1. Introduction
The displacement and resettlement of re-settlers as a result of water conservancy projects (WCP) such as dam construction or inter-basin water transfer often lead to poverty. Because such projects affect large areas, numerous resettlement issues occur, such as those observed in association with the resettlement of 50,000 people when the Itaipu Dam, the world’s largest hydropower station was built [
1], and the relocation of approximately 120,000 people as a result of Aswan High Dam construction [
2]. China is home to many mega hydropower projects that have led to the relocation of many millions of people, including those forced to resettle due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project [
3,
4]. Displacement and resettlement have huge impacts on people [
5], with issues such as loss of farmland severely affects the household incomes impacting the livelihood of the dependents [
6]. Furthermore, the low compensation offered in many cases means that resettled people lack sufficient capital to build new houses, restore their capacity for production, and live at pre-displacement levels [
7]. Therefore, they often endure long-term poverty as a result of resettlement [
8].
The poverty of WCP-induced re-settlers is an urgent problem for the government. Since most resettlements generally occur due to water conservancy projects, the responsibility to mitigate and alleviate the poverty caused by such projects lies with the government [
9]; poverty alleviation includes both the duration over which a government is to perform its responsibilities and the amount of compensation offered [
10]. This is especially important because long-term impoverishment can lead to social instability [
11] and environmental degradation [
12]. To reduce WCP-induced poverty, the World Bank provides developing countries with special financial and technical assistance for relocation projects, allowing the formulation of better resettlement policies and post-resettlement action plans [
13]. Through the World Bank’s consistent efforts, these developing countries have gradually formed their own local compensation standards and allocation procedures [
14,
15,
16], helping resettled people to alleviate and eliminate poverty by restoring their livelihoods [
17,
18].
In China, the poverty of the WCP-induced re-settlers has gradually become a matter of concern for the central government. China’s early WCPs failed to address the poverty and livelihood restoration problems faced by the re-settlers. Until 1985, 60% of reservoir-induced re-settlers lived in poverty [
19]. To deal with the large scale of poverty induced by WCP, the State Council of China issued the first “Report on Quickly Dealing with Reservoir Resettlement Issues” in 1986. Several revisions led to the production of two important documents in 2006: (1) State Council Decree No. 471 (2006) on the land acquisition and resettlement compensation rules associated with large- and medium-scale hydraulic and hydropower projects and (2) Suggestions of the State Council No. 17 (2006) on the improvement of follow-on support for people affected by large- and medium-scale reservoirs. These decrees are aimed at preventing WCP-induced poverty by providing pre-resettlement compensation, resettlement subsidies, and follow-up support [
20]. The most influential factor responsible for improvements in China’s WCP poverty problem over the last seven years, Xi Jinping’s “Precise (Targted) Poverty Alleviation” campaign, was aimed at lifting 70 million Chinese people above the poverty line by 2020, and although WCP-induced re-settlers have benefitted from this program [
21], the poverty ratio of these people remains higher than that of the general population, and most remain in abject poverty [
22,
23]. Most re-settlers are poor because their former homes were located in remote rural areas, and resettlement sites are generally established in under developed regions. Additionally, lower rates of education and reliance on basic farming skills means that many struggle to transition to other livelihoods, if their land is reduced or they become landless following resettlement [
24,
25].
Currently, the poverty line in China is measured using the absolute income poverty method. The poverty line was initially set at a net income of 2300 RMB per year in 2011 (equivalent to US
$ 1/day), and the figure is adjusted yearly according to the consumer price index (CPI) in each province [
26]. However, compared with the World Bank poverty line (US
$ 1.9/day), China’s standards are relatively low [
27]. In addition, measuring poverty from the perspective of absolute income alone cannot reflect the overall income gap or the potential benefits of any social development or poverty alleviation policies [
28]. Xu et al. (2019) recommended that China adopt the relative income poverty method to accurately measure the poverty of WCP-induced re-settlers, as this method is useful for comparing the overall income gap among different resettlement groups [
29]. Wang et al. (2021) argued that the multidimensional poverty method could identify the main factors causing poverty and reflect the effects of policies [
30]. However, no research currently addresses the best way to measure China’s WCP poverty using both methods in tandem; no comprehensive analysis of WCP-associated poverty using multiple measurement models has as yet been performed. To comprehensively understand the current poverty levels of WCP-induced re-settlers and advise governments on their justification of compensation levels and assistance programs, multiple measurement models are required to evaluate the poverty of WCP-induced re-settlers.
In this study, the “Yangtze to Huai River inter-basin” water diversion project (YtoH Diversion) was considered as a case study and multiple poverty measurement methods were used to comprehensively analyze and interpret the poverty status and causes of poverty in China. The study contributes to the literature surrounding poverty alleviation for WCP-induced re-settlers in two ways. First, a multidimensional poverty framework suitable for China’s WCP-induced re-settlers was constructed based on the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (GMPI), which was published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Oxford University. Second, this framework was used to dynamically interpret the poverty status of re-settlers in the YtoH Diversion project.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
Section 2, based on a brief review of the poverty measurement related literature, provides a framework for multidimensional poverty analysis. The characteristics of the case study region, research methods, and data collection are described in
Section 3. The results are presented in
Section 4. The main research findings, proposes specific countermeasures for poverty alleviation under China’s current WCP-induced resettlement system are discussed in
Section 5, and conclusions drawn in
Section 6.
6. Conclusions
This study used multiple poverty measurement methods to reassess and dynamically interpret the poverty status of China’s WCP-induced re-settlers. The following conclusions were obtained: (1) Absolute poverty analysis indicates that China’s current absolute poverty standards are out of date for WCP-induced re-settlers because poverty is not eliminated through the bottom-line guarantees of local government. The current absolute poverty line does not sufficiently represent the different experiences and needs of the resettled poor. (2) Through relative poverty analysis, we found that rural re-settlers are more resilient to force majeure, as witnessed during the recent pandemic. The guarantee of employment and food supply through land ownership allows re-settlers to avoid the secondary destruction of their livelihoods. (3) Comparison of the results for income poverty (both absolute and relative) with those of multidimensional poverty indicates that worsening income poverty is universal for the resettled, whereas multidimensional poverty has generally improved. Therefore, measuring poverty in terms of income alone masks the potential benefits of mitigation processes such as social development programs and poverty alleviation policies.
Table A2 clearly shows that CSA, CM, NU, CF, AO, and SI for both urban and rural resettled children have all improved to varying degrees following resettlement, which is mainly due to better access to the relevant public, material, and information resources [
61]. However, the higher MPHR for urban and rural resettlement indicates that multidimensional poverty could still be improved. (4) Comparison of the APGI, RPGI, and MPGI indicates a comparatively small gap between absolute and relative income poverty, whereas the gap associated with multidimensional poverty is much larger. Therefore, reducing the multidimensional poverty gap should be the focus of poverty alleviation in the later stages. Accordingly, analysis of the different included factors indicates that the YS, NU, HS, SI, and HLF are most important and should be targets for future poverty alleviation efforts. In addition, in order to improve the livelihood resilience and resist secondary disasters caused by force majeure, a stable source of income for re-settlers is also necessary. To this end, we suggest that the government adopt a variety of compensation methods, such as: sharing the benefits of water conservancy projects, industrial support and improving the bottom line guarantee. Therefore, subsequent studies should consider how to reduce multidimensional poverty of the re-settlers through the above compensation methods. At the same time, more indicators can be included in the measurement of multidimensional poverty to better reflect poverty status.