This book addresses why, whether and how the existing legal framework on water management in China could make climate change adaptation a mainstream issue. The book uses a table to illustrate the distinctions and similarities between IWRM and water-centered adaptation to analyze the possibilities of mainstreaming adaptation. The new water-planning processes and EIA are also illustrated in the form of figures showing the differences after factoring in adaptation considerations. Interviews with water managers to obtain their perception and attitudes towards climate change adaptation offer new perspectives for readers. The adaptation- mainstreaming approach, which finds a way to balance various interests and tasks, will arouse the interests of those readers who argue that climate change is only one of the issues challenging water management, and that poverty reduction, environmental protection and living standard improvement are even more important. Readers will also be interested to discover that the adaptation mainstreaming approach could be applied in water management institutions such as water planning and EIA. In addition, the book offers a clear explanation of the challenges of adaptation to the existing water-related legal framework from a theoretical perspective, and provides theoretical and practical recommendations.

This book provides a first comprehensive legal examination of water rights arrangements and water rights trading in China. Although recent water reform in China has made substantial progress in policy development and practice, how its legal and institutional framework facilitates or hinders the application of tradable water rights remains less addressed in the existing scholarship. Against the backdrop of China’s water reform and the wider international debate in water governance, this book aims to provide an innovative approach to the complex issue of water governance by critically analysing the recent legal and policy developments in China towards tradable water rights. It examines the deficiencies of the current systems for water rights arrangements and trading, explores how China may learn from and build on the international trends in water rights trading practice (mainly Australia and the US), and proposes legal and policy frameworks for defining and administering tradable water rights in China that underpin sustainable water use in the face of exacerbated water scarcity, variability, and uncertainty. All in all, the book proposes pragmatic strategies for China’s water law and policy reform to move towards tradable water rights, which encompasses a comprehensive prescription from initialising and defining tradable water rights to administering water rights and trading. By reflecting on the deepening water reforms in both China and other jurisdictions, the book aims to contribute to the international water governance debate by exploring from a legal and policy perspective, how China, comparative to other cases around the world, can find a balanced combination of water allocation mechanisms to address its water challenges. It is hoped that the observations and proposed implications for China’s water reform will contribute to developing a better understanding of the way in which experiences in water markets can be shared from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

This interdisciplinary volume examines how nine arid or semi-arid river basins with thriving irrigated agriculture are doing now and how they may change between now and mid-century. The rivers studied are the Colorado, Euphrates-Tigris, Jucar, Limarí, Murray-Darling, Nile, Rio Grande, São Francisco, and Yellow. Engineered dams and distribution networks brought large benefits to farmers and cities, but now the water systems face multiple challenges, above all climate change, reservoir siltation, and decreased water flows. Unchecked, they will see reduced food production and endanger the economic livelihood of basin populations. The authors suggest how to respond to these challenges without loss of food production, drinking water, or environmental health. The analysis of the political, hydrological, and environmental conditions within each basin gives policymakers, engineers, and researchers interested in the water/sustainability nexus a better understanding of engineered rivers in arid lands.