ABSTRACT
China's water scarcity is attracting increasing popular attention, while at the same time policy reforms and the completion of the first phase of China's enormous South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) mark a pivotal moment for the country's water resource policy. This entry surveys developments, including large-scale policies little known outside China, based on fieldwork and Chinese-language sources. The entry also discusses several basic issues in Chinese water resource policy, and describes progress in the construction of the SNWTP as well as regulatory and market-based water policy reforms. Although Beijing has put forward an impressive set of technical, regulatory, and market-based responses to water scarcity, it remains unclear if these approaches will be sufficient to establish water security.
