Water Diversion Conflicts in China: A Hierarchical Perspective

To address China’s large population and uneven distribution of water storage, the South-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) aims at transferring water from the Yangtze River (Changjiang) Basin to the North China Plain. This project is being implemented over three different routes, referred to as the Eastern, Central, and Western routes, each of which is giving rise to strategic conflicts. In this paper, the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution (GMCR) is used to systematically investigate these conflicts and obtain strategic insights into them. The Chinese Central Government is involved in each conflict, together with local decision makers, making the entire conflict hierarchical. The conflict is analyzed both as an overall graph model and as three local conflicts, and the resulting equilibria are compared. The Central Government’s preferences, which can be fully elaborated in the single or overall model, account for the differences in equilibria between the overall model and the three local models. The Central Government, which utilizes different strategies in planning, modifying, and building these routes, may be able to control the overall project as it wishes, thereby reaching separate agreements with the relevant decision makers along each route.