Abstract:
Developing new quality productive forces in water conservancy is an intrinsic requirement and an important point of leverage for promoting high-quality development. A systematic exposition of the theoretical foundations, practical imperatives, and strategic pathways for cultivating new quality productive forces with system thinking is indispensable for deepening conceptual understanding and guiding praxis. As the fundamental guideline and action programme for cultivating new, high-quality productive forces in water-resource development, the water-management principle of “prioritizing water conservation, maintaining spatial equilibrium, adopting systematic governance, and leveraging both state and market forces” embodies historical materialist dialectics and the traditional Chinese holistic-systemic worldview, thereby possessing a profound systemic-philosophical foundation. Among its four pillars, “systematic governance” constitutes the methodological imperative that must be rigorously observed. Adhering to a systemic mode of thinking in the development of new-quality productive forces in water governance is not only an objective imperative for counteracting the systemic risks induced by contemporary water-related challenges, but also an intrinsic developmental requirement of these productive forces themselves, which constitute an “open complex giant system.” This necessity can be concretely analyzed along three systemic dimensions: constituent elements, structural configuration, and functional performance. Concretely, core elements—government, market, and technology—must be orchestrated in a coordinated manner. First, the water governance regime should be systematically optimized by redefining and reconfiguring governmental roles, thereby furnishing fundamental institutional guarantees for the emergence of new quality productive forces in water conservancy. Second, market-oriented reforms across the water domain must be comprehensively advanced, integrating market mechanisms and governmental functions more effectively to foster the agglomeration of advanced factors of production. Third, the entire innovation chain—encompassing water-related scientific research, technological translation, and large-scale application—should be holistically managed, so as to unleash sustained and dynamic drivers of development.