Total water resources
27,229.3MWR · 2025 ↗
×100 million m³ · 2025
Energy, environment and green transition · water
Water resources and use
In 2025, China reported 27,229.3 ×100 million m³ of water resources and 5,944.5 ×100 million m³ of total water use. Resource availability moves with precipitation and runoff, while water use is more stable; the two are not the same concept.
Total water use
5,944.5
×100 million m³ · 2025
Agricultural share
61.97%
Same-year agriculture ÷ total use
Unconventional supply share
4.32%
Published 2025 category
The central definition boundary
Resources, supplied water, water use and consumptive use are different measuresTotal water resources are an annual hydrological resource evaluation, not reservoir storage or immediately usable stock. Total water use is an accounting flow, not water permanently removed from the hydrological cycle.
Do not calculate this
Surface-water resources + all groundwater resources
Reconcile with surface water + non-overlapping groundwater ≈ total
2014—2025
Total water resources and total water use
Both series use the same unit and a zero baseline. Resources fluctuate much more than use, but annual resources are not all immediately available for supply.
Source: MWR · 2014 ↗ · MWR · 2015 ↗ · MWR · 2016 ↗ · MWR · 2017 ↗ · MWR · 2018 ↗ · MWR · 2019 ↗ · MWR · 2020 ↗ · MWR · 2021 ↗ · MWR · 2022 ↗ · MWR · 2023 ↗ · MWR · 2024 ↗ · MWR · 2025 ↗ · Annual China Water Resources Bulletins; resources are hydrological evaluations and use is an accounting flowchinainfigures.com
Use by sector
Agriculture remains the largest use category
The four stacked categories reconcile to total use. Artificial ecological replenishment is human-allocated water, not total natural ecological demand.
Source: MWR · 2014 ↗ · MWR · 2015 ↗ · MWR · 2016 ↗ · MWR · 2017 ↗ · MWR · 2018 ↗ · MWR · 2019 ↗ · MWR · 2020 ↗ · MWR · 2021 ↗ · MWR · 2022 ↗ · MWR · 2023 ↗ · MWR · 2024 ↗ · MWR · 2025 ↗ · The four categories reconcile to total use within bulletin roundingchinainfigures.com
Supply sources
The third supply category has three definition segments
The bulletin reports “other water” in 2014–2021, a transition “other (unconventional)” label in 2022, and “unconventional water” from 2023. The chart keeps three discontinuous series.
Source: MWR · 2014 ↗ · MWR · 2015 ↗ · MWR · 2016 ↗ · MWR · 2017 ↗ · MWR · 2018 ↗ · MWR · 2019 ↗ · MWR · 2020 ↗ · MWR · 2021 ↗ · MWR · 2022 ↗ · MWR · 2023 ↗ · MWR · 2024 ↗ · MWR · 2025 ↗ · Legacy, transition and later third-source labels are not silently splicedchinainfigures.com
Water-use intensity and irrigation efficiency
Current-price intensity declines are not purely technical efficiency gains
GDP and industrial-value-added water intensity use current-price denominators, so price and economic structure affect the trend. The irrigation measure is a 0–1 coefficient, not a percentage.
Source: MWR · 2014 ↗ · MWR · 2015 ↗ · MWR · 2016 ↗ · MWR · 2017 ↗ · MWR · 2018 ↗ · MWR · 2019 ↗ · MWR · 2020 ↗ · MWR · 2021 ↗ · MWR · 2022 ↗ · MWR · 2023 ↗ · MWR · 2024 ↗ · MWR · 2025 ↗ · Intensity values use current prices; irrigation is a coefficientchinainfigures.com
Per-capita measures
Comprehensive and domestic use are not interchangeable
Comprehensive use covers all uses. The national domestic-use series starts in 2021; earlier urban and rural measures have different scopes and are not spliced into it.
Source: MWR · 2014 ↗ · MWR · 2015 ↗ · MWR · 2016 ↗ · MWR · 2017 ↗ · MWR · 2018 ↗ · MWR · 2019 ↗ · MWR · 2020 ↗ · MWR · 2021 ↗ · MWR · 2022 ↗ · MWR · 2023 ↗ · MWR · 2024 ↗ · MWR · 2025 ↗ · Comprehensive use uses m³/person; domestic use uses litres/person/daychinainfigures.com
Annual exact values
Resources, use and supply
| Year | Resources | Total use | Agriculture | Industry | Domestic | Ecological | Surface supply | Groundwater supply | Third source | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 27,266.9 | 6,095.0 | 3,869.0 | 1,356.0 | 767.0 | 103.0 | 4,921.0 | 1,117.0 | 57.0 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2015 | 27,962.6 | 6,103.2 | 3,852.2 | 1,334.8 | 793.5 | 122.7 | 4,969.5 | 1,069.2 | 64.5 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2016 | 32,466.4 | 6,040.2 | 3,768.0 | 1,308.0 | 821.6 | 142.6 | 4,912.4 | 1,057.0 | 70.8 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2017 | 28,761.2 | 6,043.4 | 3,766.4 | 1,277.0 | 838.1 | 161.9 | 4,945.5 | 1,016.7 | 81.2 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2018 | 27,462.5 | 6,015.5 | 3,693.1 | 1,261.6 | 859.9 | 200.9 | 4,952.7 | 976.4 | 86.4 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2019 | 29,041.0 | 6,021.2 | 3,682.3 | 1,217.6 | 871.7 | 249.6 | 4,982.5 | 934.2 | 104.5 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2020 | 31,605.2 | 5,812.9 | 3,612.4 | 1,030.4 | 863.1 | 307.0 | 4,792.3 | 892.5 | 128.1 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2021 | 29,638.2 | 5,920.2 | 3,644.3 | 1,049.6 | 909.4 | 316.9 | 4,928.1 | 853.8 | 138.3 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2022 | 27,088.1 | 5,998.2 | 3,781.3 | 968.4 | 905.7 | 342.8 | 4,994.2 | 828.2 | 175.8 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2023 | 25,782.5 | 5,906.5 | 3,672.4 | 970.2 | 909.8 | 354.1 | 4,874.7 | 819.5 | 212.3 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2024 | 31,123.0 | 5,928.0 | 3,648.4 | 971.0 | 926.8 | 381.8 | 4,892.4 | 784.0 | 251.6 | Bulletin ↗ |
| 2025 | 27,229.3 | 5,944.5 | 3,683.8 | 953.7 | 936.6 | 370.4 | 4,914.1 | 773.8 | 256.6 | Bulletin ↗ |
Efficiency and per-capita exact values
Measures kept in separate units
| Year | Comprehensive m³/person | Domestic L/person/day | Residential L/person/day | GDP intensity m³ | Industrial intensity m³ | Irrigation coefficient |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 447 | — | — | 96.0 | 59.5 | 0.530 |
| 2015 | 445 | — | — | 90.0 | 58.3 | 0.536 |
| 2016 | 438 | — | — | 81.0 | 52.8 | 0.542 |
| 2017 | 436 | — | — | 73.0 | 45.6 | 0.548 |
| 2018 | 432 | — | — | 66.8 | 41.3 | 0.554 |
| 2019 | 431 | — | — | 60.8 | 38.4 | 0.559 |
| 2020 | 412 | — | — | 57.2 | 32.9 | 0.565 |
| 2021 | 419 | 176 | — | 51.8 | 28.2 | 0.568 |
| 2022 | 425 | 176 | 125 | 49.6 | 24.1 | 0.572 |
| 2023 | 419 | 177 | 125 | 46.9 | 24.3 | 0.576 |
| 2024 | 421 | 180 | 127 | 43.9 | 24.0 | 0.580 |
| 2025 | 423 | 182 | — | 42.4 | 22.9 | 0.583 |
Groundwater overlap
Do not add all groundwater to surface water
Groundwater resources include overlap with surface water. Reconcile the official total with surface water plus the non-overlapping groundwater component.
Current-price intensity
42.4 m³
The 2025 GDP water-use intensity uses a current-price denominator; not all decline is pure technical water saving.
International boundary
No cross-country ranking
FAO AQUASTAT long-term renewable-resource and withdrawal indicators do not match MWR annual resource, supply and use accounting.
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Water resources and use local candidate
Added 2014-2025 Ministry of Water Resources annual resource, use, supply and efficiency series with 214 official values and 84 transparent derived shares. Legacy and later supply labels remain separate.
Related sources: Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China ↗ · China Government Network, reproducing Ministry of Water Resources bulletin data ↗
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed
Data downloads and revision timeline added
Added page-level formal-data CSV files, chart-level CSV/PNG/SVG exports and a bilingual revision timeline to all indicator pages.
Sources and definitions registered; automated checks passed