Water poverty index and its application to main river basins in China

The Water Poverty Index (WPI) is an integrated indicator used for quantitatively assessing the national/regional water scarcity, which takes natural, social, economic and environmental factors into account. In this paper the methodology of WPI is applied to evaluate the water resources status in the main river basins of China. The results show that relative degrees of water scarcity in these main river basins are in the order as: the Liaohe River Basin, the Haihe River Basin, the Huaihe River Basin, the Yellow River Basin, the Songhuajiang River Basin, the Yangtze River Basin and the Pearl River Basin. The WPI pentagrams clearly indicate the causes of water scarcity in these basins. Not only can the WPI illustrate the basic situations of the water resources in these river basins, but also the harmony of the water management with the economic development and environmental protection. This paper also discusses the applicability and possible improvement of the WPI methodology. The WPI offers a simple and effective way for water resources assessment and provides a useful reference for water resources management.