By Chang Jiwen, Research Institute of Resources and Environmental Policies, DRC; Li Chuanzhe & Cui Yingjie, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research

Research Report, No.196, 2021 (Total 6261) 2021-7-6

Abstract: Baiyang Lake is the biggest freshwater lake in North China. It plays an important role in the ecological conservation in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and Xiong’an New Area. Due to the dual impact of climate change and high-intensity human activities, the Baiyang Lake is faced with difficulties in restoring its ecological system with inadequate water resources, and unqualified water quality. The safeguarding of ecological water use in Baiyang Lake is hampered by weak conservation capacity of the basin, high proportion of agricultural use of water, serious over-collection of underground water, big loss while supplementing water, rough estimation of ecological use of water, unclear water distribution mechanism, and inconsistent basin system governance. Regarding solutions, policy options are proposed as follows. We need to insist on the philosophy of systematic governance, follow the law of the nature, and strive to build the water conservation forest in the upper stream and clean small branch basins. We should put water saving as the priority and optimize the agriculture structure in the basin in an all-round way to realize the reduction in the over-collection of underground water. We must connect drainages and construct a big water network for supplementing ecological water in the Baiyang Lake. Based on accurate accounting, we have to control the use of ecological water in a refined fashion by time and by section. We also need to innovate management, and establish and perfect the long-term ecological water supplementing guarantee mechanism.

Keywords: ecological water use, ecological water supplementing, long-term guarantee, Baiyang Lake, Xiong’an New Area