What Is the River Chief System
What are the basic principles?
Adhere to ecological priority and green development
Adhere to Party and government leadership and departmental coordination
Adhere to problem-oriented approach and local adaptation
Adhere to strengthened supervision and strict assessment
What is the organizational form?
A four-level river chief system covering provinces, cities, counties, and townships shall be comprehensively established.
Each province (autonomous region, municipality) shall set up a chief river chief, held by the principal leader of the Party committee or government; major rivers and lakes within the administrative region of each province (autonomous region, municipality) shall have river chiefs appointed by provincial leaders; rivers and lakes in cities, counties, and townships shall have river chiefs appointed at corresponding levels, held by leaders at the same level. River chief system offices shall be established at the county level and above, responsible for organizing and implementing the specific work of the river chief system and carrying out matters determined by the river chiefs. The specific composition shall be determined by local authorities based on actual conditions.
What are the main tasks?
Strengthen water resource protection, fully implement the strictest water resource management system, and strictly adhere to the "three red lines."
Strengthen law enforcement and supervision, and severely crack down on illegal activities involving rivers and lakes.
Strengthen water environment governance, ensure the safety of drinking water sources, intensify efforts to control black and odorous water bodies, and achieve clean and beautiful river and lake environments with clear water and green banks.
Strengthen the management and protection of river and lake water areas and shorelines, strictly control water ecological spaces such as water areas and shorelines, and strictly prohibit encroachment on river channels and reclamation of lakes.
Strengthen water pollution prevention and control, coordinate pollution treatment on water and shore, investigate pollution sources of rivers and lakes, and optimize the layout of sewage outlets into rivers.
Strengthen water ecological restoration, legally delineate river and lake management scopes, and strengthen systematic governance of mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, and grasslands.
What are the work responsibilities?
Management and protection
River chiefs at all levels are responsible for organizing and leading the management and protection of corresponding rivers and lakes, including water resource protection, shoreline management, water pollution prevention and control, and water environment governance.
Strictly prohibit damaging navigation channels, illegal sand mining, electric fishing and explosive fishing, lake reclamation, encroachment on river channels, and excessive pollutant discharge
Joint prevention and control
For rivers and lakes spanning administrative regions, clarify management responsibilities, coordinate upstream and downstream and left and right banks, and implement joint prevention and control.
Supervision and assessment
Supervise the performance of duties by relevant departments and river chiefs at the next lower level, assess the completion of target tasks, and strengthen incentives and accountability.
What are the safeguard measures?
Strengthen organizational leadership
Vigorously implement responsibility, promptly formulate work plans, and clarify work schedules to fully establish the river chief system by 2018.
Improve working mechanisms
River chief meeting system, information sharing system, work inspection system, and coordinated resolution of key and difficult issues in river and lake management and protection.
Strengthen assessment and accountability
Implement differentiated performance evaluation and assessment, and take the audit results of leading cadres' natural resource assets departure and rectification status as important references for assessment. River chiefs at the county level and above are responsible for organizing assessments of river chiefs at the next lower level for corresponding rivers and lakes, and the assessment results serve as important basis for the comprehensive evaluation of local Party and government leading cadres. Implement a lifelong accountability system for ecological environment damage.
Strengthen social supervision
Establish a river and lake management and protection information release platform, publicly announce the list of river chiefs through major media, and erect river chief public notice boards at prominent locations along river and lake banks.
Basic conditions of rivers and lakes in China
There are 45,203 rivers with a watershed area of 50 square kilometers or above in China
There are 2,865 natural lakes with a perennial water surface area of 1 square kilometer or above
China's river and lake management system
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**China's river and lake management adopts a management system combining watershed management with administrative regional management, and unified management with hierarchical management.
Background of implementing the river chief system
Rivers and lakes have important resource, ecological, and economic functions; with rapid economic and social development, new problems have emerged in China's river and lake management and protection. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to water security and river and lake management and protection; the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the new concept of ecological civilization construction; some regions have taken the lead in pilot exploration, forming replicable and promotable experience of the river chief system.
Practice of implementing the river chief system
●Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Hainan — 8 provinces (municipalities) — have issued documents to implement the river chief system within their administrative regions
●16 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) including Shanxi, Liaoning, etc. have implemented the river chief system in some cities, counties, or river basin systems