Measurement on the border effect of transboundary water resources: A case study of China´s Zhanghe basin

Due to the difference of resource endowment, social and economic development, interests appeal and decisions, etc., the impact of administrative border on unified management of basin is very remarkable. So in fact, the main goal to realize unified management is to break administrative border and to realize coordinated development of cross-regional water resources. In this paper, taking Zhanghe basin as an example, and Zhanghe basin is the place where the conflict of water resources is very serious. Barro regression and gravity model are used to measure border effect in the process of unified management, and to explore the impact of administrative border on unified management of transboundary water resources. The result shows: there are remarkable border effects in the process of unified management about water resources in Zhanghe basin, especially the border effects between Shanxi and Henan, Shanxi and Hebei. With the changing form of conflict of water resources, border effects show the rising trend. Finally, some suggestions are proposed to decrease the impact of border effect on conflict of water resources, such as clearing the initial water rights, strengthening unified management of basin, building coordinated organization of water resources and elevating public engagement.