Water set aside for environmental purposes is now the fastest-growing category of water use in China. Since 2000 this 'ecological water' (EcoW) has grown to make up 5 % of the total water allocation (around 30 billion m3 of water). This paper provides the first substantial review of the history, definition, and policy rationale for EcoW in China, and allows us to compare the Chinese program with elsewhere. As in most countries, the growth in EcoW is a response to the over -allocation of water, and a recognition of the broader values of aquatic systems. In contrast to other countries, most EcoW is still allocated to support human values more than natural values. The earliest, and most celebrated EcoW pro-jects, were directed at reducing dust pollution from arid zone rivers affecting northern China. In other countries, most environmental water is clawed back from other users in a catchment (usually irrigators) and is then delivered as a quasi-natural flow regime from a dam. These sorts of environmental flows from dams do occur in China, represented by the EcoW diversion in the Heihe River Basin and the Yellow River Basin. By contrast, the largest EcoW programs do not replace existing uses. Instead, they augment flows through large interbasin transfers. The largest and fastest -growing EcoW program in China is on the North China Plain (NCP) based on excess water available from the South -North Water Transfer project. To illustrate the complexity of EcoW projects in China, we describe in more detail two case studies, the well-established arid-zone Heihe EcoW program and the newer Jin-Jin-Ji EcoW program on the NCP. Overall, ecological water allocation in China reflects a major development in water management in that coun-try and a growing shift toward more holistic water management.

China has implemented a series of water-saving policies in response to the growing threat of water shortages. However, it remains unclear whether these water-saving policies, which aim to reduce water-use intensity, will actually improve water-use technical efficiency. This study scrutinizes water-use technical efficiency within an extended human-environment framework by using the case of China's South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP). An improved estimation method for water-use technical efficiency based on stochastic frontier analysis is adopted to empirically investigate the variations in water-use intensity and technical efficiency in the SNWTP's water-receiving cities. This study argues that there is no definitive link between improvements in water-use technical efficiency and decreases in water-use intensity, and thus water-saving policies oriented toward reducing water-use intensity do not necessarily increase water-use technical efficiency. In addition, achieving the goals of water-saving policies by reducing water use intensity alone remains challenging and requires improving the water-use technical efficiency caused by endogenous technological progress. Finally, setting a unified target to reduce water-use intensity leads to inequitable sharing of water-saving tasks between regions, resulting in conflicts of interest among government bureaucracies.

Market intermediaries play a crucial role in stitching together necessary actors for effective systems of exchange. However, there is limited understanding of how intermediaries emerge, and contribute to, water market development. This article explains how the China Water Exchange, the country's first and only national-level water trading platform, was catalysed by a top-down imperative consistent with China's water governance reform path. It shows how its genesis, objectives and functions reflect the congruence of goals between its key actors, and their struggles and efforts to build trust. Our focus on interorganizational dynamics adds a new perspective to understanding water market intermediaries.

Transferring water from one river basin to another is supposed to help us better manage our planet’s water resources. The South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP), an inter-basin water transfer effort in China, can transfer 25 billion cubic metres of water per year over long distances. Dr Michael J Webber of the University of Melbourne and his colleagues have been exploring the benefits and challenges of the SNWTP, to assess its socio-political, environmental, and economic impacts. His research aims to gain valuable insights about the politics of vast technologies, and how inter-basin water schemes might be managed.

This paper provides an account of my intellectual journey. Beginning with an un-theorised concern with inequality, this journey has taken me through jousts with statistical models of social systems to theoretical and empirical investigations of primitive accumulation, capitalist dynamics and human–nature interactions. Marx has played an essential role in this intellectual journey, though increasingly his insights have been supplemented by other traditions of social scientific thought, including feminism, physical geography and ecology. For me, as (seemingly) for most on the left, it has proved a frustrating task to reconcile the core insights of Marx about capitalist dynamics with the knowledge provided by these other traditions – a task that remains incomplete.

Ecological agriculture (EA) is commonly regarded as a top-down agricultural reform plan in China. However, the policy process is more complicated than that. Taking Xichuan, Henan province, the water source area for the Middle Route of South-North-Water-Transfer (MR-SNWT) project, as a case study, this paper tracks the participation of various agencies and their interactions with Xichuan's government, to reveal how EA has been integrated into local rural development. As agents were assembled to promote Xichuan's development, EA in Xichuan was considered both as a goal in itself and as a tactic employed to meet the multiple goals of various participants: water protection, poverty alleviation, follow-up support for people who lost their land to the reservoir and changing customer food preferences. With the dominant initiative from a strong central state, the local government and other stakeholders integrated their investments and concerns into policy process, seeking to maximise their own interests; however, they sometimes had to compromise on some standards. This study expands our understanding of 'fragmented authoritarianism' by illustrating the overlap and interaction of different actors in advancing similar policies even if they have varied and sometimes competing interests, and it encourages the study of policy processes over space that incorporate multi-actors.

Geographical ResearchVolume 58, Issue 2 p. 201-202 OBITUARY G J (Geoff) Missen Ruth Fincher, Ruth Fincher orcid.org/0000-0003-3651-7805 Search for more papers by this authorMichael Webber, Michael Webber orcid.org/0000-0002-7697-3453 Search for more papers by this authorBrian Finlayson, Corresponding Author Brian Finlayson brianlf@unimelb.edu.au orcid.org/0000-0001-8708-3475 Search for more papers by this authorAlaric Maude, Alaric Maude orcid.org/0000-0001-5644-9470 Search for more papers by this author Ruth Fincher, Ruth Fincher orcid.org/0000-0003-3651-7805 Search for more papers by this authorMichael Webber, Michael Webber orcid.org/0000-0002-7697-3453 Search for more papers by this authorBrian Finlayson, Corresponding Author Brian Finlayson brianlf@unimelb.edu.au orcid.org/0000-0001-8708-3475 Search for more papers by this authorAlaric Maude, Alaric Maude orcid.org/0000-0001-5644-9470 Search for more papers by this author First published: 27 March 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12403Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume58, Issue2May 2020Pages 201-202 RelatedInformation

State/market interactions in water governance have long been interpreted in terms of the contradiction between water as a commons and water as a commodity. Recent challenges to this dichotomisation claim that it cannot provide a useful lens through which to interpret the complexity of water resources and their management. This paper provides evidence from China to show that a dichotomous interpretation of state/market interactions has little power to explain the formulation and evolution of water governance regimes. Through an analysis of China's water policy development over the 1998-2018 period, the paper outlines how state control and marketisation are complementary rather than contradictory, collectively contributing to a governance regime that serves broader political and economic goals as much as water management ones. We argue that better understanding of the roles of state and market in water governance requires moving beyond an 'either-or' point of departure, and paying greater attention to the 'both-and' hybridisation increasingly observed in water management.

With the traditional literature review, a bibliometric analysis of water research on the Yangtze River from 1996 to 2016 was presented on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of the Web of Science database. This analysis revealed a quantitative and visual global scientific research review from the aspects of document type and language, publication year, authorship, subject categories and journals, countries or territories and institutions, the most-frequently cited publications, author keywords and research trends. The annual number of publications in this field has rapidly increased over the past decade. The 20 most productive authors were all Chinese. The journals of Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Environmental Earth Sciences and Journal of Hydrology were the three most common journals. China produced 90.4% of all pertinent publications followed by the USA (13.7%) and Japan (4.0%). The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the major institution, producing 31.9% of all publications. The most frequently cited publications and author keywords provided the clues for research focuses. The hotspots and trends in this field included the impacts of climate change and human activities and the adaptation strategies. Additional studies should also be focused on water conservancy development, environmental issues and solutions and the Water-Food-Energy nexus.

With the increasing threat of depleted and contaminated water supplies around the world, this book provides a timely and much needed analysis of how cities should manage this precious resource. Integrating the environmental, economic, political and socio-cultural dimensions of water management, the authors outline how future mega-city systems can maintain a high quality of life for its residents.