Towards sustainable urban water resource management: A case study in Tianjin, China

Sustainable water resource management has become a critical issue for the d evelopment of cities that suffer scarce water resources. Tianjin City, loca ted in China's Huaihe basin, one of the most polluted and water-scarce rive r basins in the country, is a typical example in which water is posing a ma jor constraint to the development. This paper examines the current status o f the use of water resources, and the current practices and policy measures taken for water resource management in Tianjin, with a view to drawing les sons through an evaluation of these measures. The study illustrates the rol e of cities and their complex interaction with their peripheries for the al location of scarce water resources, and it suggests that a systems approach should be adopted in order to analyse and understand the complexity of the entire picture. Based on this review and evaluation of Tianjin's experienc e, the authors propose a framework for sustainable water resource managemen t in cities, emphasizing the importance of taking full consideration of res ource/environmental capacity and an integrated systems approach for problem solving. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.