River Chief System: Model and Effect of the Water Environment Administration System in China

China`s water pollution control and water resources protection are facing serious situation with the continuous improvement of economic growth and industrialization. In the past, the environmental management measures in China`s watershed have the problem of management fragmentation, inter-agency coordination failure and fuzzy responsibility boundary. In order to cope with the urban water supply crisis caused by the blue algae outbreak in Taihu lake, Wuxi city of Jiangsu province took the lead in implementing the river system in the water pollution control of Taihu basin in 2007. The principal responsible persons of the governments at all levels serve as the river Chief of important rivers in their jurisdiction, who were responsible for water environment, water resource management and protection of river/water source. The River Chief System is considered to be the innovation of the water environment administration model under the severe water pollution situation in China, and promoted throughout the country because it has improved the problems of the previous system as well as achieved good result in water pollution control. This article summarizes the model and effect from the aspects of plan formulation, organization form, assessment mechanism, implementing measures and the performance of the River Chief System in China’s practice. Then the author evaluates the effect of the River Chief System from the improvement of the water quality, river basin environment, coordinating mechanism, long-term management and social participation in the ecological management of river basin, and discusses the main problems existing in the implementation of the system, finally puts forward some countermeasures and Suggestions.