River chief system: an institutional analysis to address watershed governance in China

China suffers from frequent water crisis events caused by ecological pollution in watersheds. The river chief system policy is an institutional innovation by the government to deal with the ecological environmental crisis in the river basin. This study focuses on China's watershed environmental governance policy and describes the origin, operation mode, and governance effect of its river chief system policy. This study comparatively analyses the advantages of the policy in basin environmental governance, such as clear government responsibility, enhanced coordination among government departments, the accountability mechanism of the one-vote veto system, and the disadvantages of the policy in terms of high costs, information asymmetry, and lack of public participation. Furthermore, this study proposes suggestions on the sustainable development of watershed environmental governance from three aspects: regional characteristics, investment, and institutional innovation of policy implementation.