Environmental Impact Assessment of Watershed Plan Under the “Three Lines and One List” Environmental Governance

Abstract

Rapid and large-scale watershed development activities have imposed tremendous challenges to the sustainable development while driving economic prosperity in the areas along the watershed in China. Improving effectiveness of environmental impact assessment (EIA) of watershed planning has become a top priority for river ecological civilization. In this regard, the “three lines and one list” (TLOL) environmental governance, was proposed in the latest Chinese environmental management policy, consisting of an ecological conservation red line, an environmental quality bottom line and a resource utilization upper limit line and an environmental permit list are to be taken into account when assessing the potential effects of a watershed development plan. In this paper, an indicator system was established based on the TLOL requirements, and the rapid impact assessment matrix (RIAM) was adopt to asses watershed development alternatives. In an application of this methodology, the Jinjiang watershed development planning in Fujian province was taken as a case study to recommend an optimal alternative. Six alternatives were assessed by conducting a comprehensive comparison. The results showed that, the Alternative 2 is preferred because it has relative advantages in terms of allocating water resource in a reasonable way, safeguarding the ecological water use at downstream, controlling the small scaled hydropower generations. This research shows that the EIA of watershed planning on the basis of the TLOL governance policy is an effective way of integrating environmental management and river ecological civilization requirements into watershed development planning. It proposes not only a universal process for assessing watershed development alternatives, but also a feasible method of maximize the trade-off between water conservancy and hydropower, and other watershed development activities and river ecological protection.