More grain in the North China Plain with less water consumed: a response to Chris Perry

摘要

In his letter defending Frederiksen and Allen (2011) against the critique by Gleick et al. (2011) in the area of water accounting, Chris Perry (2012) pointed to our article "Less Water, More Grain in Dry Hebei Province, China" (Jia et al. 2011) as an example of failing to do "traditional" water accounting properly. He was particularly worried that our conclusion that "there is little need for concern about a grain production crisis induced by water shortage" would divert the authorities in North China from the proper path of reducing water consumption through controlling evapotranspiration. To make his case, he cited a study involving Professor Liu Changming, a distinguished member of my institute, using twentieth-century data from Luancheng County in Hebei (Kendy et al. 2003).