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The Dynamics of Trust in the Shanghai Water Supply Regime

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Abstract

Trust in natural resource managers and planners is recognized as a crucial component of the public’s perception of environmental risks, including the risk of consuming water in cities. Although China is famous for its dubious water quality, public perception of the performance of water suppliers in China has scarcely been considered. Yet this is important, not least because improvements in urban water quality are most likely if the public perceives that there is a risk, which is a function of their levels of trust. We, therefore, examine the Shanghai public’s trust in urban water authorities through analysis of the results from a face-to-face questionnaire that 5007 residents responded to. We find that although respondents show a moderate level of overall trust in water suppliers, they have less trust in the honesty and fairness of these organizations. In addition, we find that hukou status and education help explain the differences in people’s trust in Shanghai’s water authorities, and that these are more influential than factors such as gender and age. For water managers in Shanghai, this implies trust can be improved through a greater effort at public relations and increased transparency about decision making and levels of pollution.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP110103381. The Albert Shimmins Fund is acknowledged for providing a Writing-up Scholarship to support the writing of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, 221 Bouverie Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, 3010, Australia

    Nahui Zhen, Jon Barnett & Michael Webber

Authors
  1. Nahui Zhen
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  2. Jon Barnett
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nahui Zhen.

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Appendix 1 Sampling procedure

Appendix 1 Sampling procedure

Districts

The category of district and location

Resident population 2009 (Million)

Percentage of whole population

Reference sample size

Whole city

—

19.2132

100

5000

Pudong New

New district

4.1905

22

1091

Huangpu

Central city

0.5320

3

138

Luwana

Central city

0.2694

1

70

Xuhui

Central city

0.9627

5

251

Changning

Central city

0.6440

3

168

Jing’an

Central city

0.2484

1

65

Putuo

Central city

1.1359

6

296

Zhabei

Central city

0.7603

4

198

Hongkou

Central city

0.7708

4

201

Yangpu

Central city

1.2062

6

314

Minhang

Suburb

1.8143

9

472

Baoshan

Suburb

1.3655

7

355

Jiading

Suburb

1.1054

6

288

Jinshan

Suburb

0.6910

4

180

Songjiang

Suburb

1.1899

6

310

Qingpu

Suburb

0.8155

4

212

Fengxian

Suburb

0.8190

4

213

Chongming Countyb

Suburb County

0.6924

4

180

  1. a Luwan district was merged into Huangpu district in 2011
  2. b About 90% of the registered population in Shanghai (people with Shanghai hukou) is non-agricultural and no more than 10% are agricultural residents. Meanwhile, almost all the agricultural people reside in Chongming County and other islands. Therefore, Chongming County and the other islands were excluded from this survey

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Zhen, N., Barnett, J. & Webber, M. The Dynamics of Trust in the Shanghai Water Supply Regime. Environmental Management 61, 224–235 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-017-0974-5

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