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Have Water Conservancy Project Resettlers in Contemporary China Really Been Lifted Out of Poverty? Re-Measurement Based on Relative Poverty and Consumption Poverty

Author

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  • Ziheng Shangguan

    (School of Business, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China)

  • Jianping Liu

    (School of Business, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China)

  • Mark Yaolin Wang

    (School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
    Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia)

  • Shaojun Chen

    (School of Public Administration, National Research Centre for Resettlement, Hohai University, Nanjing 211100, China)

  • Ruilian Zhang

    (Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia)

Abstract

Those who have been forced to resettle by water conservancy projects (WCP) have always been a group that is characterised by high poverty and livelihood vulnerability, mainly due to insufficient compensation and the fragmentation of their social networks. In 2020, the Chinese government announced that China had achieved comprehensive poverty alleviation, implying that all WCP-induced resettlers, have been lifted out of poverty. However, China’s current poverty line is based on the minimum subsistence standard, namely the absolute poverty line, which fails to objectively reflect China’s uneven development and individuals’ actual consumption needs. Therefore, in order to comprehensively analyse the poverty status of WCP-induced resettlers in contemporary China, this paper reassessed the poverty status of contemporary WCP-induced resettlers from the perspective of development-based poverty and consumption-based poverty. Based on survey data from over 1000 households who were forced to resettle due to China’s ‘Yangtze River to Huai River Inter-basin Water Diversion’ project, this paper concludes that: (1) China’s current absolute poverty line is outdated for contemporary WCP-induced resettlers, due to the fact they had basically been lifted out of absolute poverty by 2018, and those who remain poor need to be addressed through the bottom line guarantee of local governments; (2) the role of land as a form of basic insurance can alleviate income inequality and mitigate the risk of force majeure. Therefore, those resettled from rural areas have stronger income stability and greater resilience to risks; (3) the poverty status of contemporary WCP-induced resettlers is mainly consumption-based, and it is worse for resettlers from urban areas. Based on these conclusions, we suggest that the government should try to avoid large-scale relocation of WCP-induced resettlers to urban areas, and try to provide more insurances to them, such as providing arable land and sharing the benefits of water conservancy projects with the resettlers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ziheng Shangguan & Jianping Liu & Mark Yaolin Wang & Shaojun Chen & Ruilian Zhang, 2023. "Have Water Conservancy Project Resettlers in Contemporary China Really Been Lifted Out of Poverty? Re-Measurement Based on Relative Poverty and Consumption Poverty," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:1:p:169-:d:1024776
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Yu Lu & Ziheng Shangguan, 2023. "Reassessing Resettlement-Associated Poverty Induced by Water Conservancy Projects in China: Case Study of the “Yangtze to Huai River Inter-Basin” Water Diversion Project," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-17, June.
    2. Zhi Qiu & Yi Hua & Binwei Yun & Zhu Wang & Yi Zhou, 2023. "Public Space Planning in Urban Resettlement Community in China: Addressing Diverse Needs of Rural Migrants through Function Programming Based on Architectural Planning Theory," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-26, July.

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