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- Title
Identifying Regime Transitions for Water Governance in the Yellow River Basin, China.
- Authors
Song, Shuang; Wang, Shuai; Wu, Xutong; Wei, Yongping; Cumming, Graeme S.; Qin, Yue; Wu, Xilin; Fu, Bojie
- Abstract
Water governance determines "who gets water, when, and how" in most large river basins. Shifts in water governance regimes from natural to social‐ecological or "hydrosocial" carry profound implications for human wellbeing; identifying regime changes in water governance is critical to navigating social‐ecological transitions and guiding sustainability. We characterized water governance along with the three main aspects—stress, purpose, and allocation—to develop a quantitative integrated water governance index (IWGI) at a basin scale. Applying the IWGI to the rapidly changing Yellow River Basin (YRB) in China clarifies shifts in water governance between massive supply, transformation governance, and adaptation‐oriented regimes. In the YRB, the underlying causes of regime shifts were increasing water supply and demand before the governance transformation and re‐allocation and regulation after the change. The IWGI offers a comprehensive and straightforward approach to linking water governance regimes to sustainability, providing valuable insights into hydrosocial transitions. Plain Language Summary: Missing governance means missing sustainability. However, the lack of a comprehensive but straightforward approach to identifying the changes in water governance presents a challenge for efforts to underpin it. Therefore, we choose indicators for the corresponding aspects (water stress, water services purpose, and water allocation) and combine them into an integrated water governance index to analyze long‐term changes in a large river basin. Key Points: An integrated water governance index was devised to identify regime shifts in water governance practicesThe study interprets the transformation of water governance within a rapidly evolving large river basin—the Yellow River BasinA novel approach was developed to analyze interconnections between water governance, hydrosocial transition, and human‐water relationships
- Subjects
CHINA; WATER supply; WATER rights; REGIME change
- Publication
Water Resources Research, 2023, Vol 59, Issue 12, p1
- ISSN
0043-1397
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1029/2022WR033819