China’s growth momentum is now entrenched in its political economy, but will be destabilized by the resulting water shortages and pollution. Historically, China’s culture and institutions were shaped by the high social returns to large-scale water management, but today its market-driven local governments have little capacity or motivation to address the looming water crisis. Instead, the likely response is the interception of neighbouring countries’ water flows, whose sources are conveniently concentrated in Tibet.

1. CHINA'S GROWTH DRIES UP
Leslie Young

2. China’s growth momentum is now entrenched in
its political economy, but will be destabilized by
the resulting water shortages and pollution.
Historically, China’s culture and institutions were
shaped by the high social returns to large-scale
water management, but today its market-driven
local governments have little capacity or
motivation to address the looming water crisis.
Instead, the likely response is the interception of
neighbouring countries’ water flows, whose
sources are conveniently concentrated in Tibet.
Summary

3. Asia’s Population Distribution

4. The West’s foundation myths — Hebrew and Greek—
begin with the divine creation of the world out of
darkness and chaos.
China’s foundation myth begins with the struggles of
rulers to manage water. These myths connect directly
with recorded history.

5. The Yellow Emperor and Yu the Great
• The Yellow Emperor, mythic progenitor of the Chinese
people, struggled with the mighty rivers that flooded the
country each year. He appointed Yu to deal with the problem.
• Yu studied the shape of the land in each area, observed the
course of the rivers and planned their most natural route to
the sea. To guide the rivers, Yu dug canals, carved
tunnels, leveled hilltops, created dams, and formed lakes.
• Wherever he traveled, farmers hailed him as the Great Yu.
Their widespread affection caused the emperor to choose Yu
as the next emperor.
• The legend of Yu the Great is based on a king of the same
name who ruled from 2205 to 2197 B.C. Yu founded the first
Chinese dynasty, the Xia, for which archaeological evidence is
ample.

6. Hydraulic Despotism and Environmental Reconstruction
• Karl Wittfogel argued that hydrological engineering not only
made Chinese civilization possible, but left an indelible
imprint: 'hydrological despotism.' So great was China’s need
to control water for agriculture, and so extensive was the
requisite mobilization of resources, that an
authoritarian, bureaucratic state was required by China’s
geography.
• Mark Elvin argued that early China’s inter-state competition
drove a dialectic of urban and agricultural settlement that ate
up East Asia’s temperate forests and the species that they
supported.
• The archaic states of China were conscious of their birth in
environmental reconstruction. Several panegyrics of the
Shang and Zhou Dynasties link the destruction of forests to
the consolidation of power, the establishment of cities, and

7. The key example of this feedback loop is deforestation. The clearance of
forests along the middle reaches of the Yellow River in the Qin Dynasty
led to the erosion of loess soils from cultivated fields which yellowed
the 'Yellow River’.

8. The soil washed down the rivers settled as farmland downriver via
frequent flooding, which necessitated dikes — that continually failed
as the riverbed rose from deposits of silt. This battle was exacerbated
by further deforestation all along the river's course to create more
farmland and required ever-greater efforts to control its power.

9. Elvin argues that the efforts to control the Yellow River, especially under
the 'river tamer' Pan Jixun in the 1570s, and the centuries-long battle
against the East China sea in the Bay of Hangzhou, represent
respectively the greatest single human impact and program for action
upon the environment in pre-modern times anywhere in the world.

10. Yellow River

11. 11
Ganges: Alluvium 150 feet deep

12. 12
Geography and Political Norms
India China
Ganges Valley is world’s largest, deepest
alluvium bed
Ganges has many tributaries, hence
alternative sources of water.
River control important but not critical
Yellow River has no tributaries below Wei
Valley.
Break in dikes causes massive disruption
of irrigation systems
Dike maintenance metered corruption
Can support dense population with light
management, plus religion that ensures
social peace by justifying ethnic ranking
(caste)
Yellow River valley requires intensive
management and organization to support
dense population
Change of elite by external conquest. New
top elite required no justification
Change of rule by internal revolt
New dynasty had to justify rule
Extractive elite justified by religion Responsible authoritarians justifying rule
by performance = ―Mandate of Heaven‖

13. World Distribution of Arable Land

14. China’s Water Resources
• Surface and near-surface water per capita in China
today is roughly ¼ the global average, and is very
unevenly distributed.
• The North and Northwest, with about 380 million
people (almost 30% of the population) and over
half the country’s arable land, have about 7% of its
surface water, so that per capita water resources
are roughly 20-25% of the average for China as a
whole, or 5-6% of the global average; a more
narrowly defined North China plain may have only
10-15% of the per capita supply for the country as a
whole, or less than 4% of the global average.

15. • Northern waters carry heavier sediment loads than southern
ones – most readings on Southern rivers fall within EU
maxima for drinking water, while some readings on the
middle and lower Yellow River, and the Wei and Yongding
Rivers are 25 -50% above that; water shortages also imply
that Northern rivers carry far more industrial pollutants per
cubic meter, even though the South has far more industry.8
• Northern China has violent seasonal fluctuations in water
supply; both rainfall and river levels change much more over
the course of the year than in either Europe or the Americas.
North China’s year-to-year rainfall fluctuations are also high
(though less than those in North and Northwest India).
• While the most famous of China’s roughly 90,000 large (over
15 meters high) and medium-sized dams are associated with
hydro-power -- many serve mostly to store water during the
peak flow of rivers for use at other times.

16. Water in China’s Modernization
• The People’s Republic made enormous efforts to
address these problems – and achieved impressive
short-term successes that are now extremely
vulnerable. Irrigated acreage has more than tripled
since 1950 (mostly during the Mao era), with most
gains in the North and Northwest.
• This was key to turning the “land of famine” of the
1850-1950 era into a grain surplus area, and
contributed to improving per capita food supplies
for a national population that has more than
doubled since 1949.

17. • Plentiful water allowed much of northern China to
grow two crops a year for the first time in
history, often by adding winter wheat, which needs
a lot of water.
• Plentiful, reliable supplies of water were needed for
new seed varieties and chemical fertilizer, which can
otherwise burn the soil.
• Irrigation greatly reduced the problem of rain
coming at the wrong time of year, or not coming at
all some years.
• Much of that turnaround, however, relied on very
widespread use of deep wells, using gasoline or
electrical power to bring up underground water
from unprecedented depths.

18. • Large-scale exploitation of North China
groundwater began in the 1960s, peaked in the
1970s at roughly 10 times the annual extraction
rates that prevailed during 1949 -1961, and has
remained level since about 1980 at roughly 4 times
the 1949-1961 level.
• This rate of water withdrawal is unsustainable. The
North China water table has been dropping by
about 4-6 feet per year for some time, and by over
10 feet per year in many places; if this rate of
extraction were maintained, the aquifers beneath
the plain will be gone in 30-40 years.

19. Water Demands From Industry
• China is struggling with the entwined challenges of generating
enough power to drive its economy and protecting its water
supplies.
• China builds an average of three new power stations a week;
by 2030 it plans to add more power capacity than exists in the
US, the UK and Australia today. This will require huge
amounts of water for cooling and driving steam turbine
generators. The country’s water resources are already
stretched; climate change is making conditions even tougher.
• Forty percent of China’s agricultural output is produced in
water-scarce regions. Five provinces –
Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu – and three
municipalities — Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin — are most t
risk of water shortages. The industrial sector is doubly
exposed because it consumes well over 80% of all electricity.

20. Electricity and/or Water?
In 2010, thermal power represented 74% of China’s installed
capacity and hydropower 22%. So almost all power generation
relies on water. The nation’s industrialisation, urbanisation and
rising affluence will increase demand for electric power, further
depleting the water available.
China’s annual renewable-water resource per capita averaged
slightly over 2,000 cubic metres in 2003-2010, just above the
water stress level of 1,700 cubic metres. This water is unevenly
distributed. Eleven provinces are already water scarce (they
have less than 1,000 cubic metres per capita per year). Climate
change, caused mostly by carbon-dioxide emissions from
burning fossil fuels, exacerbates existing water stresses.
The government has responded by setting tough new water
quotas as well as pollution reduction targets.

21. Coal and hydro expansion
• China’s power sector uses about 10% of its
water, low compared to the UK (34%) and the US
(49%).
• China plans to add 1,212 gigawatts of water-reliant
power capacity by 2030, equivalent to almost six
times India’s current installed generation capacity.
• In 2011-2020, China plans to add 453 gigawatts of
coal-fired power capacity: double Russia’s entire
2009 power generation capacity.
• China’s coal-fired power capacity expansion will
increase coal mining, which consumes water for

22. • 47% of coal reserves are in water-scarce regions. Water
scarcity could also lead to a greater reliance on coal imports;
for example, 30% of China’s coal reserves are in Shanxi, a
province suffering from extreme water scarcity.
• Changes in water availability also threaten hydropower. The
effects of water shortages can be felt more quickly in the
event of drought. Some hydropower stations have operated
at below capacity in recent summers due to drought in
southern China.
• The government plans to expand hydropower from 216
gigawatts in 2010 to 568 gigawatts by 2030.
• The expansion of China’s installed thermal and hydro capacity
will further stress water resources. Even with a change in fuel
mix, 87% of power capacity will still require water.
• China’s damming of rivers is antagonizing countries
downstream.

23. Agriculture
• Some 40% of agricultural output is produced in water-
scarce regions, mainly in the North. Climate change will
also affect agricultural productivity through increased
temperatures and altered water availability.
• The central government set national water quotas in
2011. In response, provincial administrations have set
and released 2015 water caps. Since the total of the 31
provincial caps actually exceeds the national total for
2015, some inter-provincial planning or collaboration
will have to take place. This highlights the problem of
enforcement in China.

24. • Some of the most water-scarce provinces have been given the
toughest water pollution-reduction targets, making it extra
hard to balance growth with water quantity and quality.
• Since 45% of China’s GDP originates in water-scarce
provinces, provincial water caps could force a change in the
economic mix. Facilities may have to relocate, and water
quotas and pollution-reduction targets could be enforced
more strictly than in the past.
• In addition to the five provinces and three municipalities that
are most at risk of water shortages, three borderline stressed
provinces – Guangdong, Zhejiang and Inner Mongolia – are
also vulnerable as they fluctuate in and out of water stress.
• China’s planned economy is taking water and other resource
stresses into account, but, the growth profiles of power and
water in certain provinces reveal a planning mismatch.

25. The Three Gorges Dam
Costing almost $30 billion, this is the largest power
plant ever built. It has been in planning for a century.

26. • The dam body was completed in 2006 and the
originally planned components of the project were
finished in 2008. Six additional generators were
installed underground in 2011 - taking its total electric
generating capacity to over 22 gigawatts.
• The project management team and the Chinese state
regard the project as a historic engineering, social and
economic success: a breakthrough in the design of
large turbines and a significant move toward the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It will remove
some 100 million tonnes of CO2 and 2 million tonnes of
SO2 that would otherwise have been generated by
coal-fired power stations.
• However, the dam flooded archaeological and cultural
sites, displaced 1.4 million people, and is causing
significant ecological changes, including an increased
risk of landslides.

27. South-North Water Diversion
This is the largest construction project in history. It will cost
about US$65 billion and carry almost 45 billion cubic meters of
water per year – about the annual flow of the Yellow River.

28. 1. An Eastern route would take water from the Lower Yangzi in
Jiangsu province up to Tianjin (roughly the route of the
Ming-Qing Grand Canal) and, via a branch line, to the
Shandong peninsula. This is the simplest part of the project.
Parts began operation in 2008 and the entire route is now
functioning.
2. A Central route runs from near the Three Gorges Dam in
Sichuan to Beijing. Work on this route was recently
suspended in response to environmental problems and to
problems with the relocation of people in the path of the
project. The official projection is that water will be reaching
Beijing through this route by 2014.
3. A Western route will take water from the Yarlong-
Tsangpo, Dadu, Tongtian and Jinsha Rivers (all of which flow
into the Yangzi) across mountains and the Tibet-Qinghai
plateau, directing it into the Yellow River, which would then
carry it across North China. This is the most complex part of
the project; it would not be completed until 2050.

29. • Recent droughts show that Central China has little
excess water that could be transferred to the thirsty
North. In the spring of 2011, water levels in the Han
river and Danjiangkou reservoir fell so low that
people did not have sufficient water for drinking
and sowing their crops – let alone for sending to
Beijing.
• Pollution from factories along the Eastern Route
could render the water unfit to drink. Meanwhile,
the diversion of water from the Yangtze River Basin
to the north is likely to exacerbate pollution
problems on the Yangtze – problems that have
worsened since the construction of the Three
Gorges Dam.

30. Water Management I
• Water management is divided across the ministries
for water, agriculture, environmental protection,
land and resources. Power authorities focus on
developing hydropower, while water authorities
focus on managing the river basins, etc. China
urgently needs:
– Unified consideration of water for cities and the
economy, for the ecology, for agriculture
– A management system for river basins that is both
unified and responsive to climate change.

31. • Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen now have unitary
water bureaus, but management systems in other cities
are still fragmented.
• China has developed good management of the Yellow
River basin, where 80% to 90% of water can be
controlled.
– For a time, water control was the only important thing for
the basin, and water use was not properly managed, leading
to 10 years of intermittent flow and water shortages at key
industrial and economic locations downstream.
– Then management was improved, the health of the river was
taken into account and allocation of water and regulation of
both water and silt were considered – a large reform.
– In 2011, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission won the
Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize in Singapore.

32. Water Management II: Groundwater
• Ten years ago, Li Wenpeng, assistant to the director at the
Chinese Institute of Geological Environment Monitoring, and
his colleagues, joined with 40 academics in signing a letter to
the State Council. It called for a central groundwater
monitoring body to be established. In 2011 the National
Groundwater Monitoring Project got underway to fill that
gap, with tens of thousands of people on call – but after the
initial excitement, nothing happened.
• Three years ago, Ma Zhong, dean of Renmin University’s
School of the Environment and Natural Resources, discovered
that water input to Chinese industry was four times recorded
waste water output. Even accounting for various losses and
uses, 16 billion tonnes of waste water was missing.
Suspecting that it was ending up underground, he reported
his findings to the Ministry of Environmental Protection
(MEP). But he saw no more done to protect groundwater.

33. • The letters from experts and academicians evolved into the
Proposal for a National Groundwater Monitoring Project. This
proposal received approval from a State Council project office
in October 2011, was given the nod by the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), and then in
August 2012 a feasibility study from the Ministries of Land
and of Water Resources was submitted to the NDRC.
• A year and a half later, not one of the 20,000 proposed
monitoring stations has been built. Grand plans to cover one-
third of China’s land area within three years of funding remain
stuck in Beijing. Already one of the signatories to the original
letter, Academic Liu Dongsheng, has passed away.
• The latest word on the project is that it is awaiting the MEP’s
environmental impact assessment; a stability assessment (an
assessment of the project’s risks to social stability); and more
importantly decisions by the new leadership on the body that
will undertake the project, funding and staffing, and
responsibilities.

34. • Lin Zuoding, head of the Bureau of Hydrology at the
Ministry of Water Resources, is also anxious to get
started. In 2002, the ministry drafted plans for
groundwater monitoring and in 2004, submitted plans
for an automated monitoring of groundwater on the
plains around Beijing. Seven or eight years later, as
work was about to start, the new stability assessments
again held things back.
• Under the 2011-2020 National Groundwater Pollution
Prevention Plan it will be 2015 before we have a “basic
grasp” of how bad the pollution actually is, and 2020
before we have “complete monitoring” of the typical
sources of groundwater pollution and the mechanisms
to prevent groundwater pollution are “basically
established.”

35. Lack of pollution monitoring
• The data is also lagging. In the 1980s and again
2002, the Ministry of Land carried out two rounds of
groundwater evaluation. The overall data obtained in
those surveys is still often quoted and reprinted today.
• The Ministry of Land spends a mere 100 million yuan
on monitoring. A complete analysis of pollutants in a
groundwater sample costs at least 1,000 yuan – or
2,000 yuan if organic pollutants, a worsening
problem, are to be tested for. At these levels of
funding, only a few standard tests can be done.
• A vicious circle has formed: the problem is not taken
seriously, so funding is inadequate, so experts do not
have the data to influence policy, so the problem is not
taken seriously.

36. • No government leaders are writing memos about dealing
with groundwater pollution, and in China, that’s what
matters.
• Around October 2011, the Ministry of Land had the IHEG
submit a report to the State Council, documenting
groundwater pollution on the northern Chinese plain, and
presenting suggestions for dealing with the problem.
• The report was based on a full and accurate survey – and the
data was shocking: overall shallow ground water on the plain
was of poor quality and heavily polluted, and only 55.87 of
sampling points were not polluted.
• “Illicit underground dumping of waste water is common in
the north of China,” said Lu Yaoru, a member of the Chinese
Academy of Engineering. And research bodies have had no
choice but to write directly to the Premier: “groundwater
pollution is already extremely severe, no one ministry can
deal with it – they need to work together.”

37. • The Premier quickly handed the task down to the
relevant departments, including the Ministries of
Land, Water Resources, and Housing and Urban-Rural
Development – with the MEP to head up the effort.
• A year of “discussions” between the recipients
followed. In September 2012 there was still no sign of a
plan for joint action, forcing Lu Yaoru to speak out at
the conference of the China Association for Science and
Technology. Soon a preliminary plan of work was
produced, but “they sent it up for approval, and
nothing’s come back.”
• In 2011 the MEP published both technological
principles for evaluating environmental impacts on
groundwater and the 2011-2020 National Groundwater
Pollution Prevention Plan, and also started a
nationwide groundwater evaluation.

38. • In response to rumours of pollution, Shandong has
started a project to clean up groundwater, while
repeated exposure of cases of groundwater
pollution around the country have forced the
authorities in Beijing to pay attention, with
investigation teams understood to have been
dispatched.
• China has long researched groundwater pollution –
there’s a monitoring well inside Capital Normal
University, just outside Beijing’s West Third Ring
Road. That well has been used since the 1960s, and
is even known internationally.

39. • The Ministries of Land, Water Resources, and Environmental
Protection are responsible for the monitoring, extraction and
environment of groundwater, respectively. Their main
concerns are, again respectively, preventing
subsidence, quantity of supply, and water quality and
pollution.
• So three ministries, with tens of thousands of employees, all
worked on groundwater for decades – yet there is no sign of
action on groundwater pollution. There is no data, no
legislation, no new monitoring wells, and much less any high-
quality restoration of polluted groundwater.
• “Discussions” between the ministries are underway, but much
time has been wasted. Lu Yaoru has studied groundwater for
60 years and cuts to the heart of the problem: “Departmental
interests and poorly-defined powers and responsibilities.”
• As the government fails to act, the markets are cherry-picking
the more profitable aspects of groundwater treatment.

40. • In September 2011, clearer government policy made soil
restoration a favourite on the capital markets. In just a few
years dozens of soil restoration firms were founded. But the
start of plans for cleaning up groundwater pollution did not
meet the same enthusiasm.
• “The motivation for cleaning up the soil came from property
developers, but there’s an obvious lack of a similar motivation
when it comes to groundwater,” explained Gao Shengda, chief
editor of an industry website, China Environmental
Restoration. All agree that dealing with groundwater pollution
is a much tougher proposition.
• The only company to participate in the MEP’s plans was BCEG
Environmental Remediation. Gao Yanli, general manager of
the firm, once said that the soil restoration sector had
expanded “beyond expectations”, but was much more
cautious when it came to groundwater. “With groundwater
there’s no profit for money spent – the main benefit is public
health. But who pays for it?, ” asks Li Wenpeng.

41. Tibet
• Tibet has over 30% of China’s fresh water supply, most
coming from the annual snow melt and the annual partial
melting around the edges of some Himalayan glaciers.
• Hydro projects offer enormous potential rewards in electricity
as well as in water supply. How much electricity water can
generate is directly proportional to how far it falls into the
turbines: the Yangzi completes 90% of its drop to the sea
before it even leaves Tibet, and the Yellow River completes
80% of its decline before it leaves Inner Mongolia.
• The Chinese government has announced plans for 20
additional hydro projects on the upper Yangzi and its
tributaries; if they are all completed, they would add 66% to
the already existing hydropower capacity on the river (which
includes Three Gorges).23

42. State-building and Dam-building
From the 1950s to the mid-1980s, China built many dams, but
few in the west where hydro potential is concentrated. Why?
• Many of the dams were constructed by mobilizing large
amounts of labor (especially off-season peasant labor) in
place of scarce capital, and it was a lot easier to use that
labour close to home than to send it far away.
• The supporting infrastructure (e.g. roads) and technology for
dam building in remote mountain locations was not available;
the far reaches of the upper Yangzi were not even surveyed
until the late 1970s.
• The government was much more ambivalent about rapid
development in the far west, with some leaders prioritizing
paternalistic policies that would avoid radical cultural change
to assure political stability in the region.

43. All this changed in the last two decades, leading to a sharp rise
in huge dam projects in Yunnan and Tibet because
• The technical capacities and infrastructure needed for capital-
intensive projects in these areas are now available;
• The pressure to increase domestic supplies of energy (and
other resources, including water) has become intense;
• The Central Government has decided that raising incomes in
the far west is the best way to keep control and make use of
those territories – even if the wrenching cultural
changes, massive Han immigration, and severe inequalities
accompanying this development increase conflict.
Meanwhile, changes in the relationships among the central
government, provincial governments, and private investors have
helped create enormous opportunities to gain both power and
profit through accelerated dam building.

44. • Plans to “send western electricity east,” with a
particular focus on developing Yunnan hydropower
for booming Guangdong, date back to the 1980s;
seasonal deliveries of power began in 1993.
• Beginning in 2001, Guangdong began annual power
purchases from Yunnan – and at the same
time, Beijing began vetoing plans for additional
coal-fired power plant construction in
Guangdong, which made reliance on hydropower
an absolute necessity for the rapidly-growing Pearl
River Delta.
• This allowed the centre to maintain leverage over
coastal boom areas and integrate peripheral regions
more deeply into Beijing’s vision of a national
political economy.

45. The “corporatizing” of the electrical power industry has created
complex webs of public and private actors with strong interests
in Southwestern hydro development.
• In 2002, the government-owned State Power Corporation of
China was broken into 5 corporations, each of which was
given exclusive development rights in particular watersheds.
(There is also a sixth, connected to Three Gorges, which is
directly under the State Council.)
• These companies were 100% state-owned, but have created
partially-owned subsidiaries which sell shares to private
parties (on the Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York stock
exchanges), thus raising capital while retaining control.
• These subsidiaries, in turn, have combined with other
subsidiaries of the big 5 and/or companies established by
provincial governments to establish still other companies that
undertake particular projects.

46. This organization allows dam-builders to take
advantage of private capital markets and corporate
organization, but their links to the state remain
crucial:
• Huaneng Power Group, which holds development
rights for the Lancang (Upper Mekong), was until
recently headed by Li Xiaopeng, son of former
Premier (and chief advocate of the Three Gorges
project) Li Peng.
• His sister, Li Xiaolin, is the CEO of Huaneng’s most
important subsidiary, China Power International
Development Ltd. (a Hong Kong corporation).

47. • The transactions that create subsidiaries often involve
the parent company giving the subsidiary some
important asset (such as generators, transmission lines,
or development rights) in return for a large stake in the
new company;
• Since there are rarely well-developed markets for these
assets and the state-owned parent company does not
face the same pressures to be profitable as the
subsidiary, the prices at which these assets are
transferred can be easily manipulated to artificially
lower the costs (and increase the profits) of the
subsidiary and its investors.
• Since all of these companies continue to do business
with each other (sending power over somebody else’s
lines, for instance), there are many opportunities to
transfer costs back and forth between entities that
need to show a profit and others that do not (or that
are less favored by powerful actors).

48. • Powerful government connections also make it all the
more likely that these companies will be able to avoid
acknowledging (much less bearing) the full social and
environmental costs of their work.
• The large and sometimes unpredictable fluctuations in
water volumes far upstream mean that the turbines
will not always be fully utilized, so that the actual
amount of power generated may be much less
impressive than is suggested by the enormous figures
for “installed capacity” that are listed for these
projects: uncertainties which holders of development
rights seeking either investment partners or permission
to build have no incentive to highlight.
• Both political motives and profit seeking by politically-
connected people are almost certainly causing dams to
be built in a number of additional cases, where even a
narrowly economic analysis would not justify them.

49. Implications for Tibet and Tibetans
• Even many projects that will genuinely help millions in
northern and eastern China – and perhaps others that
will curb China’s carbon emissions and its future food
imports -- have serious implications for people who live
near the projects. Tibetans and other ethnic minorities
in the far Southwest are likely to be the most affected.
• A massive dam proposed at the great bend in the
Yalong Zangbo (Yarlong Tsangpo) – 40,000
megawatts, or almost twice the capacity of Three
Gorges -- would again dramatically change a sacred
site, to create power and water supplies that would
mostly go to Han Chinese very far away.
Meanwhile, the project poses serious risks for the
traditional livelihoods of many people.

50. • Road-building and railway-building – particularly the
Qinghai-Tibet highway and the railroad that runs near
it, completed in 2006 – have substantially damaged the
permafrost layer in adjacent areas; the permafrost, in
turn, protects a series of underground lakes, so this is
likely to exacerbate an already worrisome drying trend
in the region.
• Wetlands and grasslands that are important to the
large numbers of livestock herders in Tibet have already
shrunk; this is likely to make them shrink faster.
• Dams in Yunnan appear to be interfering with local
fisheries, and new ones pose significant threats to
China’s greatest concentration of biodiversity. And since
much of this region is seismically quite active, the risk
of an earthquake precipitating a catastrophic dam
failure and sudden floods cannot be dismissed.

51. Tibet in the Global Environment

52. • Few places in the world are as important as Tibet for the
global environment. Global warming, climate
change, receding glaciers, desertification, food insecurity and
loss of biodiversity all point to the significance of Tibet.
• With an area of about 2.5 million square kilometres, or about
one-third the area of the continental United States, the
Tibetan Plateau is the largest high region on Earth. With an
average elevation of 4,500 metres above sea level, the
Tibetan Plateau stretches for almost 3,000 kilometres from
west to east and 1,500 kilometres from south to north.
• The Plateau is ringed by high mountains – the Himalayas to
the south, the Karakorum in the west and the Kunlun across
the north. The Tibetan Plateau goes beyond political frontiers
and encompasses much of the higher elevation Himalayan
regions in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan as well as all of
the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Qinghai, western
Sichuan, northern Yunnan, western Gansu and southern
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China.

53. • The Tibetan Plateau plays an important role in global
climate change. With its extensive alpine grasslands
that store carbon in their plants and soil, the Plateau is
a significant carbon pool. The carbon stored in the
grassland ecosystem is important to regional and global
carbon cycles; it has the potential to modify global
carbon cycles and influence climate. What takes place
in the Tibetan grasslands therefore should be of
increasing importance to a world more and more
concerned about climate change.
• With thousands of glaciers scattered across the Plateau
and the Himalayas, the region has the most snow and
ice outside of the polar regions. The glacier-fed rivers
originating from the Tibetan Plateau make up the
largest river run-off from any single location in the
world. With global warming, the total area of glaciers
on the Tibetan Plateau is expected to shrink by 80% by
the year 2030.

54. Himalayan Glaciers Melting
• “In Bhutan, 66 glaciers have decreased by 8.1 per cent over the last 30
years. Rapid changes in the Himalaya has been seen in India where Chhota
Shigri Glacier has retreated by 12 per cent over the last 13 years and
Gangotri Glacier — that is considered to have originated in 1780 –
witnessed 12 per cent shrinkage in the main stem in the last 16 years,”
The United States
Geological Survey in its
report — published in
collaboration with 39
international scientists —
says that glaciers
throughout the Asia
region —
Russia, China, India, Nep
al, Bhutan, Pakistan, Afgh
anistan, Georgia, Kyrgyzs
tan, Tajikistan and
Kazakhstan — are
retreating.

55. • The loss of these glaciers will dramatically affect major rivers
that provide water for more than one-third of the world’s
population. The effect of glaciers receding will be felt well
beyond the borders of the Tibetan Plateau, with profound
impacts over a wide area in Asia and great risks of increased
poverty, reduced trade and economic turmoil. This presents
major political, environmental and socio-economic challenges
in the years ahead.
• The Tibetan Plateau forms the headwaters environment
where the
Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Sutl
ej and Indus rivers originate. In addition, rivers from the
northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau flow into the Tarim
Basin and the Gansu Corridor, providing precious water for
the oasis towns along the old Silk Road. The management of
these river source environments has global implications, as
the water from their watersheds will be of increasing
importance in the future. The water they provide is critical to

57. • The recent floods in the Indian states of Bihar and
Assam draw attention to the critical role of the
Tibetan environment in regulating water flow to
downstream areas.
• Few people realise that the Kosi River, which
recently flooded and displaced millions of people in
the northern Indian state of Bihar, actually has its
origins on the north side of Mount Everest.
• Or that almost 60% of the total length of the 2,906
kilometre-long Brahmaputra River that floods India
and Bangladesh every year is located in Tibet.

58. Tibet Warming
• The Chinese Academy of Sciences has analyzed data from 680
Chinese weather stations. This shows that average temperatures in
Tibet have risen 0.9° centigrade since the 1980s and this has
precipitated an annual 7% reduction in glacier extent and the
melting of permafrost.
• Recent climate change has had a severe impact on the mountain
glaciers and permafrost of Tibet and threatens to affect water
supplies to many of the rivers draining the plateau.
• Water supply increases during the period of glacier recession and
the period of time when flow is high is extended as the ablation
(melting) season extends. This period may be short-lived, as once
the glacier has melted (or has become covered with debris), runoff
is greatly reduced and will eventually depend upon more seasonal
precipitation, changing the variability of river discharge, with
consequent impacts upon agricultural systems downstream.

59. Glacier recession and water supply
• As glaciers melt and lose mass, surrounding hillsides
become unstable, producing debris flows and rock
slides which deliver large amounts of sediments into
the valley bottoms. This increases the sediment load of
rivers, which adversely affects hydro-electric power
schemes downstream and reduces the economic life of
reservoirs and irrigation schemes.
• In China, recession of the mountain glaciers threatens
to disrupt the water supply of over 300 million people
as many of the great rivers of the Asian continent
(Yellow, Mekong, Indus, Ganges and others) have their
headwaters on the Tibetan plateau, and in over 100
cities in China, including Beijing, the water situation is
critical. Climate change, water supply, and social and
economic stability are inextricably linked.

60. Dust storms
• Deserts in China are related largely to the position and nature of
the east-Asian and Indian summer monsoons, which control
rainfall. They are located in the arid centre of the country, away
from oceanic influences and protected by the mountains to the
west and south from incursion of rain-bearing winds.
• During the winter, they are affected by the Siberian high-pressure
system bringing dry and very cold conditions. Climate
change, allied to unsustainable land-use practices, is increasing the
number and size of dust storms from these deserts.
• A report in 2001 showed that 2,300 square kilometers of topsoil is
lost to dust storms each year from northern China alone. This
year, northern China experienced 13 major dust storms, one of
which deposited over 330,000 tons of sand in Beijing in April and
others have deposited dust in Russia, South Korea and the central
United States.

61. Permafrost melting
• Dust storms are also associated with thawing of previously frozen soils
and, with much of the Tibetan plateau underlain by permafrost, climate
change threatens to increase the scale of desertification in the region. Of
wider concern is the likely positive feedback to global warming caused by
the release of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide from
frozen soils as they thaw.
• Recent studies have shown that methane will be released if melting
permafrost produces waterlogged soils, and carbon dioxide if the soils dry
out. With estimates of the amount of carbon locked up in permafrost
ranging between 60 and 190 billion tons, thawing of the soil over vast tracts
of the Tibetan plateau will produce an enormous release of greenhouse
gases to the atmosphere and a likely further step-change in global
warming, with severe consequences for us all.
• Studies such as these demonstrate how interconnected the climate system
is; emissions of greenhouse gases in one part of the world impact upon
glaciers and permafrost in another, which in turn result in further emissions.

62. Tibet’s disappearing grasslands

63. • The high-altitude meadows of Tibet are rarely
mentioned in discussions of global warming, but the
changes to this ground have a profound impact on
Tibetan politics and the world’s ecological security.
• In recent years the vegetation of the Tibetan plateau,
has been destroyed by rising temperatures, excess
livestock and plagues of insects and rodents.
• “The grass used to be up to here…Twenty years ago, we
had to scythe it down. But now, well, you can see for
yourself. It's so short it looks like moss."
• The green prairie has become a brown desert. All that
is left of the grasslands here are yellowing blotches on
a stony surface riddled with rodent holes. It is the same
across much of this plateau, which encompasses an
area a third of the size of the United States.

64. • Scientists say the desertification of the mountain grasslands is
accelerating climate change. Without its thatch, the roof of
the world is less able to absorb moisture and more likely to
radiate heat.
• Partly because of this, the Tibetan mountains have warmed
two to three times faster than the global average; the
permafrost and glaciers of the earth’s "third pole" are
melting.
• To make matters worse, the towering Kunlun, Himalayan and
Karakorum mountain ranges that surround the plateau act as
a chimney for water vapour – which has a stronger
greenhouse-gas effect than carbon dioxide – to be convected
high into the stratosphere. Mixed with pollution, dust and
black carbon (soot) from India and elsewhere, this spreads a
brown cloud across swaths of the Eurasian landmass. When
permafrost melts, it can also release methane, another
powerful greenhouse gas. Xiao Ziniu, the director general of
the Beijing climate centre, says Tibet’s climate is the most
sensitive in Asia and influences the globe.

65. Yellow River threatened by desertification
in Tibet's wetlands

66. The “kidneys” of the Tibetan plateau are failing. The
Zoige Wetland National Nature Reserve, which sits on the
northeastern fringe of western China’s Qinghai-Tibet
plateau, contains the largest alpine peat wetlands in the
world. It is also the catchment area for the Yangtze and
Yellow Rivers; known as the “kidneys of the
plateau”, these wetlands provide at least 30% of the
water flowing into the upper reaches of the Yellow
River. But they are gradually disappearing.
Desertification here is increasing at a rate of more than
10% per year. “Of the county’s 17 villages and towns, 10
are suffering from desertification, and more than 70,000
hectares are affected,” said the deputy head of Zoige
County Forestry Bureau, Zuo Lin. “The situation is quite
critical.”

67. 67
Long-term Effects on China and India
China and India will suffer the most from global warming
because their river systems are stabilized by melting
snow in Tibet
Short-term flooding as snow melts.
Then loss of reservoir of snow will mean that water flow
becomes unstable
Disruption of weather patterns will affect agriculture,
water supplies.
China and India have responsibility for the largest
populations so they will be most vulnerable to social
stability.

68. Impact on Neighbours
• China is planning a major hydroelectric dam and water
diversion scheme on the great bend of the Yalong
Zangbo River in Tibet.38 The 40,000 megawatt hydro
project itself raises huge issues for Tibetans and for
China.
• The plan not only calls for impounding huge amounts
of water behind a dam, but also for changing the
direction that the water flows beyond the dam – so
that it would eventually feed into the South-North
diversion project. The water that would be diverted
currently flows south into Assam to help form the
Brahmaputra, which in turn joins the Ganges to form
the world’s largest river delta, supplying much of the
water to a basin with over 300 million inhabitants.

69. 69
Tibet and Water

70. • Most of Asia’s major rivers – the Yellow, the Yangzi, the
Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Sutlej, a
nd Indus – draw on the glaciers and snowmelt of the
Himalayas, and all of these except the Ganges have their
source on the Chinese side of the border in Tibet.
• Pakistan and much of India (especially in the North and West)
face very serious shortages of water for agriculture and for
daily domestic use, as well as serious rural power shortages.
The latter problem intensifies the former for many people, as
it makes the operation of deep wells increasingly impractical;
but in the longer run easing the power shortage without
solving the water supply crisis will just intensify future
shortages.
• In most of Southeast Asia, by contrast, there is plenty of
water for now, but electricity is in short supply, and plans to
alleviate that problem through hydropower threaten delicate
riverine ecosystems.

71. 71
Long-term Effects of China and India IV

72. Pakistan may depend more on irrigation than any other
large country on earth. Over half of the country receives
less than 8 inches of rainfall per year; by way of
comparison, Phoenix, Arizona averages 8.4 inches.40 Only
8% of the country gets over 20 inches per year – the
amount that falls in Tel Aviv.41 Yet the country is
predominantly agricultural, and almost 80% of farming
requires irrigation. As recently as 1990, irrigation
accounted for a stunning 96% of water use.42
Meanwhile, much of the groundwater is brackish and/or
badly polluted – partly due to current pollution, but also
in part a legacy of past irrigation projects; some of the
brackishness results from salination and waterlogging
that goes back to colonial era projects.
Consequently, people often rely on diversions from
irrigation canals to get water for their daily needs.

73. Northern and Northwestern India are not quite as dry
as Pakistan, but nonetheless have millions of
farmers, several arid regions, and highly
irregular, often inadequate rains elsewhere. For India
as a whole, the per capita water supply is about ¼ of
the global average – as it is for China.45 Moreover, half
the annual rainfall comes in 15 days, and 90% of total
river flow comes during 4 months.46 Yet India has built
only 1/5 as much water storage capacity per capita as
China (and about 1/25 as much as the US or
Australia).47 Canals for surface irrigation were built on
a large scale in some areas under the British, and on a
considerably larger scale after Independence; but
many have been poorly maintained and/or not run to
serve those who lack political influence.

74. • So in north and northwest India (and some other regions),
probably even more than in northern China, well-digging has been
essential to enabling farmers to survive, and to a “green
revolution” that raised agricultural yields enough to keep up with
the enormous population growth of the last half century. (As in
many other cases, the high-yielding hybrid wheat, rice, and cotton
seeds all required more water than older varieties.) Groundwater
now provides 70% of India’s irrigation water, and close to 80% of
water for domestic use.49
• This extremely aggressive exploitation of groundwater is
unsustainable. Well water is free to any farmer who can reach it by
drilling down from his land, and the electricity to run the pumps is
heavily subsidized, greatly straining the budgets of many Indian
states.50 Even at heavily subsidized prices, however, energy costs
have become a huge burden for many small farmers as water
levels drop and pumps must work harder;51 moreover, the
irregular way electricity is provided, with frequent spikes and
interruptions, often ruins pumps, wreaking sudden devastation on
unfortunate farmers. The large inequalities in landholding within
many Indian villages are a further complication which is much
more pronounced than in any part of rural China.

75. • In India, the central government’s inability to
enforce water-sharing agreements among the
states has led some upstream states to build extra
water storage in order to keep for themselves water
that is at least as badly needed downstream;
meanwhile, some downstream states, despite
desperate shortages, have balked at implementing
water-saving measures that might weaken their
claims to need a larger allocation from rivers
flowing through multiple states. And since only
direct human uses of water count as “needs” in
these allocations, any other uses – e.g. releasing
water to help maintain estuarial eco-systems –
count as “waste” that might weaken future
claims, and are thus discouraged.60