further strengthened

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by my own observations during the interviews and transect walk in the first zone. One
farmer told me that they, in a neighbouring village, used the riverbanks in the dry
season for growing maize, and empty pesticide bottles were observed right next to the
maize plots.
So from my observations, the activities in the first protection zone did not correlate with
the expected (Table 4).
Zone%1%
!
Expected% Observed%
Agriculture% No! Yes!
Fertilizer% No! Yes!
Residents% No! Yes!
Mining% No! Maybe!(Enders!2005)!
Industry% No! N/A!
Table 4: Shows the expected observations in
zone 1, compared to the observed.!
There can be several reasons for why my observed findings did not correlate with the
expected. I expected that the regulations would be followed in a country like PRC
where the government owns all land and basically can control the use of it, but this
seems not to have any effect on the farmers behaviour nor the unexpected activities.
Payment for Environmental Services
There have always been lots of forests in Miyun watershed, but their management has
been poor, which resulted in decreased income and biodiversity. The forests are used
both as fuelwood and non-timber products. However, 2/3 of the trees are categorized as
unhealthy (J. Li & Emerton 2012). The causes are early cutting, which also results in
lower yield, and the absence of active management. The presence of unhealthy trees
decreases income and threatens livelihood security. The income possibilities in the area
are scarce, and are the reason for the overexploitation of the forests but this led to a ban
of all logging in the middle of 2000. However, this was where management programs
started, involving the locals in cultivation of the forests. Villagers have been employed
as forest guards and others have been trained as foresters to ensure correct cultivation
and monitoring of the forests.

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There is a range of finance mechanisms (Jing et al. 2009) where the locals get payment
for ecological services (PES), e.g. upstream communities get paid to do environmental
services that are valuable for downstream users where the price reflects the value,
derived from these services (Regele 2008). This can decrease yield due to the limited
use of fertilizers. ‘Grain for Green’ is another national program where, households get
subsidies for converting farmland or barren land into forest. Miyun county has a special
variation of this programme, in which they completely abandon cereal growing, and in
turn develop perennial crops, mainly fruit trees (J. Li & Emerton 2012)
Actors influenced in water management in Beijing
Water management is a part of the environmental protection apparatus and is top-down
controlled. It has the same structure as the administrative division mentioned in the
‘material’ section.
At top policy level, decisions concerning water resources can involve 10 different
ministries each with its own area (J. Xie 2009). National People’s Congress and the
Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) are those with the most power, followed by the
rest of the ministries, who have different influence fields e.g. the Ministry of
Agriculture is involved in rural and agricultural water use and nonpoint pollution caused
by agriculture, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection is involved in water
pollution laws, regulations etc. in key rivers and lakes.
MWR is further divided in river basin commissions where. One is Beijing Water
Authorities - established 2004 (BWA) that is representing MWR as the highest level in
Beijing municipality. BWA has a range of different functions under them, such as
wastewater treatment, drainage and environmental management (Figure 8).

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Figure 8: Beijing Water Authority is controlled by Beijing municipal government,
Ministry of Construction, MWR and Ministry of Environmental Protection. BWA is
then having direct influence on district governments and their water authorities
(BWA 2004)
BWA has three layers of water management in Beijing: municipal level, district/county
level and sub-district/town level. Their responsibilities are water resources, water
supply, water pollution management and coordination among the different levels of
government.

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SWOT-analysis
To analyse ability of PRC to manage the different factors affecting the water quality and
quantity of MYR, a SWOT-model is used. The overall result is summarised in Table 5
and is explained and discussed one-by-one below.
The PRC abilitiy to protect MYR in terms of water quality and quantity.
Strengths Weaknesses
• Strong governance
• Protection zones
• PES
• Inequality
• Monitoring
• Knowledge
• Administrative Divisions
Opportunities Threats
• South-North water transfer project
• Recycled Water
• Increase in water prices
• Non-Revenue Water
• Decreased annual precipitation
• Urbanisation
• Conflicts
Table 5: SWOT-analysis of the PRC ability to protect MYR in terms of water
quality and quantity.
Strenghts
Strong governance
PRC is as a one-party controlled country, strong in achieving the goals set by the party.
The obstacles to achieve these goals, are eased by a number of factors e.g. the
government owns all the land, the society is top-down controlled and the peoples trust
in CCP is high. Farmers typically rent the land for a number of years. This system
should prevent people from being relocated. However, there have been incidents
regarding relocation of citizens because the government needed their land, leaving the
citizens with a small compensation to find a new place.

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Protection zones
An efficient way to regulate the activities around the reservoir is by making zones
around it. As described earlier, there is a range of regulations in each zone, which could
keep the pollution level in the reservoir at an acceptable grade. The main points are:
• Decreased non-pollution from agriculture
• No sedimentation and pollution from mining
• Decreased pollution from industry
• Less pollution from wastewater from household
• Decreased water usage from all of the above-mentioned activities
The protection zones should help decreasing the inflow of nutrients into MYR, but there
are no researches that investigated the efficiency of this regulation. My observations in
the first protection zone showed that the regulations were not efficient in influencing the
way the locals managed their land. So the effects of the zones in MYR is basically
unknown, but using buffers around a water source that should be protected against
chemical pollution is basically known to have a positive effect (Semlitsch & Bodie
2003).
Incidents of relocation
Three gorges dam
1,24 million people got
relocated in 2008 due to
the building of the dam.
(Three-Gorges.corp.
2008). The function of the
dam is to control floods
and produce power.
Eco-Migration program
The program has
encouraged relocation of
household in an
ecological-sensitive area
in Miyun. 30500 people
from 2000-2007 (J. Li &
Emerton 2012).
Zhalong wetland
Relocation of 5400 people
due to local activities are
decreasing the biodiversity
in the natural reserve
(GOV.cn 2005)
(Wikipedia.org) (Wikipedia.org)

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PES
PES in the Miyun catchment are present in different varieties, where the most common
is reforestation and management of forest. PES is a common way to improve the
ecological conditions in an area and at the same time increase income for the locals.
Increasing income can make the land conversion more efficient, however, the PES
scheme has to be designed correctly (Wunder 2005; Pagiola et al. 2005).
There are some costs for the payers of the scheme, e.g. training of locals to manage
forest, as well as there is a need for a market once the project is running. The payers
need therefore, to evaluate costs and benefits of setting up the project against the
opportunity to simply subsidize the farmers. Lack of market opportunities will decrease
income, hence the incentive to keep doing the “environmental friendly” activity they
have been trained in.
Summary - strengths
The strong governance in PRC is playing an important role towards management of
natural resources, because they can act quickly through what some would call drastic
methods. The protection zones are government reactions, as well as the stopping of
polluting incidents in the past in MYR. Industries and income-generating activities have
effectively been stopped, which is definitely a clear strength to have when protecting an
important natural resource as MYR is. PES is also an effective and maybe a more
sustainable way to deal with improvements in the environment. It is sustainable both in
terms of time and environment, meaning that there is an economic incentive for the
locals to keep doing environment-friendly income-generating activities such as
maintaining forests (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005) or using less fertilizer in the
agriculture (Regele 2008).
Weaknesses
Inequality
Locals in the catchment area are dependent on local income possibilities such as
industry, mining and agriculture. This can be a weakness, because it drives the locals to
do polluting activities to increase their income and livelihood standards, since it is their
only way of generating any income. A solution to this could either be the PES schemes

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or simply relocate people, moving them further away from the environmental protection
zones. However, relocating people is not a solution on the inequality, it will only move
away the problem with pollution unless the relocation also helped the people with a new
income generating activity.
Monitoring
Changing land-using activities through legislation needs a follow-up procedure like
monitoring to ensure the new rules are being maintained. It was not possible to verify if
there is monitoring of illegal activities in the protection zones. However, there could be
indications of absence of monitoring, because of the farming activities observed in the
first protection zone, as discussed in the “protection zones” section.
The rural industry in PRC has been increasing dramatically since the 1970s, and by
2003 there were 22 million registered rural enterprises. These small industries have
been criticized for water pollution because of poor equipment and technology (G. Shen
et al. 2005), since most of the them have no wastewater treatment facilities. The
standards of environmental regulations in PRC are quite high, but with 22 million small
enterprises spread out in small villages and townships, the environmental monitoring is
difficult (Mark Wang et al. 2008). Another difficulty is represented by inadequately
expertise of staff members in local environmental protection departments (Gang 2009).
The results on lack of officials and expertise in environmental monitoring seem to back
up my indications on the low level of monitoring I observed in MYR catchment.
Knowledge
Lack of knowledge about the legislation in the area could be present from the highest
levels of government system to the locals. An information gap between the local
officials and farmers is most likely to be present. So farmers living in the first protection
zone believe that there are no rules regulating their farming activities. Moreover, they
can be unaware of the fact that they are living in such a zone.

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Administrative fragmentation
The administrative fragmentations in PRC that are described in the material section
have been categorized as a weakness. It is in relation with the “strong governance” that
is seen as a strength, but the fragmentation may be harmful and slowing the decision
process. This is due to the fact that the lower levels of governance may have different
interests in the management of the area. The local government may be more interested
in development and increased livelihood standards for the locals, than following the
regulations from higher levels of government. This behaviour is seen in relation with
some of the conflicts mentioned in (Svensson 2010) and from the SSI with Christoph
Peisert. Some regions upstream did not decrease the amount of industries, although it
was required from the government in Beijing. Instead, agriculture and industry were
promoted/upgraded, so the region could get a higher income.
The problems with the administrative boundaries are also reflected in the water
management. The same ministry is not responsible for both water quality and quantity.
Ministry of Environmental Protection regulates the quality and MWR the quantity. On
top of that, the river basin commission in Hebei is not allowed to have any authority
across the administrative boundaries, showing lack of cooperation between Hebei and
Beijing. This is reflected in the lack of monitoring too (Svensson 2010).
Summary – weaknesses
Inequality drives the locals in the rural areas of MYR catchment to have water-using
and -polluting activities to improve the livelihood standards. Whether it is lack of
monitoring, or absence of knowledge about the protection zones cannot be concluded
from my data. The difficulties I had to obtain the correct data about the borders of the
protection zones can be used as an example about the lack of knowledge of them. The
forest manager of Miyun knew about the zones, and where the border of the first zone
was, but no information on the second and third zone. This lack of knowledge on the
zones could be further reflected to the locals. Furthermore, the informal interviews with
the farmers showed that they did not care about where their field was placed or their use
of fertilizers and pesticides.

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Opportunities
South-North water transfer project
This big water transfer project is seen as one of the most important solutions to the
water scarcity problem in the northern parts of China. The idea is to transfer water from
the Yangtze river in the south, to the north China plains and to Beijing (C Peisert &
Sternfeld 2005). Mao Zedong was originally the head of this plan but the construction
began in 2003 on the route that would supply Beijing with water. The water transfer
was active before the Olympics in 2008, helping to ensure enough water (Probe-
International 2010) and the last pieces of that route is almost ready by now (cntv.cn
2012). The whole project itself is projected to deliver 45 billion m3
through the three
routes by 2050, where it is intended to be completed (Yang & Alexander J B Zehnder
2009).
Recycled water
Wastewater reuse is receiving increasing attention internationally, as a part of water
resource management, due to scarcity of freshwater resources and environmental
concerns (Yang & Abbaspour 2007). The continuous drought in Beijing from 1999,
depletion of aquifers and reservoirs, is the major driver for the local government to
include reclaimed water in water management. In 2010, the reclaimed water reached
680 million m3
, and by 2015 the expected amount is 1 billion m3
(Peoplesdaily 2011a).
The main uses of wastewater from centralized water treatment facilities in Beijing are:
• Urban lawn watering
• Industrial uses
• Recreational purposes (lakes in parks etc.)
Residential buildings larger than 30000m3
in Beijing are required to have an on-site
wastewater reuse facility. However, the water corresponds to class V in the national
standard (Yang & Abbaspour 2007), so it can only be used for agriculture and general
landscape requirements. In some buildings, the wastewater is being used for flushing and
car wash.

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During a visit to a larger residential building in Beijing, I was showed how they reused
rooftop water for different purposes, where car wash and toilet flushing was some of the
uses.
Increase water prices
The government has a good opportunity to regulate the use of water through tariffs.
From 1998 to 2005, the water supply tariff increased more than 50%, but is still not
sufficient to cover the full costs (Browder et al. 2007). At this moment, the price is
increasing in Beijing, but is still cheap compared to the scarcity value of water. Water
tariffs is a good instrument to improve water-use efficiency for different economic uses
by having varied tariffs determined by which sector it is used in, e.g. industry or
agriculture. According to the World Bank report (J. Xie 2009), the water price for
agricultural irrigation in Hai basin does not reflect the actual cost for the water supply.
Farmers only pay 0,08 yuan/m3
to 0,56 yuan/m3
, a price that only covers the costs for
pumping the water from aquifers (J. Xie 2009) meaning that the incentives to invest in
water saving technologies are low (Yang et al. 2003). However, the water use in
agriculture and industry is getting lower while domestic water use is increasing (Figure
3). For this reason, it would make more sense to focus on the urban water pricing.
Using water pricing, or water tariffs as an instrument to drive the users towards a more
efficient use of the resource, is not easy because of the wide variety of users when
speaking of income level. When putting tariffs on water, there is a risk that the poorest
group of users will be most affected, in worst-case scenario they would have troubles to
pay for the water, a good that everyone should have access to. In PRC there is three
different approaches used (J. Xie 2009):
• Increasing block tariffs
• Income support
• Price Waivers for the poorest households
Increasing block tariffs is a way to protect the poorest and “punish” those who use more
water, instead of setting a flat tariff on water. The tariff is increasing with increased
amount of water used in the household. How this tariff should be managed is widely
discussed in both the World Bank report and this article (Whittington 2003). Water is a

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resource that everyone should be able to afford, but at the same time the government
needs to cover for expenses, therefore it is complicated to set the level of the tariff. A
two-block tariff seems to be the best choice if the blocks are set correctly, with the
lowest block only required to cover the basic needs. This tariff will increase the
incentive to save water compared with a first block that is covering much more than the
basic needs as seen in some Chinese cities.
Non-Revenue Water
The total average of NWR in PRC is
18%, which is low, compared to Brazil
or Russia that have 46% and 40%
respectively. The low NWR can be
explained by a high concentration of
people on 1100 per km of distribution
network, this is three times the rate in
both Brazil and Russia. Despite a low NWR there is still a high volume of losses per km
of pipeline, around 50-75m3
/km per day which is twice the leakage rate of Brazil and
Russia (Browder et al. 2007).
In Beijing, there is 17% NWR (Beijing Water Authorities 2012), 1% below the national
average. It was not possible to retrieve more detailed information, but considering the
factors mentioned above, the relative low NWR could be because of the high
concentration of people due to the short distribution network that is needed. Peisert and
Sternfeld (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005) is reporting of leakages on 30% in Beijing,
which is supporting my theory of higher water leakage.
Summary - Opportunities
Beijing has good opportunities to decrease the heavy exploitation of its freshwater
resources. The very sensitive, but effective if used correctly, is the water tariff
mechanism that can help with both covering the operational costs for drinking water and
increase incentive for a more efficient use of water. While setting water tariffs is a
mechanism to get higher water use efficiency, it will not provide a larger amount of
What is Non-Revenue Water (NWR)?
NWR is the difference of input volume
and billed authorised consumption, it
consisting of:
• Apparent water losses
• Real losses (leakage)
• Unbilled authorised consumption

Page 39 of 60
water compared to the present state as the SNWTP, recycled water and less leaking
from water pipes will. However, all options could, in combination, provide more water
for Beijing municipality, but it will not last forever unless the total water consumption
stagnates. As such, there could be a chance for having a low or no increase in water
consumption, since it is at the same level as in 1985. But considering the 50% decrease
in industrial and agricultural water use, and the 350% increase in domestic water use,
the result could be an increase in water consumption. Industrial and agricultural water
will not have such a steep decrease as in the past, and the urbanisation rate, discussed in
the next section, can be the most important factor for increasing domestic water use.
Threats
Decreased annual precipitation
With an average of 479mm from 2001-2007 (Q. Lu et al. 2009), the decreasing trend in
precipitation is seen as the biggest threat towards water scarcity in Hai He river system
and MYR (Jing et al. 2009; J. Xie 2009). It is stated that the region needs at least
600mm of precipitation to refill aquifers (Q. Lu et al. 2009; C Peisert & Sternfeld
2005), so it is not wrong to say that the region suffered from droughts in recent years,
with the exception of 2008, with 638mm (Probe-International 2010).
However, decreased precipitation is not the only factor, as mentioned earlier. Human
activities such as agriculture and industry may also play a significant role (Q. Lu et al.
2009), so to conclude that water scarcity is due to decreased precipitation and climate
change needs further monitoring (X. Cai 2008).
Urbanization
From 2000 to 2010, the amount of permanent residents in Beijing increased by around 6
million people, which is a population growth of 600.000 per year. At the same time, the
number of migrants, from outside Beijing, increased to 36%, which means that 1/3 of
the population now are migrants (Peoplesdaily 2011b).
When discussing problems with urbanization, there is a range of problems that should
be mentioned, some of them will not be relevant when considering the protection of
MYR. Expanding the urban area can have a negative impact on the water cycle, due to
impermeable surfaces resulting in run-off to sewers instead of aquifers and rivers.

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Heavy rainfall could also result in increased flooding events (Shi et al. 2007), a problem
Beijing has dealt with for a long time, latest in the summer 2012.
The direct effect of urbanization on MYR is the increase in domestic water use (Figure
3) that is making a larger pressure on the water resource. As a consequence of increased
domestic water use, there is also an increase in wastewater that could put further stress
on the wastewater treatment plants and pollution into downstream rivers.
It has been found that there is a correlation between the decreased precipitation around
MYR the past 20 years and the increase in urban area. Less evaporation and larger heat
capacity from the urban areas are some of the factors that can decrease precipitation (C.
Zhang et al. 2007).
Conflicts
The management structure is causing some difficulties for MYR and is one of the main
threats against the ecological status of the important water source. Conflicts between
Beijing and the prefectures in Hebei - Chengde and Zhangjiakou have been a problem,
due to the great amount of industry in the two areas. The income in the two prefectures
is low compared to Beijing, so the industry is an important part of the development of
the area.
Around 70% of the inflow going into MYR comes from Chao He, so it makes sense to
focus on the upstream pollution in the search for a solution on the water pollution
problem.
Hebei is not using the water from the reservoir as drinking water, so the incentive to
remove industries or make them more environmentally friendly is low. Hebei basically
wants Beijing to pay for the delivery of water, but Beijing sees the situation from the
other side, and says that those who pollute the water should pay (Svensson 2010).
In the past, Beijing paid around 10 million CNY per year to Hebei believing they were
spending the money on measures to decrease the pollution from the industries upstream
of Chao He. Instead, it was used on new industries (pers. Comm. Peisert). Beijing
municipality later stopped this funding and spent the money on different environmental
projects in both Hebei and Beijing.
The water quality in the Hai He river system is still not meeting the standards with 78%
of the monitored water sections ranked from grade 4 to 5+ (Jiang 2009). Both the

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government in Beijing and in Hebei are interested to clean up the river system, but
Hebei will not clean up if there is no compensation from Beijing, and on the other side
will Beijing not pay for polluted water from the upstream water resources.
A major turning point in many conflicts and new environmental plans were the
Olympics in 2008, because Beijing had to make sure there was enough water, especially
in front of the rest of the world.
Summary – Threats
The threats towards the government’s ability to protect MYR from pollution and water
scarcity are a complex matter. Decreased precipitation and urbanisation could be related
to each other as mentioned earlier, but will still be unthinkable to try and control it. In
the past the plan was that Beijing should be limited to 18 million residents, but
obviously this has failed and the urbanisation keeps going at a high pace. As such, there
cannot be done that much against those two threats, but the issues concerning conflicts
should be taken care of and is a matter of correct administration of a common natural
resource.
Results of SWOT-analysis
The SWOT-model gives a good overview of the helpful and harmful subjects in relation
to the management of MYR, which is a complex situation. Some of the subjects can be
seen differently, such as the protection zones that are categorized as ”strength” in the
SWOT-analysis. Considering the observed activities in the first zone, the protection
zones could seem ineffective. This is driven by the previously mentioned inequality that
is present and further enhanced by lack of monitoring and misinformation from
government to local level. So at this point, the protection zones may be active by law
but not functioning at all. This could be a weakness because we believe that something
is being done.
The problems found when doing the SWOT-analysis, relate to some of the eight
principles set up by Elinor Ostrom in the book “Governing the Commons – The
Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action” for managing of common-pool resources
(Ostrom 1990), where 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are relevant.

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1. Clearly defined boundaries
The boundaries are important to reduce the misunderstandings that may
come for the users. In this context, the users that may cause the problem with
scarcity- and water pollution are the locals in the area. In MYR it did not
seem like these boundaries were clear.
2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions
3. Collective-choice arrangements
If rules about a local resource are tailored by the people that are using it,
there is a better chance for the locals to accept and know about the rules.
4. Monitoring
Monitoring is important to see if any illegal activities are present, and if the
status of the reservoir is getting better or worse. Monitoring seems to be
lacking around MYR.
5. Graduated sanctions
There has to be some kind of sanction towards those who ignore the
regulations set up by the government, this principle is connected with
monitoring.
6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms
There is no conflict resolution institution in PRC (Svensson 2010). The
driver for the conflicts is the local interest within each administrative
division. At the water management level, there is the division between the
ministries on water quality and quantity as well as the cooperation between
local institutions e.g. Ministry of Environment and MWR.
7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize
8. Nested enterprises (for Common-Pool resources that are part of larger systems)

Page 43 of 60
Recommendations for a positive scenario
At this point, there have not been many positive stories when talking about the
management of MYR. The only positive thing is that the reservoir is still in a state
where it is usable as drinking water, meaning that something must have worked out for
PRC to prevent the economic development to pollute MYR, such as the shutting down
of industries and other activities.
During this research I have found many factors that PRC is dealing with, and I find two
the most important, namely the protection zones and conflicts. They are related to other
weaknesses in the system.
Protection zones
The protection zones should be seen as a sustainable way to reduce nutrient inflow to
MYR, but it seems like the regulations do not take the locals and their livelihood into
account. This is an important aspect that is needed, because the regulations leave them
with decreased yield and less income possibilities, hence increased risk of polluting
activities.
For the protection zones to work there is needs for adequate monitoring, information
flow from government to local level, and PES schemes that are beneficial for the locals.
Locals could be used to monitor activities through public participation on the specific
regulations in an area, as a part of integrated river basin management (see Appendix 6
for explanation). This could be achieved by involving the locals in the decisions making
progress so they will be heard, and will both benefit the knowledge about their area and
potentially increase trust and respect towards decisions from higher levels of
government.
The PES schemes could give the locals an incentive to follow the regulations, since they
would be economic dependent on it. Together with increased monitoring, it could have
a positive effect towards decreasing non-point pollution.
A PES scheme, where agricultural land is converted to forest and the locals are trained
to manage it, could make them more aware of the status of their land. They will learn
how much effort it takes to maintain a stable production of forest products, and they
will most likely know the environmental consequences of an improper managed forest.

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Conflicts
Conflicts in the catchment area are inevitable due to all the different activities,
inequality and the administrative divisions. The conflicts represent a complex situation
because of all the different levels from local to municipality, and requirements for each
stakeholder. However, the Olympics showed that it is possible to find solutions within
short time, so to have a strong common goal like the one they had at that time, could be
a solution.
Participation of stakeholders is important, local people, industries, authorities,
researchers, and farmers should be fully involved in the development of basin strategies
and agreements (Meire et al. 2007). As with the solution of the protection zones, the
participation will also provide the local community with both information and
responsibility, information that is important to get people to participate in the decision-
making process. However, PRC is with the top-down controlled society not known of
having any public participation of such, so this possible solution would be difficult to
achieve.
Conflict resolution mechanisms are not present in PRC, but are a prerequisite for
effective, long-term basin management, which is also stated by Elinor Ostrom. An
example of a long-term cooperation is the Mekong River Commission, a cooperation
that is more than 50 years old (MekongRC 2012). They are managing a river that is
stretching through China, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, so conflict resolution
mechanisms and cooperation between countries and stakeholders are crucial to ensure a
good ecological status in the river.
The best recommendation to conquer the problems that are found and discussed in this
paper and also by Christoph Peisert (C Peisert & Sternfeld 2005) all points towards
integrated watershed management. This approach will potentially remove conflicts,
increase responsibility for the land users, improving efficiency of decision-making,
factors that would result in a more sustainable managed watershed.

Page 45 of 60
CONCLUSION
The water safety in Beijing is threatened by water scarcity due to fast growing
development and urbanisation in the region, and pollution activities in the catchment
area of MYR. The pollution activities were assessed and the administrative protective
initiatives described in order to analyse the ability of PRC to protect MYR.
Protection of MYR and its associated catchment is dependent on the physical activities
and management of these, so the situation is rather complex. Considering this and the
need for development in the area, CCP is to some degree able to protect MYR, since the
status of MYR is still at an acceptable grade.
Bad management seems to be an on going, although improving, problem in the
catchment, with less risk to have the serious pollution events. PRC has a strong tool in
the CCP and the strong governance to remove eventually polluting activities in the
future, and make protection zones, but this is not necessarily the most sustainable
approach. Conflicts and effects of inequality are still threatening the ecological status,
which is why there is a great potential in the PES schemes. At the same time, the
government structure is a problem, due to internal conflicts, so an integrated watershed
management body could help to reduce conflicts, and increase the speed from decision-
making to execution. An integrated watershed management could, at the same time,
decrease the non-point pollution from illegal activities in the protection zones, due to
increased responsibility and knowledge on local scale.
The urban water system is already of fairly high quality, with a high percentage of
reclaimed water and with the future water supply from the SNWTP, Beijing is doing a
great effort in reducing the water usage. However, there is a need to promote water
savings technologies and water conservation in general among the citizens, either
through water tariffs or education.

Page 46 of 60
PERSPECTIVES FOR FURTHER RESEARCH
To fully understand the complex situation and the effect of the different parameters
affecting MYR, there is a need for further investigation. Non-point pollution from the
different activities in the reservoir could be relevant, so an effect of a future
management could be estimated. A clear picture of activities in the three protection
zones could reveal if they have an effect, and by that, also to quantify lack of
monitoring. Lastly, the economic potential and environmental effects of PES schemes
are important, since the number of these schemes is increasing. This is relevant due to
the link between water scarcity and food shortages in PRC.

Page 47 of 60
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APPENDIX
Appendix 1
Semi-structured interviews
Institution: Date:
Name: Position:
1. Which kind of projects do your institution focus on in the Miyun area?
2. Who is deciding the rules and regulations for Miyun catchment?
a. How are they being implemented and sustained?
3. Which effect have the past regulations had?
4. How are the 3 protections zones characterized?
a. What are the regulations within each zone?
b. What are the main constraints within each zone, regarding environment, and
economic/social aspects?
5. What is the future plans for decreasing non-point pollution in Miyun catchment?
6. Other relevant institutions
7. Which institutions/bureaus do you control?
a. Who is controlling your own institution?

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Appendix 2
!
!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
!
!
1.! !
!
!
2.! !
!
!
3.! !
!
!
4.! !
!
!
5.! !
!
!
a. !
!
!
b. ! ! ! ! ! !
!
!
!
6.! !
!
!
7.!
!
!
!
8.! / !
!
!
a. ! ! ! ! !
!

Page 54 of 60
Appendix 3
Analysis of fieldwork
Dependent on the information a researcher wants to get, it can be much different to do
qualitative research in PRC compared to other countries. Some information is too
sensitive for foreign researchers and may not be able to access, either because officials
will reject you or the validity from interviews can be negotiable. However, qualitative
research is from the Chinese point of view not seen as high quality data as quantitative,
meaning that it can be more difficult to do research using the latter method compared
with the former.
It makes sense to analyse the fieldwork, where I chose to divide my positive and
negative experiences in the table below, where the positive is breakthroughs and the
negative is problems that made it difficult to advance in the project progress.

Page 55 of 60
Positive Negative
+ Meeting with researchers, working
with wetlands in both MYR and
GTR
+ Fieldtrip to wetland, giving an
overview of activities in GTR
+ Fieldtrip to MYR giving overview of
upstream rivers and nearby land-use
+ Interpreter arrived after 1 month,
making communication at all levels
possible
+ Informal interviews with farmers
close to BAAFS research station and
transect walk in village, giving an
overview of land-use activities
+ SSI with Christoph Peisert, a key-
person with a long history in MYR
catchment area
+ A trip around the whole of MYR,
observing land-use activities
- Poor English at the academy
- SSI made with drunk forest manager
in MYR – Answers was
questionable
- Try to set up meeting with Hai He
river basin commission, but got
redirected to BWA where I got
rejected.
- No help from BAAFS to set up a
meeting with waterworks in Beijing.
- Interview with head farmer in the
first protection zone - Answers was
questionable
- Interpreter not willing to go and stay
in the field
Analysis of the fieldwork will be done as a chronological approach on the events
(Figure 5: Green text are the positive things and breakthroughs, red text are negative
things and “breakdowns” during fieldwork.Figure 5) beginning with the first meeting
with researchers working with wetlands in both of the relevant reservoirs, MYR and
GTR. They presented their work and I gave a presentation about the work I would like
to do in the field. The meeting was overall a good way to start to get some contacts and
an idea of what is going on in the area, however, some of the presentations was on
Chinese and gave me the first indications on the lack of English skills at the academy.

Page 56 of 60
A fieldtrip to GTR was arranged some days later where I was shown BAAFS working
wetland and given a tour around the catchment area. Informal interview with one of the
researchers was done to get some data about the village and wetland as it could end up
as being a potential study site. A PhD who had studied at Copenhagen University
worked as an interpreter for me on this trip, translating the conversation between the
researchers and me.
4 weeks from arrival, I went to MYR with the researchers at BAAFS who had to do
some water samples in Chao He and inspect some experiments at their research station.
The main reason for me to participate in the trip was that I was promised an interview
with the manager for center for plantation in Miyun. I was able to do the interview after
lunch, which turned out to be a bad idea because the lunch was a traditional Chinese
way of networking, also called “Guanxi” and usually involves some strong alcohol and
beer. Obviously the interview did not turn out as I inspected and the information
achieved was scarce and questionable, both because he was drunk and I did not have
any skilled interpreter with me, other than a researcher from the academy.
During the first month, I did not have any other interpreter than the PhD who was only
available when I went to the field, meaning that small discussions concerning the
project with the researchers was almost impossible complete with a satisfying result.
Misunderstandings and different backgrounds made it difficult to come through with
my plans as the academy only worked with trials in greenhouse and laboratory and did
not seem to know about qualitative methods. I wanted to hire an interpreter but thought
it was meaningless since I did not have any exact place to go at that point yet, but it
could have been useful in the daily life with the discussion of possible projects with the
academy. However, after one month a student from Wageningen University arrived. I
ended up using him as an interpreter because his English was good and he was studying
Urban Water Management so it was easy to introduce him to my project, and the ideas
and issues I was dealing with. It was a big leap for my work to have him next to me, and
suddenly I was able to communicate with the researchers at the academy and get my e-
mails translated so I could try and set up meetings.
A new fieldtrip was arranged to MYR where they said I could interview a local official
from the area since they would invite him to go around with us. The destination was
BAAFS own research station, which was completely useless for me, and I had to wait

Page 57 of 60
until after the lunch to do my interview. Since I had tried this approach once before, I
knew that the result of it would be disappointing so I asked the researchers for how long
they should work and took my interpreter to the neighbouring village to find some
locals to interview and see the activities in the area instead of waiting for them to do
their work. However, before we left the research station, my interpreter was told in
Chinese that he should not translate all the “bad things” from the locals we interviewed.
That comment came as a surprise, but it also gave me an explanation on the lack of
cooperation with BAAFS and the feeling that they wanted to hide relevant data from
me. I still got some useful data and I went back to Beijing and planned my next
fieldtrip.
More information about the area was needed before the fieldtrip, so a successful SSI
with Christoph Peisert was conducted and it turned out to be a big major breakthrough
in my data collection phase. He provided me with necessary information so I was able
to focus my research on the protection zones and to prepare a better fieldtrip.
From past experience with fieldtrips together with BAAFS I choose to do this one alone
together with my interpreter so I could follow my plan, which I told the them, but I
ended up with the same local worker for BAAFS (he was the one telling my interpreter
not to translate the “bad things”), apparently he knew a local head farmer in the first
protection zone that I could interview. I started asking the farmer the same questions as
I asked the others from the first fieldtrip, but he ended up answering all my next
questions without even know what I wanted to ask about. At that point I got the feeling
that the academy had warned him about my questions and told him what to answer. This
feeling got further strengthened when I observed chemical fertilizers in the area and he
told they used green manure only. So not only did I get a useless interview, but my plan
to visit a village in each protection zone was diverted by the guy who helped us.

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