Scales of Power in Water Governance in China: Examples From the Yangtze River Basin

ABSTRACT

Theories that explain the governance of water, such as integrated river basin management and multilevel water governance, point to scalar configurations of power as critical determinants of success (or failure). This article explains how the scalar configurations of power in water governance mirror those of the Chinese State, and influence water governance in powerful ways. We use the case of the Yangtze River and Shanghai, a megacity in the Yangtze estuary, as examples, showing how a local jurisdiction exercises its regulatory measures against different types of transjurisdictional water pollution and how these regulatory measures mirror the fluidity (or rigidity) of power configurations in hydropolitics in China. China’s evolving water resource management institutions are as yet unable to address the scalar configurations of power in water governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Pollution
• power
• scale
• water governance
• Yangtze River

Notes

The State Council: “Implement the Strictest Water Resources Management System,” http://www.gov.cn/zhuanti/2015-06/13/content_2878992.htm (accessed on August 13, 2015).

From January to March 2013, nearly 10,000 pig carcasses were found either floating in the Huangpu River or thrown into bushes nearby. The carcasses in the Huangpu are believed to come from pig farms upstream in Jiaxing of neighboring Zhejiang Province. Jiaxing is home to more than 100,000 pig farmers, whose pigs usually live in extremely crowded conditions. When many pigs die, there is not enough land to bury them.