Viability of Interbasin, Interstate/International Transfers of Water

ABSTRACT

The need for agricultural production provides the basic need for water resource development for agricultural irrigation in arid or semi-arid areas. Often water for urban and industrial uses in such areas is only a small proportion of total water use. If no fundamental shortage of food and fiber is foreseen and if water has already been fully appropriated for beneficial uses, then municipal and industrial needs for water can be met most efficiently by transfers out of agricultural use. Thus, no large scale inter-basin, interstate and international transfers of water are justifiable.

This general thesis is examined, first, with respect to the United States where no fundamental shortage of food and fiber supplies is present or foreseen and, second, with respect to Central and North China. Food and fiber supplies in the People's Republic of China (PRC) are now inadequate and are expected to remain so in the future. In the PRC a major program of water resource development involving inter-basin, inter-provincial water transfers from the Yangtze River through Central and North China may be justifiable to “drought-proof” and “flood-proor” the area.