Dan Wu, Zhuling Pan

Dan Wu

30 Dec. 2022

River basin, Initial water rights, Allocation mechanism, Adaptation, Framework.

The formation of a comprehensive set of practical and operable initial water rights allocation mechanism in a river basin can provide important support for promoting high-quality economic development in a river basin. By comparing the initial water rights allocation mechanism in the river basins of developed countries, it can be seen that the UK implements a government-led water rights allocation mechanism for the unified management of water resources in the river basin; the US implements a water rights allocation mechanism combining administrative and river basin management; and Japan implements a water rights allocation mechanism with sub-sectoral administration and centralized coordination. China's initial water rights allocation mechanism in a river basin mainly includes the government-led administrative allocation mechanism, market allocation mechanism and user participation allocation mechanism. In the context of climate change, the adaptive water rights allocation mechanism that strengthens the dual control actions of total water content and intensity, integrates administrative allocation and market allocation, and gives full play to the motivation of water resources stakeholders has become the mainstream research direction. The existing initial water rights allocation in a river basin needs to implement the green development concept of "water-based production" and carry out in-depth research on the optimal adaptation of the initial water rights and industrial structure in a river basin. To this end, the "three-step" adaptation framework of "adaptation scheme design based on the adaptation model — adaptation scheme diagnosis — adaptation scheme optimization" is proposed, with a view to providing some references for the improvement of the initial allocation of water rights in the river basins of China.

© 2023, the Authors. Published by ISCCAC

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