Original content: China's National Governmental Water Agencies: an Overview.

Original Content: An overview of governmental entities involved in China’s water use at the national level.

Writing a blog is, unlike most writing endeavors, a long term, slowly building thing. Generally speaking the impression of expertise in a subject comes with time, based on many little entries, unlike academic or book writing where one’s credibility comes with a single massive work that is the result of weeks or months of intense study. With blogging, everything is published, whenever the author wishes it to be, without editing, yet no one actually pays you anything to do it, at least not at first. Therefore, original content on this site will be carefully chosen, and, hopefully, quite useful.

Let’s begin with a bilingual overview of the governmental agencies that regulate Chinese water systems at the national level. China’s government, like any national government, can at times be confusing and involves many agencies with inter-locked, overlapping areas of jurisdiction.

First we have “the Ministry of Water Resources” or 水利部 (shui li bu). They govern surface water. They have an English language website:
http://www.mwr.gov.cn/english/

Secondly (not that the order is terribly significant or important), we have the “State Environmental Protection Agency” or “The Ministry of Environmental Protection.” Because the names of governmental agencies are relatively obscure, it is not uncommon to see them translated into English in slightly different ways in different sources. This can be very confusing and is one reason I am including the Chinese names of the agencies. They deal with environmental issues, including water issues, in China.

The Chinese name of this agency is:
环境保护部 (Pinyin: huanjingbaohubu) or 中华人民共和国保护部环境 (中华人民共和国 are the Chinese characters for “the People’s Republic of China.”)

They have an English language wabsite: http://english.sepa.gov.cn/

Thirdly, we have the China Urban Water Supply Association, sometimes referred to as the China Urban Water Supply Association. The Chinese name of this organization: 中国城镇供水协会会长 (Pinyin: Zhongguochengzhenshuixiehuihuizhang) They deal with quality and water systems in urban areas.

This is not a ministerial level agency. It is one part of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Construction (Chinese: 住房和城乡建设部 or Pinyin: zhufanghechengxiangjianshebu ) which until recently was called The Ministry of Construction. This Ministry does not have an English language website but you may find their Chinese language website at:
http://www.cin.gov.cn/

Groundwater is the concern of an agency known as the Ministry of Land and Resources. The Chinese name of this organization is: 国土资源部 (Pinyin: guotuziyuanbu) They have an English language website and you may access it here: http://www.mlr.gov.cn/mlrenglish/

For completists, and I make no claim that this is a complete list, but it is as complete as I can make it at this time, there is also the
The National Working Committee on Children and Women (Chinese:
中国儿童信息中心 Pinyin: Zhongguoertongxinxizhongxin )

They are an organization under the State Council that includes 33 members from 33 ministries, commissions and NGOs. Its duties and function include supervising water issues in middle and western poverty stricken areas and areas where ethnic minorities live. (I could discuss why this might fall under the jurisdiction of an organization devoted to helping children and women, but for reasons of space will not. Suffice it to say the reasons are complex and involve several Chinese cultural attitudes I do not wish to spend time on here.) They have an English language website and you can find it here: http://www.cinfo.org.cn/language/english/aboutus/001.jsp

Contents copyright 2008 by Peter Huston. Please do not repost without permission.