Impact of Inter?Basin Water Transfer Projects on Regional Ecological Security from a Telecoupling Perspective

Yuan Quan, Chenxing Wang, Yan Yan, Gang Wu and Hongxun Zhang
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Yuan Quan: College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Chenxing Wang: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco‐Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Yan Yan: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco‐Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Gang Wu: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco‐Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Hongxun Zhang: College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 2, 1-12

Abstract: Inter?basin water transfer projects (IBWTPs) offer one of the most important means to solve the mismatch between supply and demand of regional water resources. IBWTPs have impacts on the complex ecosystems of the areas from which water is diverted and to which water is received. These impacts increase damage or risk to regional ecological security and human wellbeing. However, current methods make it difficult to achieve comprehensive analysis of the impacts of whole ecosystems, because of the long distance between ecosystems and the inconsistency of impact events. In this study, a model was proposed for the analysis of the impacts of IBWTPs on regional ecological security. It is based on the telecoupling framework, and the Driver?Pressure?State? Impact?Response (DPSIR) model was used to improve the analysis procedure within the telecoupling framework. The Middle Line of the South?to?North Water Diversion Project was selected as a case study to illustrate the specific analysis procedure. We realized that information sharing is a key issue in the management of regional security, and that the ecological water requirement, in the form of a single index, could be used to quantitatively assess the impacts on ecological security from IBWTPs.

Keywords: ecological impact assessment; ecological water requirement; water diversion; the Middle Line of the South?to?North Water Diversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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