After the catastrophic floods along the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) in 1998, the United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements and the State Environmental Protection Administration of China jointly developed a methodology for assessing flood vulnerability that would be user-friendly for policy-makers. This report discusses this methodology, described herein with a trial application to the critical Dongting Lake Region, using an applied analytical hierarchy process to establish vulnerability weights, and geographical information systems to present the results in a readily comprehensible manner. This study is the first vulnerability assessment undertaken in China specifically directed at flood prevention.

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Is there a water crisis in China? Certainly there are many sub-crises, many of them hardly new to that hydrologically complex, densely settled monsoonal landscape. Droughts, floods, befouled flows, and water-short northern cities have long been integral to the Chinese experience. The last half-century has witnessed remarkable efforts to control and reshape waters to ameliorate the traditional ravages of flood and drought. Yet many of these projects, and their water sources, are ageing at the same time that state financial capacity is diminishing. Simultaneously, economic development – especially industrialization, urbanization, chemical agriculture and livestock production – have placed increasing stresses on the quantity and quality of water.

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Despite significant differences in political and administrative structures, recent reforms in urban domestic water tariff regimes in India and China have had similar trajectories with important but sometimes nuanced differences. In both countries, there has been a devolution of operational authority to municipal governments and acceptance of greater reliance on cost recovery through user fees. Reflecting this, there is considerable variation within each country in water tariffs, with cities in more water-short areas charging more than those with relatively abundant and accessible water resources. At the same time, authority over tariff setting remains largely outside the domain of the water agencies, and is highly political. One reflection of this is the infrequent adjustment of tariffs in both countries.