Creating water shortages: The strange case of Shanghai, Beijing and farmers on the North China plain
Professor Michael Webber
Professor Emeritus in the School of Geography, Faculty of Science, The University of Melbourne
Chaired by Professor Christine Wong
Venue: Room 321, Level 3, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, University of Melbourne
Date: 5.30pm to 7.00pm, Thursday 4 September 2014
This seminar explores the creation of water shortages in relation to environmental governance in China. It seeks to understand the bureaucratic imaginaries of inefficient farmers (the actual problem being the bureaucrats who administer water inefficiently), popular conceptions of water shortages in northern China (quite divorced from demand management), the failures of the Chinese state system to manage pollution, the bureaucratic mess that is inter-provincial and inter-ministry governance, and the political economy of infrastructure construction in China. These political and administrative understandings are set in the context of the hydrological characteristics of the Yangzi and the interaction of tides and salinity in Shanghai’s water sources.
REGISTRATION IS ESSENTIAL: china-centre@unimelb.edu.au
For further information please see here.