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. 2015 Oct 7;45(2):241–253. doi: 10.1007/s13280-015-0716-y

Evolution of China’s water issues as framed in Chinese mainstream newspaper

Yonglan Xiong 1,2, Yongping Wei 3,4,✉, Zhiqiang Zhang 2, Jing Wei 3,4
PMCID: PMC4752562  PMID: 26446508

Abstract

There is an urgent need globally to trigger fundamental societal changes in water management away from existing unsustainable paradigms. This paper attempts to understand the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in China by analyzing water-related articles in a major national newspaper, the People’s Daily, over the period 1946–2012 using a content analysis approach. The major findings include the following: (1) water issues were in relatively prominent positions in the newspaper; (2) the reporting of water issues in China experienced three stages: 1946 to the middle of 1980s—flood and drought control and water for food production, the middle of 1980s to 1997—water for economic development, and 1998 to the present—water for the environmental sustainability and economic development; (3) the reporting of water issues in the People’s Daily clearly reflected China’s top-down water resources management system, and no “real” public opinions on water were reported during the study period; and (4) the People’s Daily is just a wind vane of Chinese mainstream values and policies on water. The findings supported the realist assumption that the societal value changes on water issues in China were triggered by a range of factors including biophysical pressure (floods and droughts), political campaign (the Cultural Revolution), macro-economic reform (Reform and Opening-up), water institutional arrangement (the Water Law), and water management reform (the No. 1 Central Document on water reform). While there are similarities and differences between this study and other studies, important implications for more sustainable water management are a need to strengthen academic specialists’ and NGO’s voices in the newspaper to create a better informed public, and to stimulate practices toward sustainable water use.

Keywords: Water issue, Media reporting, Newspaper, Content analysis approach, China

Introduction

There is an urgent need globally to trigger fundamental changes in water management away from existing unsustainable paradigms. As with other significant transitions in natural resource management, such changes can be expected to be non-linear processes of social change as they transform from one stage to another (Rotmans et al. 2001). There is a considerable volume of empirical studies that focus on the dynamics of transitions (Geels 2010) and, in particular, on the stages and processes of water management transitions (Rotmans and Kemp 2003; van der Brugge et al. 2005; Loorbach and Rotmans 2006; Rammel et al. 2007; Norgaard et al. 2009; Kallis 2011). Ecological realism proposes that there is an increase in the scarcity of natural resources that creates the necessary thrust for changes of water management, while social constructivists, on the other hand, think that societal values, attitudes, and opinions may be able to drive the evolution of water management (Tàbara and Ilhan 2008). However, the question of why transitions in water management occur remains largely unexplained (Pahl-Wostl 2007; Geels 2011; Frantzeskaki 2011).

Since the twentieth century, water management based on hydrological sciences has developed relatively good understanding of the biophysical processes of water cycles, but it has resulted in little understanding of the evolutionary processes of societal values on water. Current water management paradigms have been insensitive to changes in societal values and blind to societal responses to management decisions. Thus the development of understanding of changes in societal values on water is urgently needed to facilitate the transition toward sustainable water management. The news media are the central interpretative system of modern societies (Schmidt et al. 2013). Many studies have shown that the media not only influence and reflect public values, attitudes, and opinions on natural resource management and environmental issues (Hoffman 1996; Hale 2010; Murphy et al. 2014), but also influence policy agenda for these issues (e.g., Downs 1973; Schoenfeld et al. 1979). Only a few studies have been conducted on the media reporting of water issues (Hale 2010; Altaweel and Bone 2012; Hurlimann and Dolnicar 2012; Murphy et al. 2014; Wei et al. 2015). To our knowledge, except for Wei et al. (2015)’s study in Australia, all these studies were restricted to data collected over periods of months and did not permit any observation of the evolution of water issues over longer timeframes. Furthermore, none of the previous studies aimed to explain the evolutionary processes of water issues reported in the news media.

With increasing water scarcity and water pollution in recent decades, water issues have received increasing attention in China. A large body of studies on water issues in China has been reported in the literature. These studies cover very broad topics including water supply management, water demand management, water quality management, mitigation of flood or drought disasters, coping with climate change, water legal and institutional arrangements, and stakeholder participation. However, integration of societal value analysis into water management is very limited. Water issues in China are of global significance and require solutions beyond its borders. Administratively, China has retained a traditional top-down system which dominates public sector management, including water, agriculture, and the environment. The Chinese media model is likely to be very different from those of western democracies. Differences in the political, administrative, and media models between China and other countries pose challenges and opportunities for studies on understanding the reflection of media of water issues.

In this study, we aimed to understand the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in China by analyzing water-related articles in a major national newspaper during 1946–2012 using a content analysis approach. Specifically, the objectives are (1) to describe how water issues were reported and portrayed to the public and (2) to understand the patterns of changes in water reporting over the years and why issues enter and move off the media’s agenda. It is expected that the findings will assist water policy practitioners’ understanding of the media coverage and attitudes to water issues and catalyze better ways of implementing water resources management. The findings may reveal lessons on water resource management in China that might not emerge from other countries.

Materials and methods

We applied content analysis to examine media coverage of water issues in China. Content analysis is a research method that uses a set of procedures to make valid inferences from text (Weber 1990). It has been utilized in a variety of fields for “mining” large quantities of unstructured textual data in order to determine public attitudes, media tone/bias, issue relevance, and issue framing (Sirmakessis 2004). The steps included selection of the media, determination of sampling strategy, development of coding strategies, and interpretation of coding results.

Media selection

Newspapers were chosen as the source media for reports on water issues. Newspapers are a good source of information on public issues as they provide readers with in-depth and continuous flows of information that expand the initial knowledge base on a certain public issue, and require active involvement by readers (Wattenberg 2008). In addition, the authority and public confidence in newspapers cannot be substituted by any other media. In particular, newspapers can provide a historical perspective on public opinion that may not be otherwise available. Neither radio nor television nor web news can be collected systematically as they have not been stored consistently in an accessible form.

The People’s Daily was selected as the newspaper source of water-related articles. Its publication started on May 15, 1946, as the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Central Committee and the Central Government. The People’s Daily is considered to be the most influential and authoritative paper in China and enjoys the largest circulation in the country. The People’s Daily strongly influences public opinion and has wide coverage of public affairs. It is also a repository of Chinese political directions and public opinions (People’s Daily 2015). For major events and issues, the newspaper also sets the tone of coverage that other Chinese newspapers, from the national to the local level, have to follow (Song and Chang 2012). In addition, it is the oldest newspaper in modern China and provides an electronic version since it was first issued in 1946. The People’s Daily has become as the researchers’ primary choice in longitudinal media studies.

Sampling

Simple random sampling, constructed week sampling, and consecutive days sampling are the three main sampling methods used for newspaper article analysis. The cyclic nature of media content can render simple random sampling inefficient. Constructed week sampling requires that all the days of the week be represented and thus can presumably control for sources of systematic variation of content for different days of the week (Riffe et al. 1993). However, the procedure ignores between-week differences and possibly misses important “news weeks” when the paper focuses on particular issues over an entire week (e.g., ‘China Water Week’) (Hester and Dougall 2007; Song and Chang 2012). Consecutive day weekly sampling selects a convenient sample of seven continuous days to account for the cyclical variation for different days of the week. It can pick up important weeks, but not surprisingly it may not be a reliable means of estimating content over a long period (Riffe et al. 1993). Therefore, both constructed week and consecutive days sampling were selected as the sampling methods in this study.

Each year of the 67-year period from 1946 to 2012 was sampled in this study, which avoids the problem of an uneven distribution of years and also minimizes the chance of missing unusual years. For each year, the sample consisted of two constructed weeks and two consecutive days weeks. One constructed week comprised seven randomly selected days from Monday to Sunday in the first half year, and the other week was similarly constructed in the second half of each year. During 1946–1987, two consecutive days sampling weeks were randomly sampled from the first and second halves of each year. As the China Water Week started on 1st of July from 1988 to 1993 and the 22nd of March since 1994, one consecutive days week was chosen from these Water Weeks in these years and the other consecutive days week was randomly sampled from the other half year.

The People’s Daily Graphic Database includes all articles during the entire study period (1946–2012). The total number of the People’sDaily issues obtained with this sampling procedure over the study period was 2,043.

Criteria for article inclusion

We used the word ‘water’ (in Chinese) for retrieval of articles from the database. The total number of retrieved articles was 148 086. All these articles were downloaded and saved as a “raw database.” They were then reviewed individually by a group of three researchers over a period of 20 months. Articles were removed if they only included incidental mentions of the word ‘water’ and did not pertain to any issues about water governance, water supply, water demand, irrigation and drainage, soil conservation, flood and drought mitigation, water pollution, river basin management, and environmental water conservancy. The number of articles that were directly relevant to water issues and included for analysis was 2026.

Article coding

We designed a group of variables based on the tables proposed by Hale (2010) and Joshi et al. (2011) to code each article of the newspaper according to media agenda-setting theory and media framing theory (Table 1). It is hypothesized in the agenda-setting theory that the intensity of media coverage of an issue correlates with the perceived issue salience by the public (Cohen 1963). Therefore, it is very important to indicate the salience of the issues by measuring the number and types of articles and location of articles in the newspaper. According to the media framing theory, the media both influence and indicate public opinion on certain issues by deliberately framing the stakeholders (the people and organizations with a stake in a certain public issue), situations (the situation in which the stakeholders interact) and perspectives (the varied viewpoints of these stakeholders on a public issue) (Howland et al. 2006; An and Gower 2009). These content variables were included in the coding strategy (Table 1).

Table 1.

Description of coding variables

Category Variables Description
I: Article information Article location Page on which the article was published
Article type We grouped the articles into news reports, editorials, byline, in-depth reporting, correspondence, hotspot interpretation, mention, data and information, and others
II: Context information Administrative area Location of the province and city where the issue discussed occurred
Water bodies Water bodies that were referenced in the article
Institutions Organizations that were mentioned in the articles. We grouped them into the national government agencies, river basin management agencies, water engineering management agencies, local water management agencies, local environmental protection agencies, other local agencies, scientific and social organizations, enterprises, and others. It should be noted that ‘local’ means provincial and lower levels of administrative areas in this paper
Major policies Policy/management initiatives mentioned in the articles
Major events Major events included: flood, drought, and water pollution
III: Thematic information Themes Ten themes were included: flood control and drought relief, irrigation and drainage, urban and rural water supply, water resources management, water engineering construction, water quality management, water resources protection, water saving, education, science and culture, and others
Article tone Article tones were recorded in three thematic dimensions: “economic development-driven,” “environmental protection-driven,” and “not mentioned”
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(Revised, based on Wei et al. 2015)

The coding variables were grouped into three categories. The first category provides a descriptive account of the information in terms of the location and type of news articles. The second category provides the articles’ content context information which was designed to describe in which geographic locations and the water bodies the topics were located. It also includes the institutions involved (whose voices were being reported), related policies and initiatives (what was discussed), and natural and artificial events (what were the situations). In this paper, water policies and initiatives include related laws, regulations, and policies developed by the state and provincial governments. The third category provides the articles’ thematic information which includes the themes and tones of news articles. The article tone was coded as “environmental protection-driven,” “economic development-driven,” and “not mentioned.” The tone was considered as economic development oriented if articles catered for the needs of economic development such as construction of dam and irrigation infrastructure for consumptive use. Articles concerned with ecosystem degradation or water pollution were designated as “environmental protection-driven.” These two tones were coded to reflect two distinct dimensions of opinions on water issues.

Coding was conducted manually because we believe that human coders are more alert to any implied elements of arguments in their context. Each relevant article was read and information was extracted into a database. To allow assessment of coding consistency, 5 % of articles from each year were randomly selected for double coding by two research assistants. We used Scott’s Pi statistics (Scott 1955) to determine the level of agreement between coders for questions with mutually exclusive answers. The reliability was 86.2 %. This is well above 80 % as recommended by Riffe et al. (2005) indicating a high level of inter-coder reliability.

Statistical and trend analysis

Following article coding, we firstly used descriptive statistics to describe the spatial and temporal trends of the main variables. Then, we described and explained any transitions of water issues reporting if they exist with two thematic variables: theme and tone of news articles. Both of them reflect changes of public values, attitudes, and opinions on water issues in news coverage.

Results

Characteristics of water-related articles

The total number of articles directly relevant to water issues and included in the analysis was 2026. The number of water-related articles reported each year changed with time (Fig. 1). The results suggest that the overall period can be divided into three stages: 1946–1967, 1968–1997, and 1998–present. In the first stage, the number of water-related articles initially showed an increasing trend that peaked in 1956 when Chinese agriculture was collectivized in the early years of the communist government. The collectivization appears to have greatly promoted an upsurge of water conservancy construction. The frequency of water-related articles decreased to zero by 1967 during the Chinese Cultural Revolution when all the nation’s economic activities almost stagnated. In the second stage, the number of water-related articles increased steadily and peaked in 1998 when China experienced disastrous flooding by the Yangtze and Songhuajiang Rivers. In the third stage, there were two obvious peaks in the number of articles reported. In 2003–2005, the revised Water Law, issued on August 29, 2002, was implemented and followed by a series of water resources management reforms in China, and there appears to be an increased frequency of the reporting of water-related articles during this time. During 2010, there were serious droughts in the west-southern regions of China and the Ministry of Water Resources started to develop severe water conservation measures.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Number of water-related articles from 1946 to 2012

In terms of the distribution of article types, news reports directly and mainly concerning water were greater than other types and accounted for 69.7 % of all water-related articles. Articles in which water was only mentioned and was not the core topic were 11.0 % of the total and editorial articles and accounted for only 5.4 % (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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Types of water-related articles

The layout of the People’s Daily has been revised 8 times since 1946. Most of the water-related articles were published on the front page to the third page before 2003 when the number of total pages was less than 12. After 2003, most of the water-related articles were published on the first six pages, although the number of total pages increased significantly. These results reflected the priority of water-related articles in the context of the other news stories reported at that time.

Administrative regions and water bodies reported in water articles

The regions reported by the water-related articles covered all 34 provinces and autonomous regions of China, but the articles were mainly from the middle and eastern regions where the precipitation is relatively high and the economy is developed (Fig. 3). Water-related articles were most frequently reported from Hubei and Henan, 106 and 102 times/year, respectively. These two provinces are located in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, respectively, and are prone to flooding. Some of the large water control projects were built on these rivers during the reporting period. For example, the famous Three Gorges and Gezhouba Water Control Projects are located in Hubei Province, and the Sanmenxia and Xiaolangdi Water Control Projects are located in Henan Province. In addition, these provinces are the prominent agricultural provinces of China. At the level of city and county, 384 counties and cities were reported 572 times in total. Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, was reported most frequently (20 times), followed by Harbin City (12 times) in the Songhuajiang river basin, north eastern China, which is also prone to flooding.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 3

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Geographic locations reported in water articles

Seven major river basins and seven major lakes in China were reported a total of 867 and 116 times, respectively, and accounted for 83.4 % of all water-related reporting of 1178 water bodies. Among the seven river basins, the Yangtze River Basin (311 times), the Yellow River Basin (214 times), and the Huaihe River Basin (116 times) were reported much more frequently than other river basins. This happened because the Yangtze River Basin experienced several very severe floods in the period covered, and the People’s Daily gave a lot of coverage on how the Communist Party and national governments organized relief for people.

The reporting of lakes was far less frequent than rivers. However, since the middle and late 1990s, particularly after a flood event in 1998, lakes drew more attention. Lakes Taihu, Dongtinghu, and Poyanghu, which are located downstream in the Yangtze River Basin, were reported with increasing frequency.

Institutions and policies involved in water-related articles

There were 188 institutions cited in water-related articles of the People’s Daily during 1946–2012, in a total of 395 articles. Government organizations at national level were reported most frequently among the 188 institutions. As may be expected, among the ministries, the Ministry of Water Resources (formerly the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power) had the highest reporting (76 times during the whole period), followed by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (42 times). The Ministry of Environmental Protection, which is responsible for water quality management, was also reported frequently (Table 2). The river basin committees, the second-level agencies in China’s top-down water management system, were reported 45 times in total. The Yellow River Conservancy Commission, as the largest river basin management agency, was reported 22 times (Table 2). The local administrative departments for water resources were reported 66 times over the sampling period. The China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research was the only research organization or university that was reported during the 69-year timeframe, and it was reported only once.

Table 2.

Institutions involved in water-related articles

Institutes Total reporting times
Ministry of Water Resources 76
State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters 42
Yellow River Conservancy Committee 22
Ministry of Environmental Protection 19
Ministry of Agriculture 9
Yangtze River Conservancy Committee 7
Beijing Water Authority 7
Ministry of Finance 6
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Only the organizations with more than five citations are listed

Before 1966, only 64 organizations were reported 103 times in total. During this period, water engineering project organizations, local water resources agencies, and national-level governments were the three major types of organizations that were reported frequently. During this period, China built a large number of small- and medium-scale flood control engineering projects in order to control floods, and a large number of irrigation works to increase food supply. From 1966 to 1976, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, no organizations were reported at all. After that, the reporting frequency of national-level government agencies increased, and local water resources agencies and river basin authorities were included. This is closely related to the promulgation and implementation of the Water Law in 1988, which marked that China had entered a new period of water governance with legislation and a series of water resources management reforms. After 2000, the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project and Three Gorges Projects received more attention (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4.

Fig. 4

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Institutions covered in the water-related articles over year

There were 49 policies reported in the water-related articles of the People’s Daily with total reporting of 55 times during the sampling period. Among them, 29 were issued by the national government and 20 were issued by provincial governments. No policy was reported more than twice (Table 3). As one of the most important polices, Opinions on Implementing the Strictest Water Resources Management System—the No. 1 Central Document of 2011—was reported only twice.

Table 3.

Water resources management policies reported twice

Title Date issued
Opinions on Implementing the Strictest Water Resources Management System 2011
The Eleventh Five-year Plan for National Environment Protection 2007
Plan on Intensive Harnessing and Development of the Yellow River 2002
Interim Measures on Compensation for Utilization of Flood Detention Areas 2000
Water and Soil Conservation Law of the People’s Republic of China 1991
Water Law of the People’s Republic of China 1988
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The coverage of water management policies in water-related articles of the People’s Daily over the sampling period can be divided into 4 stages (Fig. 5). Before 1966, the newspaper mentioned a few water management policies concerning flood control and the development of agriculture. It is not surprising that during the Cultural Revolution no policy was released and correspondingly no policy was reported either. The third stage was from 1978 to 1987 when China started to implement Reform and Opening-up. During this period, the statistics for water management polices showed sharp increases, but there were no water management polices mentioned in the newspaper. This might have happened because the news reporting during this period was focused on the economic development as the priority. Since the Water Law was issued in 1988, China accelerated water reforms and the laws and regulations related to water management sharply increased and they were reflected in the reporting frequency of articles after that year.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 5

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Number of water policies covered in the water-related articles over year. Note that the data on all the policies issued by the State after 1983 (inclusive) were obtained from the official websites of the State Council and all relevant ministries. The data on all the policies issued by the State before 1983 were obtained from Laws and Regulations on Water Resources and Electric Power (Volumes 1–4) compiled by the Ministry of Water Resources in 1985

Major events reported in water-related articles

The major events reported in water-related articles referred to drought, flood, and water pollution events. Flooding events were reported 49 times over the sampling period, more times than drought events (23 times). In the case of water pollution, there were no reports until the 1990s, after that it was reported 11 times and more widely after 2000 (Fig. 6). In flood years (such as 1956, 1991, and 1998) and drought years (such as 1959, 1992, and 2010), there were some reports of major events in the People’s Daily. Due to political and social reasons, both data from official reports and news reporting of water pollution were very sensitive in China, and it is doubtful if either of them was closely related to the facts in terms of actual number of pollution incidents.

Fig. 6.

Fig. 6

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Water disasters covered in the water-related articles over the sampling years. Note that the data on floods and droughts were obtained from Chinese Flood and Drought Bulletin in 2012 and data on water pollution incidents were obtained from the China Environment Statistical Yearbook (1996–2011)

Themes and tones of water-related articles

The themes of water articles in the newspaper evolved with time (Fig. 7). Before and during the Cultural Revolution, flood and drought relief and farm irrigation were two major themes, although they were reported much less frequently in the latter stage. During 1976 and 1998, there was a broader range of topics reported, which included urban and rural water supply, water resources management, water saving, and water resources protection. This may reflect a period when China’s economic development had a spurt of progress, urbanization increased, and industrial and agricultural production improved significantly after the implementation of reforms and opening policies, so that water demand was higher than before. Urban and rural water supply themes in water-related articles became more frequent after the 1980s. Since the 1990s, some large water engineering projects, such as the Three Gorges project and South-to-North Water Transfer project, began to be constructed, and the frequency of water engineering construction-related articles also increased. After 1998, the themes related to the sustainable utilization of water resources, e.g., water saving, water resource protection, and water quality management, were significantly higher than any other themes after 2000 (Fig. 7). This probably represents increased emphasis on resource management and conservation at this time.

Fig. 7.

Fig. 7

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Themes covered in the water-related articles over year

Among all water-related articles, there were 676 that were economic development driven, 304 articles that were environmental protection driven, and 1046 in which neither was mentioned. The economic development-driven articles were distributed through the whole study period (Fig. 8). The environmental protection-driven articles started from 1978 and showed a significant growth trend after 1998 during which the annual reporting number exceeded the economic development-driven articles at most of the times. This indicates that the conservation and sustainable use of water resources became primary concerns of water issues in China around the beginning of the new millennium.

Fig. 8.

Fig. 8

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Economic development-driven tones and environmental protection-driven tones covered in the articles over year

Discussion and conclusions

This paper represents an attempt to understand the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in China during a 67-year timeframe (1946–2012) by analyzing water-related articles in the newspaper People’s Daily with a content analysis approach. Major research findings and their implications for practices and future research will be discussed in comparison with other studies on the media reporting of water issues, in particular Wei et al. (2015), a companion paper, which developed an understanding of the evolution of newspaper coverage of water issues in Australia over a 169-year timeframe with the same methodology applied to the Sydney Morning Herald. The similarities and differences will be analyzed, and the lessons from this study will be highlighted.

Water issues were reported in relatively important position in the newspaper in China, and their number generally increased over time. Furthermore, about 70 % of water-related articles were categorized as the news type which is the most important category of news media. In contrast, in Australia only 5 % of the Sydney Morning Herald’s articles were on the front page and the number of articles on water issues did not show an increasing trend over time. The Chinese paper therefore reported water-related issues in more prominent positions than the Australian paper, and their frequency increased during the period of content analysis.

In terms of geographic distribution, the reporting of water issues was mainly concentrated in the middle and eastern regions of China where the precipitation is relatively high and the economy is relatively developed. Among the seven main river basins of the country, the Yangtze River Basin (311 times), the Yellow River Basin (214 times), and the Huaihe River Basin (116 times) were reported more frequently than the others. These results showed that there was no geographical bias of reporting around Beijing where the People Daily is published, reflecting national coverage by this paper. In Australia, Wei et al. (2015) concluded that there was a reporting bias in their study as a majority of the articles covered the Sydney region where the Sydney Morning Herald is published.

The water issues reported in China exhibited three stages of change: 1946 to mid-1980s, mid-1980s to 1997, and 1998 to the present, with the primary concern of each stage being flood and drought control and water for food, water for economic development, and water for environmental sustainability, respectively. In general, the changes over time reflect rapid changes in the general economic development of China since 1946. In Australia, newspaper attention on water issues was firstly given to meeting demands of urban settlements and then to the agricultural practices and industrial development (mining in particular), from European settlement to the 1980s. The increased frequency of reporting of the degradation of the riparian environment, impairment of water quality, and reduction of biodiversity reflects the intensification of the broad national reform debate for securing environmental health since the 1990s.

Similar trends in reporting sustainability-related media agendas were shown in both the Chinese and Australian newspapers. News about economic issues dominated the water-related articles reported in the Australian newspaper until they were replaced by articles that reflect rising environmental concerns in the community around 1994. In this study, 70 % of articles in China’s mainstream newspaper were economic development oriented. The economic development-driven articles fluctuated throughout the study period; however, when compared to the percentage of reporting frequency, they showed a declining trend and were replaced by increases in articles relating to environmental sustainability. This trend emerged from 1978 and became dominant after 1998, which is only 4 years after the transition occurred in Australia.

There were large differences in the reporting frequency of the institutions involved with water (whose voices were being reported)-related policies and themes (what was discussed), natural and artificial events (what were the situations), and the perspectives (the articles’ tones) during the three main stages we defined in China (1946 to mid-1980s, mid-1980s to 1997, and 1998 to the present). Significant natural and social events triggered the transition between these stages. These included the Cultural Revolution during 1966–1976, ‘Reform and Opening-up’ in 1978, promulgation of the Water Law in 1988, severe floods along the Yangtze River in 1998, severe droughts in South-West of China in 2010, and the publication of the No. 1 Central Document on water reform in 2011. Our findings cast doubts on the two main extreme interpretations of the societal transition on water issues by the ecological realists and social constructivists. Our findings support the realist assumption that the transitions of stages were triggered by a range of factors, including biophysical pressure (floods and droughts), political campaigns (the Cultural Revolution), macro-economic reform (Reform and Opening-up), water institutional arrangement (the Water Law), and water management reform (the No. 1 Central Document on water reform). A similar conclusion was drawn by Wei et al. (2015) in Australia.

Floods and droughts were the key topics over the whole study period even though the reported frequencies were much lower than the official statistics, as was also the case in Australia (Wei et al. 2015). Droughts and flooding events are by nature considered as obtrusive events that have dramatic impacts on public opinion and attitudes to water issues (Soroka 2002; Hurlimann and Dolnicar 2012). As proposed in Wei et al. (2015), crisis as such can stimulate significant policy and institutional changes toward sustainability, and therefore floods and droughts could be a decisive intervention or turning points for a societal transition (Beddoe et al. 2009).

The water-related articles in the People’s Daily clearly reflected China’s top-down water resources management system. At the national level, the Ministry of Water Resources, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection are three key government agencies in charge of water resources management, which were reported with the highest frequencies (76, 42, and 19 times, respectively). At the river basin management level, due to historical, cultural, and institutional factors, each river basin commission has different administrative powers and play different roles in river basin management. This situation was reflected in the news reporting. The Yangtze River Basin was reported 311 times and the Yellow River Basin only 214 times. However, the Yellow River Conservancy Committee was reported 22 times and the Yangtze Conservancy Committee was reported only seven times. At provincial and lower government levels, China has 34 provincial-level governments, 333 city-level governments, and 2856 county-level governments, and only 384 of these government agencies were reported 572 times in total. No reporting of grass-root individual persons or NGO organizations was found. Only one research organization was reported once. It is well recognized that China quickened its reform of democratization two decades ago, but our finding that the national-level government agencies were reported in increasing numbers over time did not support this. No “real” public opinions from individuals or community-based organizations were reported on water-related matters during the study period. These findings suggest that bottom-up or participatory water management is not a priority for the mainstream Chinese newspaper. In Australia, surprisingly, a similar pattern is presented. According to Wei et al. (2015), government agencies and water-related authorities overwhelmingly dominated the voices on water issues in their 169-year reporting timeframe. Other institutions including industry, research organizations, and individuals together were only reported in 5 % of the total number of articles. Several factors could explain this finding. Large agencies concerned with water, e.g., China Three Gorges Corporation, actively promote their activities and interests by producing media releases that are likely to be adopted by news media, including newspapers. It is also recognized that politicians try to influence the media agenda or the way controversial issues are framed, which in turn can affect political power and government decisions (Bennett et al. 2008; Entman 2010). In addition, there might be a structural bias by journalists that considers powerful actors in the news as the priority.

It is known that the media can create perceived reality and set the public agenda to both reflect and influence public opinions on certain issues. The water issues reported in the People’s Daily fully reflected its functions of ‘guiding public opinion’ and ‘surveillance of the environment’ (Lasswell 1948). A good example is reporting during the Cultural Revolution, when the agenda setting of the People’s Daily also reflected the change of the government laws, institutions and policies because of its identity as official media. Other examples include the ‘Reform and Opening-up’ in 1978, the Water Law in 1988, and the No. 1 Central Document on water reform in 2011. There were synergetic effects between water issues reported in the newspaper and water policy during the whole study period. Thus, the People’s Daily is just a wind vane of Chinese government water policies and the mainstream voice of Chinese government ideology and policies. This reflects that China is not a western-style democracy as only one political party manages and controls the government.

In summary, our research findings have presented how water issues were reported and portrayed to the public in the unique case of China, and determined the change patterns in water reporting over the years. Considering the thematic heterogeneity of the media frames, together with the politically and culturally diverse nature of water issues, the similarities and differences between this study and other studies seem comprehensible. Australia shares similar water problems with China. This study, along with Wei et al. (2015)’s study in Australia, provides valuable cases for understanding the interactions between public opinion on water issues, biophysical conditions, and policy changes. Important implications for supporting transitions toward more sustainable water management include the need for deeper, consistent, and systematic reporting on water issues rather than at sporadic intervals. This would ensure that there is a high level of public environmental concern of how water issues may impact the quality of their life and the environment where they live. Therefore, there is also a need to improve academic specialist and NGO’s voices in newspapers to improve significantly the dissemination of evidenced-based research findings on water sustainability issues in order to create a better informed public and to stimulate behavior toward sustainable water management. One limitation of this study is that only one Chinese newspaper was studied although comparisons with our work in Australia were generally consistent. It would be preferable if further research could be conducted to cover several newspapers to improve the representativeness of newspaper reporting more generally, but few Chinese newspapers have more than 60 years’ archive available.

Acknowledgement

Thanks to the Scientific Data Sharing Platform for Lake and Watershed for providing the data of river basin boundary. This work was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 91125007 and 41401623), Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (Project No: 2015381), the Australian Research Council (DP120102917 and FT130100274), and the Commonwealth of Australia under the Australia–China Science and Research Fund (Project No: ACSRF800).

Biographies

Yonglan Xiong

is an Associate Professor at the Lanzhou Centre for Literature and Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a doctoral candidate at College of Geography and Environment Science, Northwest Normal University, China. Her research topic is to investigate the relationships between cultural trigger for water catchment management and social policy.

Yongping Wei

is a Senior Research Fellow at the Australia China Centre on River Basin Management, The University of Melbourne. She has been recognized by the Australian Research Council with Future Fellowship (2014–2018) for her academic contribution in river basin management. She has multi-disciplinary research interest in natural resource management and water resources engineering.

Zhiqiang Zhang

is a Professor at the Lanzhou Centre for Literature and Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His academic interests include disciplinary development analysis of earth sciences and resources and environmental sciences, ecological economics, and science policy.

Jing Wei

is a doctoral candidate at The University of Melbourne, Department of Infrastructure Engineering. Her research topic is to investigate the cultural trigger for water catchment management against ecological degradation in Australian catchments.

Contributor Information

Yonglan Xiong, Email: xiongyl@llas.ac.cn.

Yongping Wei, Phone: +61 3 83449799, Email: ywei@unimelb.edu.au.

Zhiqiang Zhang, Email: zhangzq@lzb.ac.cn.

Jing Wei, Email: jingwei@student.unimelb.edu.au.

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