PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID)
CONCEPT STAGE
Report No.: AB3306
Project Name
Region
Sector
Project ID
Borrower(s)
Implementing Agency
Environment Category
Date PID Prepared
Estimated Date of
Appraisal Authorization
Estimated Date of Board
Approval
CN Qinghai Xining Flood Control
EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
Flood protection (70%);Irrigation and drainage (30%)
P101829
MINISTRY OF FINANCE, CHINA
[X] A [ ] B [ ] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined)
September 6, 2007
June 16, 2008
October 30, 2008
1. Key development issues and rationale for Bank involvement
1.1
The Xining Municipal Government has made considerable investment to-date on flood
control works on the main courses of Huangshu, Nan Chuan and Beichuan Rivers, covering
about 24.5km of river courses. However, the investment has not been able to keep pace with the
rapidly developing city and surrounding rural counties, which continue to face serious adverse
impacts from flooding. Works remaining to be modernized suffer from low flood protection
design standards (1:30 year return period) relative to the current planned or actual level of
development in the urban and peri-urban areas of the Municipality. The ageing infrastructure
has had inadequate maintenance over time, resulting in the infrastructure functioning below
capacity. Previous investment has had a strong emphasis on infrastructure for flood control and
little on the management of flood events, (e.g. forecasting, flood warning systems) thus lessening
the mitigation impact of the infrastructure investment). The 11th five-year plan for water
resources development (WRD) for Xining Municipality states that "the changes should be made
from controlling flood events to managing flood events by the integration of structural and
nonstructural measures……”. The Xining Municipal Flood Control Plan (1999) identifies that
nonstructural measures are very important for the development of an integrated flood control and
management system. However, the efforts by the Municipality so far still focus on structural
level investment only.
1.2
There is also a profound issue surrounding the ineffective “top down” approach to the
sustainable management of the watersheds draining through the Municipality. The soil erosion
in gullies/watersheds of the three upstream counties in the proposed project area is severe with
about 70% of the total land eroded to at least a moderate degree (erosion modulus varying from
5000–8000 ton/km2//annum). The soil erosion and watershed degradation are being caused by
many factors, including high intensity seasonal rains, steep slopes, errodible soils, semi-arid
climate, geological instability, and other factors, such as unsuitable land uses and inappropriate
land management practices (farming on steep grades, free grazing and over stocking etc). This
situation: (i) contributes to higher flood peaks, significant silt loads and the associated
deterioration of water quality; (ii) increases damages caused by soil erosion and silt deposition in
rivers and areas flooded; and (iii) results in negative social, economic and ecologic
consequences.
1.3
A third issue is that domestic and industrial pollution entering the river systems, which
also contributes to serious water quality deterioration within the Municipality, is causing risks to
both public health when rivers flood and to the riverine aesthetics, particularly in urban areas.
Like flood protection, the rapid expansion and industrialization of the Municipality, including the
three surrounding rural counties has meant that effort by the XMG to control water quality, as
part of an integrated approach to managing its water resources has fallen short. Existing treat
capacity has been or is planned to be built by others as it the provision of reticulation systems.
What is missing is the construction of the collector systems to link the reticulation systems and
the industries to the treatment facilities in order to complete the sewerage systems and have an
impact on water quality.
1.4
Therefore, the Qinghai Provincial government plans to utilize a World Bank loan to
address the above three core issues and to speed up the completion of a fully integrated flood
control and management system to deliver a higher level of protection of life and property.
1.5
The proposed project is also well aligned with the Bank’s overall poverty reduction goals.
The project area is within one of the poorest Provinces in China and would encompass two
nationally designated poverty Counties (Huangzhong and Datong) and a designated Provincial
Poverty county (Huangyuan).
1.6
The identification mission (September 2007) found that flood control and protection
works completed to date focused on infrastructure construction only. In addition, government
funded programs for sustained watershed management have been only partially successful
because the current “top down” approach results in virtually no participatory involvement of
communities in the watersheds. Bank involvement in this project for the flood control and
management investment would allow a more balanced approach that would focus on both
structural as well as non-structural measures to maximize the benefit of the engineering works to be
constructed. For the proposed sustainable Watershed management component, a new
participatory approach, involving the affected communities would be developed using the Bank’s
knowledge and expertise from similar successful interventions in China. The project also
provides an excellent opportunity to bring the lessons of experience from other parts of the China
and the world to a province where there has been virtually no Bank engagement so far.
1.7
To this end, the Bank has been or is currently involved in a number of relevant projects,
both within China1 and internationally, which provide excellent lessons of experience that could
support this initiative. The Bank’s involvement would allow the use of experience, particularly
in development of nonstructural measures, as well as introduction of international technical
The on-going Yangtze Dikes Strengthening Project – P064730 and the Huai Basin Flood Control and Drainage
Improvement Project – P098078, Programs and projects in support of river basin management and provincial
agencies and approaches for water resources and watershed/catchment management - GEF Hai Basin Integrated
Water and Environment Management Project – P075035, the completed Second Loess Plateau Watershed
Rehabilitation Project – P056216, the on-going DfID funded Watershed Management Program – P056216, and the
Changjiang/Pearl River Watershed Project –P081255.
1
assistance, new technology, materials and construction methods. The project would also ensure
that adequate attention is given to sustainability issues at the project design stage, including
institutional reform involving both top-down infrastructure management and a bottom-up,
participatory approach to enhance O&M of the investments made.
1.8
The proposal project is very much aligned with the Bank’s current Country Partnership
Strategy (CPS 2006-2010) in that it will, if successful address poverty reduction, inequality and
social exclusion as well as the sustainable management of natural resources and the
environmental challenges within the project area. In addition, the Country Water Resources
Assistance Strategy (CWRAS-2002) identifies flood protection and watershed management as
critical areas for the Bank to support through both structural measures (infrastructure
construction) and nonstructural measures (institutional capacity building, river basin
management, flood warning and disaster assessment systems, participatory approaches, and
O&M The added value of a Bank funded intervention will be to include those non- structural
activities in the project such as a flood warning system, community management of small
watersheds, and sustainable O&M of flood assets created. This integrated approach is consistent
with the existing Municipal strategies, objectives and policies. The NDRC has given its support
to the Project and it has been included in the World Bank lending program with a tentative Board
delivery date in Q2 FY09. A Bank Loan of US$100 million is proposed, with a planned
implementation period of 5 years.
1.9
Borrower Commitment to the Project. The identification mission found a very high
level of commitment by the Qinghai Provincial government and the Xining Municipal and
County level governments. The mission was also very impressed with the high level of
preparedness by the Xining Municipal and County staff involved in project preparation. The
Province has had little or no experience with the World Bank, but conveyed to the mission a
strong willingness to cooperate with the Bank. The Xining Municipal officials and staff have
given a commitment to engage, or have already engaged, qualified consultants satisfactory to the
Bank to prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment, a Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) and a
separate Social Assessment. Because of general inexperience of the project staff with Bank
processes and requirements, however, the Bank team will need to invest more time and effort in
training and capacity building during project preparation. However, enhanced Bank involvement
would be a good investment and provide added value, keeping in mind future opportunities for
Bank engagement in the Province.
2. Proposed objective(s)
The Project Development Objectives (PDOs) would be to reduce the impact of flooding and
enhance the management of critical watersheds, thus protecting human life and property within
Xining Municipality2.
2
Notes:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Watersheds by definition include rivers and gullies both big and small.
Xining Municipality includes Xining City itself and three surrounding rural counties
Enhanced management will be delivered through institutional capacity building and establishment of community-based
participatory management.
The expected outcomes are:
3. Preliminary description
3.1
The Project would deliver the PDOs through a combination of both structural (flood
control infrastructure) and non-structural (software) investments. The structural investment
would (i) fund the rehabilitation/modernization and strengthening of works for flood protection
and control systems (dikes, waterway improvements, pumping stations, bridges, water control
structures and access roads), in selected watersheds in the project area; and (ii) fund the
completion/extension of the waste water collection systems in key areas, as an important
environmental initiative aimed at improving the water quality in the rivers within the Xining
Municipality including the counties.
3.2
The non-structural activities:
(i) would bring about a bottom-up, participatory approach to sustainable watershed
management, through an initiative that would see the establishment of a new partnership
between the governments (City, District and County) and local communities. Based on
the successful experience in similar operations in China, the initiative would see the
establishment of watershed based community associations that would partner with
government to prepare and implement sustainable watershed management plans. Greater
community involvement would be developed through the establishment of a new
partnership between governments and the community and the creation of Water and Soil
Conservation Associations (WSCA). The concept is that these new community
organizations would assume responsibility for the planning and implementation of a
sustainable watershed conservation plan for their particular area and based on principle of
the community leading the planning and implementation process with the relevant
government agencies, supplemented by technical assistance were necessary. The project
would typically fund the external technical assistance, all small works (e.g. silt control
structures, waterway improvements and erosion control, catchment treatment activities,
access culverts, fencing, livelihoods activities to off set land use restrictions -e.g. animal
husbandry).
(ii) top down measures would seek to enhance the flood management of the main river
systems, through capacity building of the Xining Flood Control and Drought Relief
Office (FC&DRO), thus establishing continuity of flood operations under the well
performing FC&DR offices at Provincial and Central levels; (iii) bring about further
reductions to the impact of flooding on human life and property, through the development
of flood forecasting and warning systems, as well as emergency preparedness plans. The
development of these systems for the Municipality would provide the continuity link to
the flood forecasting and warning systems at the provincial level and in turn be linked to
the flood forecasting and warning system at the River Basin Level through the Yellow
River Basin Commission (YRBC) and at national level, through Ministry of Water
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
Protection of life and property for an estimated XXX million people
Strengthening of municipal, county and community institutions to operate, maintain and manage the flood-control and
watershed management responsibilities assigned;
Improved water quality of receiving rivers
Resources and the national FC&DRO; and (iv) the non-structural measures would also
include activities to strengthen operations and maintenance (O&M) of the flood control
assets through capacity building and training.
3.3
Options. The options considered for the project were: (i) a traditional approach
involving only a top-down approach using government institutions funding only structural
activities; or (ii) in addition to (i) above, the inclusion of non-structural activities such as flood
management, forecasting, mitigation and for the management of operations and maintenance
(O&M) of flood control assets and a focus on the sustainability aspects of the investments; (iii) a
community driven, participatory approach that would focus on watershed management only,
involving greater community participation in the management of lower level works and the land
use of the watersheds.
3.4
Therefore the traditional or piece meal options (i)-(iii) above have been rejected in favor
of a more integrated approach, involving a balance of both structural and non-structural measures
and a combination of top down, bottom up, participatory approaches to flood and watershed
management.
4. Safeguard policies that might apply
The initial assessment is that Environmental Assessment (OP4.01), Involuntary Resettlement
(OP4.12) and Safety of Dams (OP4.37) will apply. The applicability of Indigenous Peoples (OP
4.10) and Physical Cultural Resources (OP4.11) remains to be determined.
5. Tentative financing
Source:
Borrower
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Total
6. Contact point
Contact: Geoffrey Spencer
Title: Sr Irrigation Engineer
Tel: (202) 458-2642
Fax:
Email: Gspencer@worldbank.org
($m.)
88
100
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