What Makes the River Chief System in China Viable? Examples from the Huaihe River Basin

Abstract

Eco-environmental issues are a complex problem for the development of contemporary China, among which river water pollution control is one of the most challenging issues. In the continuous pursuit of river pollution control, the Chinese government has adopted the river chief system (RCS) model to appoint government officials as river chiefs of each section. This review first analyzes the water quality data of the Huaihe River basin over the past five years using Origin 2021. A violin plot shows that the water quality of the Huaihe River basin improved, and CODMn and NH3-N were significantly reduced. Secondly, this review analyzes the effectiveness of the river chief system according to the "embeddedness theory", which argues that the river chief system has been integrated into the traditional hierarchy of environmental governance in China through institutional embeddedness to activate the vitality of the subject's control and spatial embeddedness to eliminate fragmented watershed governance and promote governance capacity. Practical suggestions and initiatives were proposed based on the existing RCS, including the rule of law construction, regional collaborative management, and public participation to restore the local ecology.