The role of the Yangtze River Protection Law in the emergence of adaptive water governance in China

The Yangtze River Basin faces unprecedented challenges in harmonizing competing interests in its ecological and social systems. The central government of China, in response to the need for change in governance arrangements and cooperation, passed the Yangtze River Protection Law. It is China's first legislation at the basin scale and for a specific river basin. Ecological disturbances caused by industrial and other human activity, followed by political support for environmental protection, catalyzed the passage of this law. As the first tentative effort to regulate a complex and changing social-ecological system, it has incorporated multiple legal and institutional design principles identified in the adaptive governance and law scholarship: scaled approaches to social-ecological systems, cooperation to address geographical and sectoral fragmentation, and participatory capacity. These commonalities show that designs are fundamental to tackle geographic and sectoral fragmentation of complex systems and catalyze the emergence of adaptive water governance.