Download or read book The Water Kingdom written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Yangtze to the Yellow River, China is traversed by great waterways, which have defined its politics and ways of life for centuries. Water has been so integral to China’s culture, economy, and growth and development that it provides a window on the whole sweep of Chinese history. In The Water Kingdom, renowned writer Philip Ball opens that window to offer an epic and powerful new way of thinking about Chinese civilization. Water, Ball shows, is a key that unlocks much of Chinese culture. In The Water Kingdom, he takes us on a grand journey through China’s past and present, showing how the complexity and energy of the country and its history repeatedly come back to the challenges, opportunities, and inspiration provided by the waterways. Drawing on stories from travelers and explorers, poets and painters, bureaucrats and activists, all of whom have been influenced by an environment shaped and permeated by water, Ball explores how the ubiquitous relationship of the Chinese people to water has made it an enduring metaphor for philosophical thought and artistic expression. From the Han emperors to Mao, the ability to manage the waters ? to provide irrigation and defend against floods ? was a barometer of political legitimacy, often resulting in engineering works on a gigantic scale. It is a struggle that continues today, as the strain of economic growth on water resources may be the greatest threat to China’s future. The Water Kingdom offers an unusual and fascinating history, uncovering just how much of China’s art, politics, and outlook have been defined by the links between humanity and nature.
Download or read book China s Water Crisis written by Jun Ma and published by Eastbridge Books. This book was released on 2004-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China's Water Crisis describes in detail the history of floods, water scarcity, and pollution problems in all seven of China's major drainage basins and proposes solutions for future sustainable management. The book has been described as the first major contribution to China's nascent environmental movement.
Download or read book China s Water Resources Management written by Seungho Lee and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-10 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates water resources management and policy in China over the last two decades with a core focus on the role of water for socioeconomic development and sustainability. Recent policies, such as the Three Red Lines and the Water Ten Plan are evaluated for sustainable water supply, use and quality control. The book appraises solutions through demand management, water rights and pollution trading, virtual water and water footprint. Supply management is discussed taking examples from the Three Gorges Dam and the South North Water Transfer Project. The water market is investigated uncovering the active engagement of the private sector and includes discussions on how transboundary rivers demonstrate China’s engagement with its riparian countries for benefit sharing. This book will be an invaluable reference for researchers in the field as well as practitioners and students who have an interest in water and development in China.
Download or read book Fire on the Water Second Edition written by Robert J Haddick and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2022-08-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Robert Haddick wrote Fire on the Water, first published in 2014, most policy experts and the public underestimated the threat China’s military modernization posed to the U.S. strategic position in the Indo-Pacific region. Today, the rapid Chinese military buildup has many policy experts wondering whether the United States and its allies can maintain conventional military deterrence in the region, and the topic is central to defense planning in the United States. In this new edition, Haddick argues that the United States and its allies can sustain conventional deterrence in the face of China's military buildup. However, doing so will require U.S. policymakers and planners to overcome institutional and cultural barriers to reforms necessary to implement a new strategy for the region. Fire on the Water, Second Edition also presents the sources of conflict in Asia and explains why America's best option is to maintain its active forward presence in the region. Haddick relates the history of America's military presence in the Indo-Pacific and shows why that presence is now vulnerable. The author details China's military modernization program, how it is shrewdly exploiting the military-technical revolution, and why it now poses a grave threat to U.S. and allied interests. He considers the U.S. responses to China's military modernization over the past decade and discusses why these responses fall short of a convincing competitive strategy. Detailing a new approach for sustaining conventional deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, the author discusses the principles of strategy as they apply to the problems the United States faces in the region. He explains the critical role of aerospace power in the region and argues that the United States should urgently refashion its aerospace concepts if it is to deter aggression, focusing on Taiwan, the most difficult case. Haddick illustrates how the military-technical revolution has drastically changed the potential of naval forces in the Indo-Pacific region and why U.S. policymakers and planners need to adjust their expectations and planning for naval forces. Finally, he elucidates lessons U.S. policymakers can apply from past great-power competitions, examines long-term trends affecting the current competition, summarizes a new U.S. strategic approach to the region, describes how U.S. policymakers can overcome institutional barriers that stand in the way of a better strategy, and explains why U.S. policymakers and the public should have confidence about sustaining deterrence and peace in the region over the long term.
Download or read book Will the Boat Sink the Water written by Chen Guidi and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2007-04-24 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Chinese economic miracle is happening despite, not because of, China's 900 million peasants. They are missing from the portraits of booming Shanghai, or Beijing. Many of China's underclass live under a feudalistic system unchanged since the fifteenth century. They are truly the voiceless in modern China. They are also, perhaps, the reason that China will not be able to make the great social and economic leap forward, because if it is to leap it must carry the 900 million with it. Chinese journalists Wu Chuntao and Chen Guidi returned to Wu's home province of Anhui, one of China's poorest, to undertake a three-year survey of what had happened to the peasants there, asking the question: Have the peasants been betrayed by the revolution undertaken in their name by Mao and his successors? The result is a brilliant narrative of life among the 900 million, and a vivid portrait of the petty dictators that run China's villages and counties and the consequences of their bullying despotism on the people they administer. Told principally through four dramatic narratives of particular Anhui people, Will the Boat Sink the Water? gives voice to the unheard masses and looks beneath the gloss of the new China to find the truth of daily life for its vast population of rural poor.
Download or read book The Yellow River written by David A. Pietz and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-05 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flowing through the heart of the North China Plain—home to 200 million people—the Yellow River sustains one of China’s core regions. Yet this vital water supply has become highly vulnerable in recent decades, with potentially serious repercussions for China’s economic, social, and political stability. The Yellow River is an investigative expedition to the source of China’s contemporary water crisis, mapping the confluence of forces that have shaped the predicament that the world’s most populous nation now faces in managing its water reserves. Chinese governments have long struggled to maintain ecological stability along the Yellow River, undertaking ambitious programs of canal and dike construction to mitigate the effects of recurrent droughts and floods. But particularly during the Maoist years the North China Plain was radically re-engineered to utilize every drop of water for irrigation and hydroelectric generation. As David A. Pietz shows, Maoist water management from 1949 to 1976 cast a long shadow over the reform period, beginning in 1978. Rapid urban growth, industrial expansion, and agricultural intensification over the past three decades of China’s economic boom have been realized on a water resource base that was acutely compromised, with effects that have been more difficult and costly to overcome with each passing decade. Chronicling this complex legacy, The Yellow River provides important insight into how water challenges will affect China’s course as a twenty-first-century global power.
Download or read book China s International Transboundary Rivers written by Lei Xie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-06 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China has forty major transboundary watercourses with neighbouring countries, and has frequently been accused of harming its downstream neighbours through its domestic water management policies, such as the construction of dams for hydropower. This book provides an understanding of water security in Asia by investigating how shared water resources affect China’s relationships with neighbouring countries in South, East, Southeast and Central Asia. Since China is an upstream state on most of its shared transboundary rivers, the country’s international water policy is at the core of Asia’s water security. These water disputes have had strong implications for China’s interstate relations, and also influenced its international water policy alongside domestic concerns over water resource management. This book investigates China’s policy responses to domestic water crises and examines China’s international water policy as well as its strategy in dealing with international cooperation. The authors describe the key elements of water diplomacy in Asia which demonstrate varying degrees of effectiveness of environmental agreements. It shows how China has established various institutional arrangements with neighbouring countries, primarily in the form of bilateral agreements over hydrological data exchange. Detailed case studies are included of the Mekong, Brahmaputra, Ili and Amur rivers.
Download or read book China s Global Quest for Resources written by Fengshi Wu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world’s key resources of energy, food and water, which are closely connected and interdependent on each other, are coming under increasing pressure, as a result of increasing population, development and climate change. In the case of China, following its recent economic surge, energy, food and water are already nearing the point of shortage. This book considers how China is working to avoid shortages of energy, food and water, and the effect this is having internationally. Subjects covered include domestic policy debates on China’s resource strategies, challenges for managing transboundary waters related to China, responses from various regions and countries to China’s ‘Go Out’ strategy, and China’s increasing energy links with Russia and declining agricultural trade with the United States. The book concludes by discussing in comparative perspective China’s outward resource acquisition activities and the consequent policy implications.
Download or read book China s Water Warriors written by Andrew Mertha and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-15 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today opponents of large-scale dam projects in China, rather than being greeted with indifference or repression, are part of the hydropower policymaking process itself. What accounts for this dramatic change in this critical policy area surrounding China's insatiable quest for energy? In China's Water Warriors, Andrew C. Mertha argues that as China has become increasingly market driven, decentralized, and politically heterogeneous, the control and management of water has transformed from an unquestioned economic imperative to a lightning rod of bureaucratic infighting, societal opposition, and open protest. Although bargaining has always been present in Chinese politics, more recently the media, nongovernmental organizations, and other activists—actors hitherto denied a seat at the table—have emerged as serious players in the policy-making process. Drawing from extensive field research in some of the most remote parts of Southwest China, China's Water Warriors contains rich narratives of the widespread opposition to dams in Pubugou and Dujiangyan in Sichuan province and the Nu River Project in Yunnan province. Mertha concludes that the impact and occasional success of such grassroots movements and policy activism signal a marked change in China's domestic politics. He questions democratization as the only, or even the most illuminating, indicator of political liberalization in China, instead offering an informed and hopeful picture of a growing pluralization of the Chinese policy process as exemplified by hydropower politics. For the 2010 paperback edition, Mertha tests his conclusions against events in China since 2008, including the Olympics, the devastating 208 Wenchuan earthquake, and the Uighar and Tibetan protests of 2008 and 2009.
Download or read book China and Transboundary Water Politics in Asia written by Hongzhou Zhang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water-related conflicts have a long history and will continue to be a global and regional problem. Asia, with 1.5 billion of its people living in shared river basins, and with very few transboundary rivers governed by treaties, is especially prone to such conflicts. The key to mitigating transboundary water conflicts and advancing cooperation in Asia is largely in the hands of China, the upstream country for most of Asia’s major transboundary rivers. To avert the looming water crisis, apart from spending billions of dollars on domestic water transfer projects such as the South–North Water Diversion Megaproject, as well as on water conservancy and pollution abatement, China has sought to utilize the water resources of the major rivers that run across borders with neighbouring countries. On these transboundary rivers, China has built or plans to build large dams for hydroelectricity and major water diversion facilities, which has triggered anxiety and complaints from downstream countries and criticism from the international society. This book aims to systematically examine the complex reality of water contestations between China and its neighbouring countries. It provides a discussion on transboundary hydropolitics beyond the state-centric geopolitical perspective to dig into various political, institutional, legal, historical, geographical, and demographic factors that affect China’s policies and practices towards transboundary water issues. This book also provides a collection of comparative case studies on China’s water resources management on the Mekong River with other five riparian states in the Lower Mekong region: the Salween River with Myanmar, the Brahmaputra River with India, the Amur River with Russia and Mongolia, the Illy and Irtysh Rivers with Kazakhstann, and the Yalu and Tumen Rivers with North Korea. Furthermore, this book sheds light on China’s future role in global water governance.
Download or read book Dams and Development in China written by Bryan Tilt and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is home to half of the world's large dams and adds dozens more each year. The benefits are considerable: dams deliver hydropower, provide reliable irrigation water, protect people and farmland against flooding, and produce hydroelectricity in a nation with a seeimingly insatiable appetite for energy. As hydropower responds to a larger share of energy demand, dams may also help to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels, welcome news in a country where air and water pollution have become dire and greenhouse gas emissions are the highest in the world. Yet the advantages of dams come at a high cost for river ecosystems and for the social and economic well-being of local people, who face displacement and farmland loss. This book examines the array of water-management decisions faced by Chinese leaders and their consequences for local communities. Focusing on the southwestern province of Yunnan—a major hub for hydropower development in China—which encompasses one of the world's most biodiverse temperate ecosystems and one of China's most ethnically and culturally rich regions, Bryan Tilt takes the reader from the halls of decision-making power in Beijing to Yunnan's rural villages. In the process, he examines the contrasting values of government agencies, hydropower corporations, NGOs, and local communities and explores how these values are linked to longstanding cultural norms about what is right, proper, and just. He also considers the various strategies these groups use to influence water-resource policy, including advocacy, petitioning, and public protest. Drawing on a decade of research, he offers his insights on whether the world's most populous nation will adopt greater transparency, increased scientific collaboration, and broader public participation as it continues to grow economically.
Download or read book Addressing China s Water Scarcity written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2009 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report reviews China's water scarcity situation, assesses the policy and institutional requirements for addressing it, and recommends key areas for strengthening and reform. It is a synthesis of the main findings and recommendations from analytical work and case studies prepared under the World Bank Analytical and Advisory Assistance (AAA) program entitled 'Addressing China's Water Scarcity: from Analysis to Action.' These studies focus on several strategically important thematic areas for China where additional research was needed, as identified by the research team and advisory group based on a review of pressing issues. These areas are governance, water rights, pricing, ecological compensation, pollution control, and emergency response. The approach has been to evaluate Chinese and international experience to identify policy and institutional factors that have proven effective in promoting the adoption of water conservation and pollution reduction technologies. The research was based on literature reviews, qualitative and quantitative policy analyses, household surveys, field trips, and case studies to develop feasible recommendations for a plan of action based on realities on the ground.
Download or read book The World s Water 2008 2009 written by Peter H. Gleick and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-03-05 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Produced biennially, The World’s Water provides a timely examination of the key issues surrounding freshwater resources and their use. Each new volume identifies and explains the most significant trends worldwide, and offers the best data available on a variety of topics related to water. The 2008-2009 volume features overview chapters on: • water and climate change • water in China • status of the Millennium Development Goals for water • peak water • efficient urban water use • business reporting on water This new volume contains an updated chronology of global conflicts associated with water, as well as brief reviews of issues regarding desalination, the Salton Sea, and the Three Gorges Dam. From the world’s leading authority on water issues, The World’s Water is the most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information and analysis on freshwater resources and the political, economic, scientific, and technological issues associated with them. It is an essential reference for water resource professionals in government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, researchers, students, and anyone concerned with water and its use.
Download or read book Yangzi Waters Transforming the Water Regime of the Jianghan Plain in Late Imperial China written by Yan Gao and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an in-depth study of evolving state-society-environment relationships of the Jianghan Plain in late imperial China, as well as the transformation of landscape and waterscape in central China through lenses that have been overlooked in previous scholarship.
Download or read book China s Water Pollution Problems written by Claudio Delang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water pollution is one of the most serious problems plaguing China today with millions of citizens drinking water unfit for consumption. These abysmal conditions have fuelled increasing social discontent, as people become more concerned by the need to address the pressing issues of water pollution, scarcity, and waste management. This book describes how and why China has ended up in such a dire situation, what the government is doing to address the problem and the difficulties encountered in attempting to reduce pollution. The analysis is based on both gray literature (newspaper articles, NGO reports, Chinese government information) and on academic studies. The gray literature gives a voice to those who suffer from the pollution, their advocates, and government officers, and allows the reader to better grasp the conditions on the ground, and the impact of the air pollution among the people in different areas in China. The academic literature adds a theoretical perspective and brings these different case studies into a broader context. This book will be of great interest to students of environmental pollution and contemporary Chinese studies looking for an introduction to the topic, as well as researchers looking for an analysis of China's environmental problems.
Download or read book China s water pricing reforms for irrigation effectiveness and impact written by and published by IWMI. This book was released on with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book China s Water Warriors written by Andrew C. Mertha and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today opponents of large-scale dam projects in China, rather than being greeted with indifference or repression, are part of the hydropower policymaking process itself. What accounts for this dramatic change in this critical policy area surrounding China's insatiable quest for energy? In China's Water Warriors, Andrew C. Mertha argues that as China has become increasingly market driven, decentralized, and politically heterogeneous, the control and management of water has transformed from an unquestioned economic imperative to a lightning rod of bureaucratic infighting, societal opposition, and open protest. Although bargaining has always been present in Chinese politics, more recently the media, nongovernmental organizations, and other activists—actors hitherto denied a seat at the table—have emerged as serious players in the policy-making process. Drawing from extensive field research in some of the most remote parts of Southwest China, China's Water Warriors contains rich narratives of the widespread opposition to dams in Pubugou and Dujiangyan in Sichuan province and the Nu River Project in Yunnan province. Mertha concludes that the impact and occasional success of such grassroots movements and policy activism signal a marked change in China's domestic politics. He questions democratization as the only, or even the most illuminating, indicator of political liberalization in China, instead offering an informed and hopeful picture of a growing pluralization of the Chinese policy process as exemplified by hydropower politics. For the 2010 paperback edition, Mertha tests his conclusions against events in China since 2008, including the Olympics, the devastating 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and the Uighar and Tibetan protests of 2008 and 2009.
