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Explora: Environment
and Resource The development of the river chief in Nantong and Huzhou

Through our document review, we also discovered that required, but instead of enhancing the power of the river chief,
instead of focusing on methods to design the best functional the office was found to be weak and ineffective. We believe
river chief system, officials in Nantong saw the transfer of that this was a result of the office not being an independent
the river chief as an opportunity to solicit financial input unit with executive power, as it was in Wuxi. Rather, the
from their superiors. For instance, in a working report, it Nantong office of the river chief was set up in the municipal
was emphasized that funding for investment purposes was Water Resources Bureau, and personnel were transferred
deemed more important than either the design of the river there from other departments. Unfortunately, in Nantong,
chief or the operation to evaluate the system completely. the Water Resources Department has a limited role in the
This was confirmed by Director C of the Nantong Water planning, deployment, coordination, and supervision of
Resources Bureau: river management. Not only did this reduce the effectiveness
At present, river chiefs at all levels in the city are part- of the river chief, but when the office was established, it
time; although the city has corresponding assessment neglected any real cross-departmental coordination and
methods, its effectiveness is small, not as strict and joined-up responses, which formed a core element of the
specific as the evaluation of the Scientific Outlook on more successful river chiefs and river chief offices.
Development, unless there is a major water accident, Second, we found that despite the documentation
otherwise the so-called assessment is just a formality relating to the implementation of the river chief, Nantong
to comply with the assessment processes (Director C, (and others) left a disjuncture between the title, powers,
interview, 14 September 2019). and activities of the river chief. As reported by the Nantong
In summary, to please superiors, Nantong carried out River chief’s office:
the transfer of the river chief system to gain resources and From the perspective of more than 2 years of operation,
legitimacy, which led them to neglect effective learning the vast majority of river chiefs are still only in name,
opportunities. This resulted in Nantong failing to effectively especially some grassroots river chiefs, and they do not
respond to situational differences in the model offered have a strong sense of river chiefs. They do not take the
and their own water management needs, which ultimately initiative to inspect, do not actively investigate, and do
resulted in lower policy performance. As found in their not timely plan and solve problems in their daily work.
initial performance review, “Jiangsu Province Backbone The river chief does not play much of an organizing
River Management and Protection Performance Evaluation and coordinating role (W, interview, 8 October 2019).
Report,” it was noted that the quality of river cleaning in
Nantong was lower than the standard score received across Third, we found that the assessment process used by
the nation. This outcome was reconfirmed in 2019 through the Nantong authorities did not link to the corresponding
our field research, which found three interrelated problems. responsibilities of the river chief, which “led to awards with
First, the function of the river chief’s office was introduced as no corresponding punishments” for poor performance

Figure 3. Huzhou’s river chief generation process

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2025) 8 doi: 10.36922/EER025110018