Study On Initial Allocation And Exchange Preconditions Of River-basin Water Rights

With the growth of population and economy scale, human life and production activity aremore and more reliant on water resource. Water resource, as a sort of public goods, isbecoming scarcer and more competitive from the past till now. In China, the lower reaches ofmany rivers are well-developed areas, whose water environment security should be assuredfirst. However, because of the externality of water consumption, the lower reaches usuallybecome the areas which suffer the worst water quality and the greatest water pollution load,yet the unreasonable property-right definition and pricing of water resource made by thepublic water-right system lets this situation get worse.There are some system innovations, executed by other countries, aim for theconsumption and protection of water resource, yet they are not generally applicable since thedifferences of natural condition, social usage, economic development, rules and regulations,etc. In China, a few measures, like the south-to-north water diversion project and theDongyang-Yiwu water rights exchange pilot, had been taken to make water resource transfer,whereas they are temporary and lack of long-term planning. The construction of river-basinwater market can raise the efficiency of water consumption, improve social welfare of theriver basin and it can also solve the benefit-compensation problem among different reaches ofthe river, as well as breaking the restriction of administrative boundaries, managing waterresource in an integrated basin. So, it’s a suitable system innovation for Chinese waterresource management that can be carried out for a long time. And, one of its key problems isthe allocation and exchange of water rights.The main contents of the paper are divided into five parts. In the first part, thebackground, significance, main methods and concepts of this paper are described; thedomestic and foreign studies of water rights and water market system are summarized. Thesecond part mainly explains the theoretical basis and practical significance of water marketconstruction. In the third part, river-basin water rights are defined; principles of initial waterrights allocation are analyzed. The fourth part uses Pearl River basin as an example toresearch the initial water rights allocation among its principles. On the basis of the fourth part,the final part concentrates on the preconditions of water rights exchange. In this paper, the fourth and the final part are the most important.