The River and Lake Chief System

Abstract

This chapter discusses the newly developed river and lake chief system in China, including the development process, system framework, and implementation. The river and lake chief system is a river and lake management and protection system in China that aims to manage local government leadership on water resources. The system development process demonstrates a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches. The system was first adopted in certain specific prefectures and was subsequently extended to other provinces across the whole country. The river chief system was developed at the provincial, prefecture, county, and township levels. The mechanisms of river chief meeting, information sharing, and supervision were introduced to solve the key problems associated with river and lake management and protection. The system is not a single system but rather a system aggregation, covering areas such as water resource management, water pollution and river course management. More importantly, the system is not a water resources management system, but rather a leadership management system.