Evaluation of regional water security in China and recommendations for counter measures

Given its rapid social and economic development, China has been facing increasingly severe water security issues, including resource scarcity, uneven temporal/spatial resource distribution, and serious issues related to pollution. With reference to the Human Development Index (HDI), a series of macro-indexed systems are proposed to address regional water security by establishing a comprehensive water security evaluation model involving flood management security, resource security, and ecological security. The model evaluates regional water security through the efficacy of flood management measures, the security of regional water resources, and the sustainability of ecological environments. Water security conditions were evaluated annually from 2000 to 2015 for 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China. The evaluation includes the identification of water security levels in the various regions and the analysis of difficult issues regarding water security, which would help local government authorities establish corresponding policy. Compared with other existing evaluation methods, this model has advantages of easily obtainable data and quick calculation methods, which is convenient for evaluating water security across different times and regions.