Study On Regulation Of Urban Drinking Water Safety In China

China is a country with rich water resource.However,it is identified by the United Nation as a country short of water in consideration of insufficient occupancy volume per capita: it is only one quarter of the world standard.Besides,the uneven distribution of water resource in time and space and the excessive density of urban population aggravate the water shortage in China.According to statistics,there are more than 100 cities in China suffering from serious water shortage.Meanwhile,China is also facing the serious problem of drinking water pollution.The double threat of water resource shortage and water pollution increased the cost of developing an ecological civilization society in China.With the advancement of urbanization and the increase of urban population,the need for urban water is increasingly urgent.The pressure of pollution brought by economic development on water resource is also increasing.It is particularly significant to ensure the safety and adequate supply of drinking water through effective regulatory measures.In view of the development of ecological civilization society and water demand of residents,Chinese government has always attached great importance to the regulation of urban drinking water safety.The prominent problems of water shortage and drinking water safety also put forward higher requirements for government regulation.However,there are still a variety of problems in urban drinking water safety regulation at current situation in China,such as incomplete laws and regulations system,overlapping functions of regulatory bodies,poor communication between regulatory agencies,imperfect surveillance and enforcement system of water quality and ineffective social supervision.It has important practical significance to improve the top-level design of urban drinking water safety legislation,promote innovative regulation mechanism system to solve the inefficiency caused by overlapping regulatory agencies,and set up an integrated regulatory operation mode from water source to secondary water supply from a view of system as a whole to meet the increasing drinking water requirements of urban residents.This paper explores following theoretical issues with the view of the laws,regulatory agencies,regulatory policies and regulatory objects represented by water supply enterprises as an organic regulatory system:(1)Based on the theory of new institutional economics and relevant theories,this paper analyses the shortcomings of the system and the causes of the imbalance between supply and demand of the institution in the regulation of drinking water safety,and puts forward that the dynamic balance between supply and demand of the institution can be achieved by promoting the innovation of the regulation system.(2)Drawing lessons from regulation capture theory and incentive regulation theory,this paper constructs an evolutionary game model to analyze the decentralization problems of horizontal regulatory authorities and vertical regulatory agencies at different levels,and proposes to optimize the allocation of regulatory powers and enhance incentives to regulators to prevent regulatory capture.(3)Based on complex adaptive system theory,this paper constructs an integrated urban drinking water operation mode from source to tap,including water source,public water supply and secondary water supply.Through the analysis of the above theoretical issues,this paper aims to explore the reform direction of urban drinking water safety regulation in China,improve the ability of urban drinking water safety governance,and enhance the performance of drinking water safety regulation.Following the above research framework,this paper firstly defines the urban drinking water safety regulation system as an organic consisting of regulatory laws,regulatory subjects,regulatory policy measures and regulatory objects.Based on this identification,this paper pays much attention on analysis of weakness existing in regulatory system of urban drinking water safety and also explains the the problems of imbalance of urban drinking water regulation.On this basis,this paper put forwards the targeted solution taking advantages of leading of government-driven mandatory institutional innovation and assist of induced institutional innovation involved by businesses and individuals to deal with many institutional defects in the regulatory of drinking water safety.Regulatory laws is the basic requirement of modern regulatory institution and the premise of effective regulation.Based on the analysis of laws and regulations of drinking water safety in China,this paper points out the problems of laws shortcomings and incomplete and unsystematic laws and regulations of drinking water safety.On this basis,the top-level design of urban drinking water safety legal protection is proposed based on "one law and four regulations".With "one law and four regulations" as the core,to gradually improve the system of laws and regulations of drinking water safety to provide a basic legal guarantee for the whole-process regulatory of drinking water safetyRegulatory agencies is the implementer of drinking water safety regulation,regulatory performance is largely depended on the effectiveness of regulatory system design.Based on the existing institutional settings and rights allocation model of urban drinking water safety regulation in China,this paper points out the defects of the current regulatory system and analyses the strategies of the regulators at different levels or at the same administrative level.After that,this paper puts forward the reform path of regulation system by clarifying the responsibility of regulation agencies,strengthening information disclosure,guiding enterprise self-regulation and social co-governance.Evaluation system of regulatory performance is an important driving force to ensure the self-improvement and self-promotion of government regulatory system.This paper analyzes the regulatory system of drinking water safety,and standard assessment,then evaluates the comprehensive regulatory performance.Based on the empirical analysis of the performance of drinking water safety with the data of national urban water regulation and inspection,it is found that there are still systemic risks such as serious water source pollution,high leakage rate of pipe network and secondary contamination of water supply.Based on the analysis of the problems and causes found in the performance evaluation,this paper puts forward the policy suggestions on improving the regulatory performance of urban drinking water safety with establishment of scientific regulatory performance evaluation method,strengthening the performance evaluation of urban government to guarantee drinking water safety,and strengthening the construction of safety regulatory liability mechanism as the core.In essence,city is supposed to pursue systematic safety rather than partial safety.Ensuring urban drinking water safety and effective government regulation must be based on a well micro-organizational structure of urban drinking water.Based on analysis of the composition and characteristics of the urban water system,this paper focuses on the analysis of safety risks caused by the restructuring of the non-integrated structure in the market-oriented reform of China’s urban water system,and proposes that the integrated regulation and operation mode should be adopted with the direction of "vertical integration and horizontal separation".Finally,the paper puts forward the necessary reform of integration model.