The domestic and global shocks of the growing water crisis in China
China is plagued by a growing water security crisis and its current solutions are far from sufficient. The reverberations of this crisis have already had global implications, notably encouraging the Arab Spring. Further, as the crisis worsens, national, regional, and global political and economic instability will grow.
China has an age-old imbalance. Its agricultural core is in the North whilst its water resource is in the South. As of 2014, North China holds two thirds of Chinese agriculture but only one fifth of its water. The rise of Mao in 1952 and an interventionist political ideology has cemented this chronic structural issue in the Chinese economy.
Contemporary developments are further pressuring China’s water economy as rapid economic growth has sucked-in water. Agriculture and industry account for 85% of water usage. China has 20% of the world’s population but only 7% of its freshwater resource and a rapidly growing middle class with water-demanding lifestyles; the average hamburger takes 2400 litres to produce. In 2014, eleven out of thirty-one Chinese provinces did not meet the World Bank’s water needs criteria of 1500m3 per person; in 2015 in Beijing for example, water provisions amounted to only 100m3.
World Bank