Study on benefits evaluation of water diversion project: Case study in water transfer from the Yangtze River to Lake Taihu

To resolve the uneven distribution of water resources and the imbalance between water demand and water supply in Taihu Basin, the Yangtze River to Lake Taihu water transfer (YTWTP) project has been built since 2002. It is considered as a necessary measure to insure the water supply of Taihu basin. For the prospective development of the YTWTP, the comprehensive benefits of the YTWTP were evaluated in this paper. Presently, many studies focus on the intergraded water resources management and the improvement of water environment after water diversion. There are fewer studies on comprehensive benefits evaluation of water diversion. Thus, in this paper, an evaluation framework for comprehensive benefits evaluation of water diversion project was constructed. It was contained of several quantitative methods. The water diversion in 2011 of the YTWTP was selected as the evaluation object. Both the direct and indirect benefits were calculated. It was shown that the comprehensive benefit came to 9.9379 billion yuan. Among them, the direct benefits reached 9.4189 billion yuan, the rest were the indirect benefits. Based on the integrated evaluation framework, the evaluation results indicated that the YTWTP has brought significant benefits on the intake area of Taihu basin. It can be considered as a reference on benefits evaluation of other water transfer projects.