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 COD_Mn and NH_3-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.

1. Introduction

Water is essential for human survival and development [1]. Failure to provide safe drinking water is among the most critical issues modern humanity faces, with billions of people with no or limited access to safe drinking water, impacting their survival and development [2]. The shortage of freshwater resources has become a significant constraint on China’s socio-economic development and pollution. This is due to two primary factors: (1) China has only 6% of the world’s freshwater resources but needs to secure water for 20% of the world’s population (On 9 September 2021, at 10:00 a.m., the State Council Information Office held a press conference; Minister of Water Resources Li Guoying answered questions from reporters. http://www.mwr.gov.cn/hd/zxft/zxzb/fbh20210908/index1.html accessed on 1 May 2022), with its per capita water resources only one-quarter of the world average; (2) available freshwater in China is decreasing due to severe water pollution. Approximately one-third of China’s ten significant rivers have poor water quality, and 60% of China’s groundwater monitoring stations are severely polluted [3,4]. Water pollution is a ubiquitous global issue [5] and a fundamental challenge in watershed management [6,7]. The functions of the government protection, agriculture, and housing departments are neglecting the responsibility of water resource management, creating great difficulties due to a lack of authoritative clarity, leading to an increase in wastewater dumping and water pollution [8,9].

To solve ecological and environmental problems including water pollution, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the construction of an ecologically sustainable civilization into the overall layout of the country’s “Five-in-One” plan. The 19th National Congress highlighted the necessity of engaging in three major issues: preventing and addressing significant risks, eradicating poverty, and decreasing pollution. A particular emphasis was placed on resolving outstanding environmental problems by “accelerating the prevention and control of water pollution and implementing the comprehensive management of watershed environments and near-shore waters” [10]. The Chinese government has committed to promoting the construction of an ecological civilization and introduced a series of supporting measures. The Chinese government has creatively proposed the river chief system (RCS) initiative for water pollution control to address the chaotic multi-governance system for the protection of water and solve the failure of conventional control mechanisms [11].

RCS entails the implementation of river pollution control and policies through central and local initiatives. Local governments proposed and promoted RCS based on the successful outcome of this environmental governance system [12,13]. In 2007, a massive cyanobacteria outbreak in Taihu Lake, Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, drew national attention as it created an extensive pollution crisis in the city’s water supply. To address this situation, Jiangsu Province proposed “treating the lake” by establishing the RCS in Wuxi City and issued the Wuxi City River (lake, reservoir, dang, storms) Section Water Quality Control Objectives and Assessment Methods (for trial implementation) in 2007. This mandated the monitoring of 79 river sections to assess the performance of the river chiefs of the municipal and county-level party committees and people’s governments [14]. Therefore, the river system took root in Wuxi City and has achieved remarkable results in river water pollution management. As of 2014, the water quality of Taihu Lake met the Grade IV guidelines (According to Environmental Quality Standards for Surface Water in People’s Republic of China (Ministry of Ecological and Environment, 2002), Grade I is drinking water and national nature preserves; Grade II is Class A area protection for centralized drinking water supply, sanctuaries for rare fish species, and spawning grounds for fish and shrimp; Grade III is Class B water source protection for centralized drinking water supplies, sanctuaries for common fish species, and swimming zones; Grade IV is general industrial water supply and recreational waters with no direct human contact; Grade V is agricultural water supply and general landscaping use), and all water quality samples from the 12 national assessment sections met the standard, including all primary drinking water sources [15,16]. Other locations have since piloted their own RCS [17], which has been rolled out to other regions nationwide. Finally, in December 2016, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council announced The Opinions on the Comprehensive Implementation of the RCS, which raised RCS from a local government institutional innovation to a national water management strategy. This resulted in the evolution of RCS from a crisis-response water management system to a proactive and long-term management system [18]. From 2018, 31 provinces have established RCSs, with ≥300,000 river chiefs at the provincial, municipal, county, and township levels. There are ≥760,000 river chiefs at the village level in another 29 provinces, thus achieving the goal of a river chief for each river and lake [19].

Within the field of ecological civilization construction [20,21], the RCS has been the focus of many scholars’ studies since its implementation, and this can be roughly divided into three dimensions. First, the studies have analyzed and improved the RCS’s inner logic and fundamental theories. Wang and Cai (2011) pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of RCS based on the new institutional economic theory. They argued that social participation will promote the long-term development of RCS [6]. Zuo et al. (2017) and Li et al. (2020) constructed a multidisciplinary theoretical framework for RCS by interpreting policy documents and combining them with the practical problems experienced with RCS. This is the basis for proposing an academic support system [9,22]. Ren (2015) and Wang et al. (2019) argued that RCS is a cross-sectoral collaborative mechanism that can improve the efficiency of river basin governance, but it still faces a several dilemmas [17,23]. Shi (2018) analyzed RCS in the context of the political and legal systems, arguing that there are shortcomings in allocating authority and responsibility, shared governance, and support systems [24]. Xiong (2017) examined the operation from the perspective of power and constructed a two-dimensional analysis framework of the vertical and horizontal control mechanisms, arguing that RCS is shifting from a “weak governance” model to an “authority-dependent” governance model [18]. In addition, some scholars focused on the rule-of-law orientation of RCS, arguing that although the creation of RCS is based on the law [25], there are problems such as the improper authorization of the river chief’s authority [26], the lack of legal support for the accountability mechanism [8], and the lack of the rule of law concept in leading cadres [27]. Therefore, it is imperative to improve the practice of law dimension of RCS [26,28].

Secondly, quantitative analysis of the performance of RCS was conducted, wherein some scholars conducted quasi-natural experiments based on relevant monitoring data and used panel data and the double-difference method to identify the policy effects of RCS in the implementation process. They concluded that RCS could substantially improve water quality and promote industrial structures’ upgrades [29,30,31]. However, there were problems such as the inability to significantly reduce pollutants in medium and deep depths [30,32], the fact that the effect of policy implementation is affected by urban heterogeneity [31], and the trade-off between economic development and environmental management being uncertain [29,32]. Nonetheless, some scholars believe that the long-term performance of RCS will achieve a “win–win” solution for economic development and environmental management [33]. In addition, studies have shown that implementing RCS will improve the efficiency of China’s wastewater treatment [34] and reduce water pollution from the animal breeding industry [35].

Finally, the operation of RCS in practice is investigated. Guo et al. (2020) pointed out that RCS is a new system of water resource governance and protection; still, there are many problems in promoting water pollution control in the exploration stage [36]. Using a one-stage cooperation game perspective, Liu et al. (2020) argued that RCS plays a crucial role in cross-regional negotiations regarding sustainable water management [37]. Other case studies showed that assessment pressure and environmental management needs are the basis for promoting RCS implementation [38]. Imperfect assessment and accountability mechanisms are not conducive to the long-term performance of RCS [39]. In contrast, the implementation effect of RCS is affected by the random interference coefficient and the reward and punishment coefficient [40]. In addition, RCS does not resolve the conflict between overall river basin governance and individual regional governance [41].

Innovation and choice of governance are critical factors in a modernizing government [42,43]. In the context of China’s reform to further modernize China’s system and capacity for governance [44,45], it is crucial to apply the embeddedness theory to measure the scientific characteristics of RCS. Current research on RCS mainly focuses on the theoretical design flaws of the system and the dilemmas that exist in practice [46]. There is little discussion on its feasibility in relation to the embeddedness theory. This review answers the following two questions based on the embeddedness theory: Why is RCS widely implemented in China? Why has RCS achieved remarkable results? Based on these questions, the review will offer suggestions to improve the integrated river basin management system using RCS.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Study Area

The Huaihe River Basin (HRB) is in central-eastern China, covering an area of 270,000 km² between 111°55′–121°20′ E and 30°55′–36°20′ N (Figure 1). The Huaihe and Yishusi river systems within the basin are divided by the old Yellow River Road and cover 190,000 km² and 80,000 km², respectively. The Huaihe has three sea outlets: the mainstream flows into the Yangtze River south of Sanjiangying Town in Yangzhou City; a second stream flows into the Yellow Sea at the east bank of Hongze Lake through the Gaoliangjian Gate, via the North Jiangsu Irrigation Main Canal; and the third stream enters the Yellow Sea at the northeast bank of Hongze Lake, through The Gate and Huai-Shu River at Linghongkou. The HRB spans five provinces—Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shandong—with 40 prefecture-level cities and 237 counties (cities and districts). The resident population in 2018 was ~164 million, accounting for 11.8% of the total population in China. The 2019 population density was 607 people per km² [47], which is 4.2 times the national average, ranking first among the seven major water systems. The basin’s arable land area is ~144.7 million hectares, which is 11% of the country’s total land. Known as “China’s granary,” grain production accounts for ~17% of the total national output, providing nearly one-quarter of the country’s commercial food supply [48]. The area is an essential producer of other federal commodities, such as cotton and oil. The primary industries in the HRB are chemical, glass manufacturing, and light textiles, as well as agricultural and sideline food processing. The industrial infrastructure level is relatively low, and the resulting pollution is prominent.

The HRB is prone to floods and droughts and has been an issue for its residents since ancient times (AD). Therefore, it is considered a relatively difficult river to manage [49,50]. This study reviewed the literature and relevant documents and conducted a comparative analysis to identify pollution incidents and countermeasures throughout the HRB. The study revealed no reported pollution incidents of the Huaihe River before 1978 [51,52]. Water pollution incidents have occurred frequently in the HRB since the 1980s. A total of 24 water pollution incidents took place in the HRB between 1979 and 2005, occurring once every 1.13 years on average [53,54]. With the deterioration of water quality in the HRB, the ecological environment in the bay has suffered severe damage. The damage caused by the two basin-wide pollution events in 1994 and 2004 is immeasurable [55,56]. Moreover, the deterioration of water quality has seriously endangered the lives and health of the residents in the HRB. The presence of numerous “cancer villages” in the HRB is proof of the seriousness of water pollution in the HRB [57,58].

2.2. Data

A study by Shen and Jin (2018) suggested that local environmental protection departments are subject to interference from local governments. There is thus a possibility of misreporting pollution data. To ensure the accuracy of the data, they suggested using data from the national control section monitoring sites [30] Consequently, the data from state-controlled surface water cross-section monitoring points were selected to ensure high data quality. The data are released by the national surface water quality automatic monitoring real-time data release system (http://106.37.208.243:8068/GJZ/Business/Publish/Main.html, accessed on 24 January 2021) established by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) and updated every four hours. The pollution indicators include acidity (pH), dissolved oxygen (DO), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and ammonia nitrogen (NH₃). Although the promotion of the river chief system began nationwide in November 2016, it was not until December 2017 that RCS was finally fully established in HRB. Hence, the time range selected was 2016–2020 to determine the maximum impact of establishing RCS on the water quality in the basin.

2.3. Methods

To generate violin plots to avoid bias caused by outliers, we used the external command winsor2 (winsor2 is a Stata external command written by Mr. Lien Yujun of Sun Yat-sen University, which can be used to winsorize or trim continuous variables very easily) of the Stata 17 software (version 17) to winsorize (winsorize: replace values less than 2.5% with 2.5% and values greater than 97.5% with 97.5%) the collected data by applying the Qiangyuan Chen’s method [59,60]. Descriptive statistics of the variables and the number of samples are shown in

Table 1. Variable descriptive statistics, including the number of samples.

Descriptive Statistics
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)
Variables	Number	Mean	sd	Min	Max
pH*2016	31,330	7.816	0.570	6.590	9.240
DO2016	30,670	8.594	3.034	2.740	15.29
CODMn2016	23,298	6.105	3.830	−2	20.50
NH3-N2016	27,853	0.609	0.896	0	4.210
pH*2017	43,796	7.761	0.595	6.510	8.890
DO2017	43,224	7.897	3.162	2.220	15
CODMn2017	40,467	4.464	2.085	1.300	10.23
NH3-N2017	37,394	0.366	0.524	0	2.430
pH*2018	52,386	7.865	0.483	6.820	8.800
DO2018	52,318	8.575	3.175	2.910	15.90
CODMn2018	50,529	4.589	1.670	1.900	9.400
NH3-N 2018	50,964	0.320	0.345	0.0300	1.630
pH*2019	32,609	8.057	0.493	6.900	8.910
DO2019	32,561	9.600	3.207	3.970	17.48
CODMn2019	31,760	4.629	1.307	2.400	8.130
NH3-N2019	29,536	0.270	0.310	0.0100	1.380
pH*2020	110,904	7.920	0.447	6.990	8.830
DO2020	110,824	9.265	2.746	3.840	15.91
CODMn2020	109,774	4.385	1.607	1.640	8.630
NH3-N2020	107,148	0.237	0.299	0.0160	1.390

.

The vast amount of data collected, the uncertainty associated with the data, and the significant differences in the values affect the significance of the test results. Although these problems can be solved by using techniques related to inferential statistics, the process is more complicated, counter-intuitive, and less readable [61]. Therefore, a more robust and transparent data visualization is necessary [62]. The violin plot proposed by Hintze and Nelson (1998) was selected to visualize the data [63] due to its ability to display raw data, probability densities, and critical summary statistics, such as medians and associated confidence intervals. Furthermore, Correll and Gleicher (2014) suggested that violin plots (visual presentation of data) result in human reasoning that is more consistently aligned with statistical inference [61,64].

3. Results

Violin plots of the four types of pollution indices were generated using the processed data and Origin 2021 software. Violin plots show median (white-circle), interquartile range (25th and 75th, colorful boxes), distance from upper and lower quartiles times 1.5 interquartile range (whiskers), and outliers (dots) greater than 1.5× the upper or lower quartile. Figure 2 and Figure 3 show the trends of four water quality indicators from 2016 to 2020.

Figure 2 presents the distribution of pH* and DO indicator monitoring values from year to year. According to the requirements of the Environmental Quality Standard for Surface Water of the People’s Republic of China (GB3838-2002), the standard limit of pH is 6~9, and according to Figure 2A, it is clear that the pH values of water quality monitoring data in the HRB after 2017 are distributed between 6.5 and 9. The pH* (Figure 2A) is relatively stable, and the median and upper and lower quartile values vary less. DO (Figure 2B) indicators show a fluctuating upward trend, with increasing importance in the lower quartile between 2017 and 2020, which already met the Class II requirements in 2018. Also, according to Figure 2B, the kernel density plot of the violin plot shows that the distribution of DO values tends to increase.

Figure 3 shows the year-by-year distribution of the monitored values of COD_Mn (COD_Mn refers to the amount of oxidant consumed when treating water samples under certain conditions with potassium permanganate (KMnO₄) as oxidant, expressed in mg/L. Reduced inorganic substances such as nitrite, ferrous salts, sulfide, and organic substances that can be oxidized under these conditions can consume potassium permanganate. Therefore, the permanganate index is often used as a comprehensive indicator of the degree of pollution of surface waters by organic substances and reduced inorganic substances) and NH3-N. The monitored values of COD_Mn (Figure 3A) decreased significantly in 2017 when compared to the monitored values in 2016. The upper quartile and median permanganate index values showed a significant decreasing trend. Since 2017, the upper quartile of COD_Mn monitoring data in the HRB has been less than 6 mg/L, which has met the requirements of GB3838-2002 for the Group III water, and the value is still decreasing. In addition, compared to the monitoring data of COD_Mn in 2016, the distribution of outliers of COD_Mn monitoring data after 2017 was significantly reduced.

The upper and lower quartiles and median values of NH₃-N decreased to some extent (Figure 3B). According to Figure 3B, the maximum observed values below the upper limit also showed a decreasing trend, and the distribution of outliers was reduced. In addition, following the bimodal distribution of the violin plot, we found that the monitored values tended to be distributed in smaller areas.

To further examine the changes in water quality in the HRB, we classified the water quality monitoring data in the HRB according to the provinces where the monitoring points are located. Thus, determining the spatial trends of water quality monitoring data in HRB.

Figure 4 shows the changes in pH* water quality monitoring values in the four provinces of HRB from 2016 to 2020. The upper and lower quartiles and the median of the violin plot indicate minor changes in the pH monitoring values change in a more minor way, and the pH monitoring values in the four provinces from 2017 to 2020 are within the standard limits of 6–9.

The DO monitoring values in Figure 5 show a fluctuating upward state, while the four provinces of the lower quartile of DO monitoring values in 2017 declined. After that, DO monitoring values in 2018–2020 rose. The lower quartile values reached the standard of 6 mg/L, which indicates that more than three-quarters of DO monitoring values met the requirements of Grade II.

As indicated in Figure 6, the NH₃-N monitoring values in all four provinces show a decreasing trend, and a comparison of the upper and lower quartile ranges shows that the NH₃-N values have been decreasing. According to the Chinese surface water environmental quality standard, NH₃-N monitoring standards are 0.15–2.0 mg/L; therefore, the NH₃-N monitoring values do not show large changes in values. The COD_Mn monitoring values in Figure 7 show the differences in changes between provinces. Firstly, when comparing the COD_Mn monitoring values of the four provinces in 2017 with the monitoring values in 2016, the COD_Mn index has decreased to some extent. After 2016, the COD_Mn monitoring values in the Henan Province showed a fluctuating downward trend and a significant decrease in 2020. The COD_Mn monitoring values in the Anhui Province, on the other hand, show a slight decrease, and the abnormal values have been decreasing. Unlike these two provinces, Jiangsu Province started to show a slight decrease in COD_Mn monitoring values after 2017. Shandong Province showed a continuous increase in COD_Mn monitoring values after 2017, as indicated by the changes in the upper and lower quartile values.

Based on the results of the violin plots and previous studies [30,31,32], we determined that RCS implementation has contributed to the improvement of water quality in HRB to a certain extent. The following section analyzes why the RCS can achieve positive results quickly based on the “embeddedness” theory.

4. Discussion

4.1. Spatial Embeddedness: The RCS Eliminates “Fragmented” Governance

The theory of embeddedness originated from Karl Polanyi. He stated that “the term ‘embeddedness’ expresses the idea that the economy is not autonomous, as it must be in economic theory, but subordinated to politics, religion, and social relations” [65]. Granovetter (1985) argued that social relations should be included in the analysis of economic behavior [66], which is considered a new stage of development of the embeddedness theory [67]. Although the embeddedness theory is based on economic behavior, its implications go beyond the relationship between economy and society, and it is widely accepted in the social sciences [68,69]. After the Polanyi period, Granovetter period, and new development period [70], embeddedness theory has developed into a complete theoretical system, which includes structural embeddedness, relational embeddedness, political embeddedness, cultural embeddedness, cognitive embeddedness, institutional embeddedness, bilateral embeddedness, inter-organizational embeddedness, and environmental embeddedness.

Huang (2016) interpreted spatial embeddedness from the perspective of spatial physics as follows: “‘embeddedness’ belongs to both the state of one physical phenomenon embedded in another physical phenomenon and the process of interaction between one physical phenomenon and other physical phenomena—‘symbiosis’ and ‘embeddedness.’ The two characteristics of ‘spatial embeddedness’ are ‘symbiosis’ and ‘interactivity’” [69]. At this point, the core of the theory of spatial embeddedness requires the intersection or collection of multiple subjects and the state of integration between them, which enables circulation and penetration [42].

4.1.1. RCS Highlighting the Holistic Nature of Watershed Governance

As a unique natural resource, a watershed is centered on a river and surrounded by a watershed line, which is complete, independent, and highly integral from its source to its mouth [71]. The use of holistic management tools is often considered necessary and feasible based on the natural characteristics of the watershed, as evidenced by the excellent performance achieved by the Tennessee River Authority in the US [24]. According to Article 28 of the Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China: Article 28—the local people’s governments at all levels shall, according to environmental protection objectives and pollution control tasks, adopt effective measures to improve environmental quality), the Chinese government adopts the principle of territorial governance with hierarchical responsibility in the environmental governance system. In watershed governance, watersheds are hierarchically divided into local government levels according to territoriality, resulting in the spatial fragmentation and compartmentalization of watershed governance. Figure 8 presents the graded management map of the Huaihe River.

Fragmentation and compartmentalization can lead to constant game behavior (Game behavior: according to game theory, local governments as the “rational economic man” implement some means to the Pareto optimality.) by local governments in watershed governance, which is mainly manifested in two aspects. First, when local governments face water pollution management due to the anti-GDP nature of environmental protection work [72], the internal functions of governments adopt a wait-and-see strategy. Secondly, the neighboring counties, cities, and provinces in the watershed hope that the sewage problems in the upper reaches and the related environmental costs can reduce on their own, and if this “free-riding” scenario is not found or sanctioned, it will lead to common issues in watershed management. In the HRB, according to the Huaihe River Water Resources Bulletin, the chemical oxygen demand emissions in Henan Province are 84,900 tons; in Anhui Province, they are 39,300 tons; they are 51,000 tons in the Jiangsu Province; and they are 31,700 tons in the Shandong Province. The total chemical oxygen demand emissions in the Henan Province meet the standard, and Henan Province is in the upper Huaihe River area. The downstream provinces can thus not escape the suspicion of “free-riding.”

Implementing the RCS gradually breaks down spatial barriers in watershed governance. The Opinions on the Comprehensive Implementation of the River Chief System issued nationally in 2016 and the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law of the People’s Republic of China revised in 2017 both require provinces, cities, counties, and townships to establish the RCS. The guidelines further require the bodies to organize and lead the prevention and control of water pollution and water environment management within their administrative regions in a hierarchical and sectional manner.

Local governments in the HRB are also actively promoting the implementation of the RCS. Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Shandong Provinces issued work plans for the performance of the RCS. They established a five-level RCS, extending it to every city, county, township, and village where a river and or a lake is located. They employed river chiefs in graded sections.

The leaders of the party and government were at the same level, making it clear that the party and government leaders at the higher level will serve as river chiefs for rivers and lakes crossing administrative regions. According to the standard, the above approach divides watersheds with a transboundary nature and groups them according to the administrative area. In China’s environmental governance system, local party secretaries and chief executives are primarily responsible for local environmental protection [73]. Party and government officials are identified at their corresponding level for each watershed segment, forming a top-down and hierarchical water environment governance system, changing the previous fragmented and compartmentalized watershed governance model and constituting a holistic watershed governance model.

4.1.2. RCS Achieves Integration of Governance Subjects

Another manifestation of the fragmentation of China’s environmental governance system is that the implementation of different environmental policies has been dispersed among several or even a dozen local departments [73], leading to poor policy implementation in China’s environmental governance [74]. Firstly, in the water administration system, the water-related functions of government departments at all levels are mainly water conservancy and environmental protection departments. Water conservancy departments are primarily responsible for coordinating the development and utilization of water resources and supervising and managing the use of water resources. Environmental protection departments mainly manage and oversee the implementation of water pollution prevention and control work. In addition, construction, agriculture, forestry, development and reform, transportation, fisheries, marine, and other departments assume water-related industry classification management functions in their respective areas of responsibility. This results in many government departments with overlapping powers and interests in the actual performance of duties. They “pass the buck” to each other, and thus water pollution prevention and protection policies and initiatives cannot be implemented.

Secondly, environmental protection departments are in a disadvantaged position since they are components of local government, and the appointment and removal of personnel, financial income, and expenditure are subject to the local government. When performing their duties, the environmental protection department is highly dependent on the cooperation of local and related departments. After weighing their interests, some local governments often prioritize their interests, often to ensure that the region’s interests are considered as the starting point at the expense of local environmental claims and even environmental protection departments. Although Article 10 of the Environmental Protection Law states that local environmental protection authorities shall exercise unified supervision and management of environmental protection in their administrative regions (Environmental Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China: Article 10—the environmental protection administrative department of the State Council shall generally supervise and administer the national environmental protection work, while the environmental protection administrative departments of the local people’s governments at and above the county level shall generally supervise and administer the environmental protection work within their respective administrative regions), there are no methods and procedures to enable environmental protection authorities to exercise their unified supervision and management authority. Therefore, if other influential departments do not comply with or negatively treat this antecedent provision of the Environmental Protection Law, then environmental protection departments are unable to effectively perform their duties. As stated previously, these duties include the unified supervision and management of environmental protection and also the management of actions exercised by other administrative departments within their respective jurisdictions [72].

Before the implementation of the RCS, in the HRB, the functional departments could be divided according to their different responsibilities related to water pollution prevention and control. The departments accountable for water resources were mainly the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR), the water resources departments of the four provinces along the Huaihe River (Henan, Anhui, Shandong, and Jiangsu), and those at all subsequent levels. The departments responsible for ecology and environment were the MEE, the ecology and environment departments of the four provinces, and contributing smaller ecological and environmental bureaus at all levels. Other departments with management responsibilities included the State Council, the provincial-level departments of transportation, agriculture, and rural areas, health, and construction, whereas the Huaihe River water pollution prevention and management of the river basin management agencies mostly fall under the Huaihe River Water Conservancy Commission (HRWCC) and its affiliated management agencies (Figure 9).

The RCS is a new space-embedded governance approach through the graded establishment of river chiefs, the river chief meeting system, and the river chief office, which maximizes the integration of each governance body into the governance framework. It establishes a coordination and communication mechanism, strengthens supervision and assessment capabilities, facilitates interaction and symbiosis with all interested bodies, realizes the joint construction of effective governance, and ensures the sharing of governance results. Firstly, according to the logic of the operation of the RCS, the river chief is primarily responsible for managing river and lake issues—“the leader and its authority is the dynamic force to solve the problem” [75]. Therefore, the appointment of a local party and government leaders at all levels as river chiefs increases the importance of water governance, maximum mobilization, and the integration of various authorities and resources involved in the management of river and lake problems. It furthermore prompts various functional departments to perform their duties actively.

Secondly, the RCS has built a new platform for communication and coordination in the management of water-related issues where all interested parties can fully participate. Establishing river chief meetings at the county level and above allows members from various water-related departments to conduct sessions and negotiate and solve crucial and complex river and lake management issues. Moreover, these departments can effectively organize and coordinate comprehensive and professional watershed management plans, take care of major disputes between departments and regions in river and lake management, and carry out assessment work. Members of river chiefs’ meetings have been assigned specific and clear responsibilities. The river chief meeting breaks the departmental barriers of river and lake governance, realizes proper information exchange, changes the traditional model of independent control by multiple departments in water governance, and recognizes the collaboration between departments to promote policies.

Finally, the establishment of the river chief office is the core of the organization of the RCS, which handles the tools of the river chief system organization. The office is responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the river chief meeting, implementation of matters determined by the river chiefs at all levels, and the formulation of relevant systems and assessment requirements. Additional responsibilities include the supervision and coordination of the implementation of tasks and the organization and implementation of the assessment work. The RCS realizes the space-embedded requirement of river basin governance, acquires knowledge about integration of multi-body control, forms governance collaboration, and improves governance performance (Figure 10).

4.2. Institutional Embeddedness: Drivers of the Implementation of the RCS

Huang (2016) argues that the embeddedness theory is often reduced to a relationship between the market economy and the social system. Thus, its political aspect is severely neglected. In contrast, Polanyi argues that politics and economics are complementary [69]. Sharon Zukin and Paul DiMaggio (1990) suggest that, in addition to structural embeddedness, there are three other aspects of embeddedness: cognitive, cultural, and political embeddedness [76]. Political embeddedness describes “how economic institutions and decisions are shaped by power struggles that involve economic actors and non-market institutions, especially the state and social class”. Moreover, social class should be classified as a structural factor, while other elements are referred to as institutional factors [68,77]. Abolafia (2001) suggests that institutional embeddedness refers to the relationship between an organization and its institutional environment, which facilitates the organization’s access to external resources and is influenced and constrained by the institutional environment it is embedded in [70,78]. In other words, institutional embeddedness refers to the influence of the institutional environment on individual behavior. The functioning of institutions is based on being embedded in larger institutional, systemic, and cultural contexts [79]. Therefore, it is one-sided and limited to examining only the system itself, which should actually be analyzed holistically as an extensive and governance system.

4.2.1. RCS Achieves Integration of Governance Subjects

From the beginning, China’s environmental governance has been government-led, which has gradually led to the formation of a government-led environmental governance model [80,81,82]. The government-led environmental governance model can be explained by a three-level corporate model of “principal–manager–agent” in executive authority relationships [82,83]. Chen (2019) defines the model from the perspective of environmental enforcement, “national or local environmental legislation and policies are implemented through the section organizational system of local governments at all levels, and violations are investigated and dealt with” [84]. Under the government-led environmental governance model, the central government acts as the principal by enacting environmental legislation, introducing ecological policies, and setting environmental assessment indicators. The provincial and municipal governments play a dual role: as the agent, they contract the environmental management tasks assigned by the higher government; as the principal, they have the authority to monitor and assess the effectiveness of environmental management, and they decentralize the environmental management tasks to the county and township level. The county and township governments are the agents who are responsible for implementing the top-down environmental protection directives and policies and regulations to effectively accomplish environmental management [85].

The RCS is an emergency measure taken by the local government to solve the watershed management crisis, and it aims to increase the government’s attention (scholars argue that government attention is a very scarce resource, that attention can indicate how much the government cares about something; attention shifts can determine changes in government decisions. [86,87]) on water pollution management and mobilize all the resources at the government’s disposal to solve the water pollution problem quickly. Thus, the RCS operates under a government-led environmental governance model, which has been implemented three times from local–central–local. First, it was created at the local level, and then it was adopted and absorbed by other local government departments. Subsequently, the central government recognized the system as a national strategy for water environment management, and finally, the provincial government deployed the system at the local level according to the central government’s requirements.

At the government main office, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Comprehensively Implementing the RCS, which established the legal status of the RCS in the form of party regulations, setting the basic principles, tasks, and safeguards for the nationwide implementation thereof. The MWR and the Ministry of Environmental Protection then issued the Implementation Plan for Implementing the Opinions on Comprehensively Implementing the RCS to provide more detailed requirements that ensure that the river chief system takes root. In addition, the two ministries also formulated an evaluation plan, work progress reporting system, and inspection system for the RCS (these departmental regulations include the Summary and Assessment Work Plan for the Comprehensive Implementation of the River Chief System and Lake Chief System, the Notice on the Establishment of the Information Reporting System on the Progress of the River Chief System, and the Supervision and Inspection System for the Comprehensive Implementation of the River Chief System by the Ministry of Water Resources). In response to the central government’s request for provincial and municipal governments to respond quickly to the Huaihe River Basin, Shandong, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces issued a comprehensive implementation of the river system work program in 2017. This clarified the provincial river system work objectives, including the completion time of the river system, water quality standards, total water consumption, and “smelly black water” treatment rate, as well as the law system construction of river and lake governance. According to the central requirements, the river system was to be fully established by the end of 2018, while Shandong Province required it by the end of April 2017 at all levels. Jiangsu Province needed to establish a five-level river system by the end of May 2017, while Anhui and Henan Province had to achieve this by the end of 2017. In comparison, the deadline required by the central four provinces to build the river system was at least one year ahead of schedule. This shows that the provincial government has a dual identity as an agent and principle and has delegated these tasks to the lower levels of government. The grassroots government is responsible for implementing these legal norms and policy directives. It is also subject to the supervision and assessment of the performance of the RCS by the higher-level government. Thus, the RCS based on China’s government-led environmental governance model was quickly implemented nationwide with good performance.

4.2.2. The RCS Fits the Requirements of “Co-Responsibility of the Communist Party and the Government”

General Secretary Xi Jinping noted that “the greatest national condition of China is the leadership of the Communist Party of China” [88]. As the central axis of the country’s political system, the Party’s leadership system is expressed as “ [an] overview of all parties’ ‘overall situation and coordination’”. The Party’s leadership is realized through a series of political systems and organizational mechanisms within the framework of the Constitution and laws [89]. Therefore, in China’s political system, the primary prerequisite for the government to carry out state and social construction is to adhere to the guidance of the leadership of the Party. If the work is not supported and valued by the Party Committee, it will not be carried out. As the ruling party, party committees are responsible for local economic and social development and essential political commitment [90]. In other words, party committees should play a crucial role in constructing local ecological civilization and should assume responsibility for environmental protection, implement various environmental protection policies, and assume political and legal responsibility for ineffective environmental governance. Ran (2019) proposed that as the “first hands” (usually, the Chinese refer to the party secretary as the yibashou [91,92]) of the local party system, the party secretary’s priorities, development strategies, and interests play a crucial role in implementing environmental protection policies [73]. However, before 2015, Chinese environmental laws and procedures did not clearly define the powers and responsibilities of party secretaries in ecological protection. This has led to the “inversion of power and responsibility” in the environmental protection power pattern—the greater the power, the smaller the ecological responsibility. To promote the construction of ecological civilization and reverse the inversion of power and responsibility in environmental protection, General Secretary Xi Jinping noted at the 14th meeting of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform in July 2015 that it was important “to strengthen the environmental protection ‘co-responsibility of the communist party and the government’ and ‘one post, two duties’ requirements” [93]. The co-responsibility of the communist party and the government is to ensure that in ecological environment management, the local party committee and government should bear the corresponding responsibility; the party committee and government should take the related political, disciplinary, or legal responsibility when they fail to perform their respective functions properly [94]. The promulgation of the Measures for the Accountability of Party and Government Leaders for Damage to the Ecological Environment (for Trial Implementation) will be above the county level party committees and their leading members in the environmental regulatory system provisions: township (town, street) party and government leading members of the ecological and environmental damage accountability, concerning the relevant requirements of this approach. Therefore, we believe that the scope of application of the party and government with responsibility should be extended to the township (town, street) party and government organs and their leading members). This is strengthening the responsibility of the ultimate party and government members in ecological environment and resource protection, as well as the co-responsibility of the communist party and the government for the environment, who provide the rule of law protection in the specific practices of environmental governance.

The RCS aligns with the co-responsibility of the communist party and the government requirements for ecological sustainable development. The central government’s regulations clarify the leadership responsibility of the party committee and government in the implementation of the RCS, build a responsibility system with the party and government leaders as the core, and include the leading members of the party committee and government who play a crucial role in local public governance in the RCS. The four provinces in the HRB appointed the secretary of the provincial party committee, the governor as chief river chiefs, and the local party and government leaders at all levels as principal river chiefs or river chiefs at the corresponding levels. In the context of co-responsibility of the communist party and the government, party committees and all levels of government are fully committed to promoting and supporting the implementation of the RCS. Higher-level party and government organizations, including the “first hands”, directly deploy the implementation of the RCS, which provides personnel, financial, and policy guarantees for the RCS, changing the previous “policy implementation is not moving” and “system implementation is not in place” situation. The RCS is successfully embedded in the co-responsibility of the communist party and the government requirement, making sure that the system can be implemented quickly at the local level. Furthermore, it is addressing the lack of systems in the local river and lake governance, circumvents the mutual shirking of responsibilities between departments in the past river and lake governance, and provides long-term institutional protection for grassroots river and lake governance. Zhou Bin, then secretary of the Wujin District Party Committee, had to solve the pollution problem in the Wujin Harbor River urgently as the river chief. He had to invest more than 7 million yuan in the “Clear Water Project”. He once confessed that the “first hands” have more resources at their disposal; therefore, the ability to regulate re-sources is more robust, and the body is thus more potent in promoting environmental protection work (this case is from the China Water Network: https://www.h2o-china.com/news/232956.html, accessed on 2 May 2022). There are many more examples like this in implementing China’s river chief system.

4.3. New Issues and Countermeasures of Watershed Governance in the Context of Embedded RCS

As mentioned previously, the RCS is embedded in China’s watershed governance in both spatial and institutional terms, changing the traditional Chinese river and lake governance model, and at the same time strengthening the holistic, systematic, and synergistic nature of watershed governance. The RCS is embedded in China’s environmental governance model, including the requirement of co-responsibility of the communist party and the government. This promotes rapid implementation of the RCS at the local level. It also ensures that the river chief system is a long-term mechanism to manage ecological governance and pushes China’s watershed governance to a new stage. However, there are still problems with the implementation of the RCS The first issue is that the RCS does not address the hierarchical and segmented governance model, and secondly, the legal system to enforce the rules of RCS is absent. The RCS thus has the characteristic of the rule of man—this constitutes an inherent tension in the river basin governance embedded in the RCS.

4.3.1. The RCS Causes the Re-Dividing of Watershed Governance

First, the RCS fails to solve regional division. Under the system, implementing the various river and lake governance policies mainly relies on the administrative authority of higher-level river chiefs to promote the performance of multiple tasks through the “pressure” transfer between levels. Under the executive jurisdiction of the higher-level river chiefs, a cross-administrative coordination mechanism for river and lake management can be established. Still, this coordination mechanism cannot meet the overall needs of river basin management, because the administrative authority of the upper-level river chiefs drives this mechanism. The upper and lower-level river chiefs focus more on their accountability to the higher level and complete the tasks deployed by the upper-level river chiefs while ignoring the horizontal collaboration among the same level river chiefs. This has led to a difficulty in inter-prefectural cooperation in river and lake management and the inability to create collaboration in the overall management of the river basin. At this stage, the system has formed a responsibility system of “provincial–municipal–county–township–village” within the scope of the province, and by strengthening the responsibility of river chiefs at all levels, the overall management of the watershed in the area is formed. However, the RCS lacks inter-provincial river and lake governance regulation, and no central river chief or basin river chief has been established. Although the Huaihe River Conservancy Commission issued the Rules of Procedure for the Communication and Consultation Mechanism of the Huaihe River Basin River and Lake Chief System in 2020 to build a platform for inter-regional collaboration between river and lake chiefs in the HRB, the Huaihe River Conservancy Commission itself is at a low level and cannot use administrative means to solve inter-provincial river and lake governance problems (although the Huaihe River Water Conservancy Commission is a dispatched agency of the Ministry of Water Resources in the Huaihe River Basin and Shandong Peninsula region, its administrative level is at the story of an entire department and bureau, with its counterpart being the chief river chief at the municipal level. Thus, its executive authority is not sufficient to resolve disputes over river and lake management between provinces in the basin). Hence, it is doubtful whether the collaboration mechanism will be effective in the future. Secondly, the RCS fails to solve the “fences” between river and lake management departments. The core of the implementation of the river system is to package the responsibility of river and lake management to the party and government officials at all levels and, through enhanced performance assessment, to focus the attention of government officials on river and lake management [95]. This does not mean that the river chief can replace the responsibilities of other water-related departments; the current operation of the RCS has not moved away from the hierarchical model and still follows the logic of the professional division of labor “according to the division of responsibilities, each in their way, each responsible for their own”. For example, in Anhui Province, the specific responsibilities of the 13 members of the provincial river chiefs’ conference are specified in detail, and a division of labor was adopted to promote cooperation. However, as Osborne and Gaebler (2006) state in Reinventing Government, “in highly complex societies with intertwined problems, a clear definition of authority is increasingly impotent” [96]. The complexity and holistic nature of watershed governance makes it challenging to achieve an apparent division of responsibilities. Overemphasizing the division of duties among departments will lead to a misunderstanding of the division of responsibilities, which is not conducive to cooperation among departments. In addition, the authority of the “first hands” of the party and government should be used to cultivate coordination and cooperation among water-related departments and in the system. Some scholars noted that the river and lake governance cooperation awareness and overall governance concepts of some departments are not strong and that the RCS and the department have little involvement. During the research on the RCS in Jiangsu province, scholars found that other water-related departments were suspected of transferring water management responsibilities to the water conservancy department, which is detrimental to the conflict-free development of the RCS [97].

The institutional reform of the MWR should include the reform of basin water conservancy committees and authorities into administrative units, giving them executive powers and raising their organizational levels. This will enable the water conservancy committees in each basin to play a coordinating role in dealing with cross-provincial river and lake management and use administrative means to improve the management efficiency. A basin-based RCS should be implemented. The MWR and the MEE should take the lead in organizing joint meetings of basin-based river chiefs to provide an effective platform for consultation on river and lake governance within the basin. Furthermore, a basin-based river chief office should be established to strengthen liaison with the provincial river chief offices and to coordinate and promote river and lake governance within the basin. Secondly, during the operation of the RCS, the role of the river chief meeting should be given attention. To avoid the river chief meeting becoming a “one person says” (yiyantang) (yiyantang means that the government or departmental leaders arbitrarily turn their will into “collective opinion” and “meeting decision” [98,99]), all departments should actively participate in significant decisions relating to river and lake management to set effective governance goals and to determine timeframes for these goals. All departments should cooperate to ensure the adequate allocation of resources to complete the set goals. Finally, we should strengthen the performance assessment of river chiefs relating to river and lake management, increase the appointment of competent people to improve river and lake management performance, institute dismissal and performance assessments, and change the previous practice of the “GDP-only” performance assessment of officials.

4.3.2. Dilemmas Exist in the Rule of Law of the RCS

From the above analysis, we can see that the operation of the RCS mainly relies on the authority of the bureaucratic organization. Still, according to Downs’s “law of diminishing control”, there is a loss of power in passing orders from one level to another, which leads to a weakened control of the organization by the top leaders [100]. River chiefs often must balance several incentives and compete with grassroots governments who often have more room for discretion. The result is the arbitrary performance of river chiefs. Through empirical testing, Shen and Jin (2018) found that compared to provincial and municipal river chiefs, county-level river chiefs do not produce significant performance in river and lake water pollution management [30]. River and lake management is a complex systemic project, and relying only on the decree of the river chief to promote governance is not desirable in the long run. Once the lack of legislation or control effects the performance of the river chief at the lower level, the RCS will not be effective. Additionally, there is a lack of specific legislation applicable to the river chief system. There is only Article 5 of the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, a party regulation, and a departmental ordinance at the national level to regulate the RCS. Still, the above rules are too general for the system, and the accountability mechanism is not sound, which does not form a good legal system. Secondly, at the local level, only six provinces and cities, such as Qinghai, Liaoning, and Jiangxi, have special legislation for the system. In contrast, the implementation of the RCS mainly relies on the work program of the river chief system issued by each province, which is only a local regulatory document and suffers from the level of effectiveness, the relative lack of coercive power, and the lack of normative factors. To change the system’s status, which relies heavily on the “rule of man” and the authority of the section, the rule of law must be promoted for it.

To solve this non-statutory limitation of RCS, it will be necessary to transform RCS into a rule of law system. First, RCS has been established nationwide, continuously improving during development from the initial authoritative decree to appoint river chiefs at all levels to the present river chief offices, meetings, and accounts. To regulate the construction of the RCS and give full play to its institutional advantages, the state should carry out special legislation standardizing and institutionalizing the system [26] within the confines of the development requirements as imposed by the rule of law. Secondly, the RCS legislative activities of the four provinces in the HRB should be coordinated and integrated. Water pollution management across the HRB, integrated basin management, and administrative area responsibility are very effective. An integrated management and operation model for RCS is thus critical for effective basin management. Differences in RCS legislation or slighter contradictory conditions surrounding vital issues will hinder the development of the RCS.

4.3.3. Lack of Participation of Multiple Subjects in the RCS

The construction of the RCS in the HRB is still bound by the administrative system and unilaterally promoted by government power; however, the integrated river basin management should be a model of cooperation and supervision based on consultation and dialog among the multiple participating subjects as opposed to being ordered from the top-down, thus opposing the unilateral decision-making model [101,102]. There are numerous enterprises in the HRB playing a pivotal role in the local economic development and environmental degradation. Enterprises in the basin that may be polluting the waterways should be under the supervision of river chiefs. They are relying on large data platforms to establish early warning mechanisms and share information when the discharge exceeds standards. This should also guide the development of energy-saving environmental protection and pollution control for industries across the watershed to promote green industry development.

The lack of public participation is a significant limitation identified in the HRB’s RCS. First, the HRB has not established a comprehensive information-sharing platform; thus, the public is not receiving information promptly, as is their right. Second, the communication channel between the river chief and the public is insufficient, and the public’s concerns are not always reflected in water environment management policies. Based on field research, Hu et al. (2021) found that 77% of the public did not participate in the RCS [103]. Lastly, the public’s right to speak and make informed decisions is not always taken seriously. The public is affected directly by environmental pollution and should thus be allowed to actively participate in environmental management issues and decisions. Accordingly, an information sharing and feedback platform for the public monitoring of the RCS across the HRB should be developed. At the same time, the river chief should guide public representatives to participate in the “joint meeting of river chiefs” during decision making on essential matters.

In recent years, domestic environmental organizations have evolved in China since focused attention has been given to environmental protection; however, there are residual weaknesses in the comprehensive holistic management of the HRB. For optimal ecological management of the HRB, ecological protection organizations can conduct third-party monitoring and disclose data to ensure that the public’s right to know is enforced. Furthermore, river chiefs should actively cooperate with ecological protection organizations to educate the public on environmental protection issues. Additionally, specific requirements can be set by the environmental organizations to address economic development and environmental management within the HRB, allowing for related policies to be introduced.

5. Conclusions

This review uses many data samples to show changes in water quality monitoring in the HRB from 2016 to 2020. The pollutant violin graph analysis shows that the water quality in the bay tends to have improved after the complete implementation of the RCS in the HRB. To answer the question “Why does the river manager system make the water quality in the HRB better?”, this review analyzes and discusses how the RCS has changed the traditional river and lake management model in China with the assistance of the embeddedness theory. Implementing the RCS meets the requirements of the spatial integrity of river basin governance and strengthens inter-governmental and inter-departmental cooperation. At the same time, the system is embedded in the government-led environmental governance model, providing the impetus for implementing the plan. In addition, the system is in line with the requirement of the shared responsibility of the party and government in the development of ecological sustainability, which provides the internal motivation for the system’s effectiveness. This review also explains the system’s shortcomings under spatial embeddedness and institutional embeddedness and proposes specific solutions. This paper focuses on how the RCS achieves the effectiveness of watershed governance through spatial embeddedness and institutional embeddedness and thus excludes the examination of the river chief system in terms of other aspects of the embedding theory. The RCS is an innovation of the Chinese government in river and lake management that provides a good model for other countries to explore collaborative river basin management.