Recently, the national standard of Guidelines for Rivers and Lakes Happiness Evaluation－Part 1: Rivers with a watershed of 3000 km2 or less” (hereinafter as the Evaluation Standard), formulated by Ministry of Water Resources of China, was officially released by the National Standardization Administration and will be fully implemented on May 1, 2026. It is the first time that China issued a national standard for rivers and lakes happiness evaluation, setting an authoritative national standard baseline for the systematic governance of small and medium-sized rivers and the improvement of people’s livelihood across the country.
Opinions on Comprehensively Promoting the Protection and Governance of Rivers unveiled in June 2025 requires to fully leverage the role of the river and lake chief system and comprehensively promote the development of rivers and lakes happiness. The newly-released Evaluation Standard specifically focuses on small and medium-sized rivers with a watershed of 3,000 km2 or less, which account for more than 90% of the total number of rivers in China. These rivers are distributed throughout both urban and rural areas, serving as the lifeline for agricultural irrigation and urban water supply, providing places for residents’ leisure and contributing to the ecological landscape stability of rural areas. For a long time, due to their scattered distribution and regional variations, small and medium-sized rivers in China have lacked unified and clear evaluation criteria in the dimensions of flood control, ecological restoration, cultural heritage, public services, among others. The Evaluation Standard transforms “happiness” from an abstract feeling into a specific indicator system that can be quantified and implemented for the first time. It establishes a comprehensive indicator system comprising 5 first-level criteria of safety, health, beauty, culture and development, and these are further broken down into 14 second-level indicators, including flood control compliance rate, drainage compliance rate, dual-control of total water use and intensity, etc. Besides, the Evaluation Standard specifies the rule for valuing the rivers and lakes happiness index, the process of evaluation result formation, the requirement for preparing evaluation reports, etc. Apparently, this provides a clear “happiness benchmark” for localities to implement river and lake protection and governance.
In the next phase, Ministry of Water Resources of China will unveil Parts 2 and 3 of the Evaluation Standard, which will be oriented on rivers and lakes with a catchment of more than 3,000 km2. Ultimately, this will form a comprehensive evaluation system for rivers and lakes across the country, rendering a solid standard support for building up a Beautiful China and achieving high-quality river basin development, and facilitating the protection and governance of China’s rivers and lakes towards a new journey of high-quality development where ecology and people’s livelihood are mutually beneficial.
Source: INTCE