Scott Moore argues Chinese water scarcity will not be overcome without political reform

Scott Moore, a DPhil student in Politics, has published an op-ed in The International Herald Tribune (29 March 2013) on efforts to alleviate water scarcity in China.

China is in the midst of a massive engineering project to transfer water from the water-rich south of the country to the water-rich north. The project, however, will come at great cost, economically, socially, and ecologically.

Scott notes that such engineering feats will not ultimately solve the problem of water scarcity, which demands difficult and contentious political reform. Beijings calculus is political: It is easier to increase the quantity of water resources, at whatever cost, rather than allocate a limited supply between competing interests, he writes. Ultimately, China needs significant political reform to meet the challenge of water scarcity Beijing needs to stop relying on technology to avoid making hard choices about scarce resources.

The article can be read in full here.