The Yellow River: a History of China’s Water Crisis

During the hot, dry month of August 1992 the farmers of Baishan village in Hebei province and Panyang village in Henan came to blows. Residents from each village hurled insults and rudimentary explosives at the other across the Zhang River – the river that feeds the Red Flag Canal Irrigation System and forms the border between the two provinces. 

Centuries of state investment in a massive system of dykes along the Yellow River has left China’s water planners with a difficult legacy today (Image by Teruhiro Kataoka)

The emotions of that afternoon were fuelled by events of the previous night when 70 Baishan villagers had waded into the river to build a barrage to divert water to their fields. Upon hearing of the treachery, Panyang villagers assembled to drive the dam-builders away.  

Two days later, Baishan villagers crossed the river to the Henan side and dynamited an irrigation canal that watered Panyang’s fields.    

Struggles over water are not new in China or around the world.  But these struggles have their own unique historical and cultural contexts. Climate, geography, and social forces all combined to escalate tensions over water resources on the North China Plain during the 1990s.   

In the early 1960s when the Red Flag Canal was constructed water was plentiful. The canal was a showpiece of Chinese hydraulic engineering that was begun during the Great Leap Forward, and celebrated as an exemplar of massive surface water irrigation development.  But after the 1980s, upstream withdrawals for irrigation and local industry dramatically expanded competition for water downstream.  

Full article can be read from here (中外对话): https://www.chinadialogue.net/culture/8134-The-Yellow-River-a-history-of-China-s-water-crisis/en.