Evaluation of Implementation of the Most Stringent Water Resource Management System in China.

Scarcity and irreplaceable attributes of water resources and the increasing demand for water resources are exacerbating the water crisis in China. The "Most Stringent Water Resource Management System" was implemented in 2011, then a series of regulations and policies had been issued centering on it. In this paper, based on rigid constraints from the Most Stringent Water Resource Management System, taking economic development, per capita welfare level, and so on into consideration, the water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) model was constructed. The results show that rigid water resources constraints would have carried more population than actual respectively during the periods 2015–2019, at the national level. At the provincial level, the maximum population under rigid constraints for Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Xinjiang are overloaded. And we analyzed the overloaded causes from the aspects of water resources endowment, social and economic development, and water resources utilization. In conclusion, the rigid constraints from the Most Stringent Water Resource Management System are not reasonable. In this paper, the WRCC model can be used to assess water safety or water resources sustainability based on water policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]