China is moving ahead with the Silk Road Economic Belt, an ambitious infrastructure development agenda with the distinct promise of regional and sub-regional economic development. However, the initiative will create new environmental risks across the entire Eurasian continent, especially in countries with predominately poor records of environmental governance, including the former Soviet republics and Russia. Concurrently, on the domestic front, the Chinese Government has launched a new policy paradigm, “ecological civilization,” to dramatically improve environmental regulations, reduce pollution, and transform industries by adopting new green technologies and higher environmental standards. But does China’s intention to go through a “green shift” domestically resonate with these new transborder infrastructure development mega-projects? This paper will attempt to answer this question by juxtaposing China’s new domestic policy paradigm with environmental standards currently proposed in its global outreach projects focusing on China-northern Eurasia and China-Russia, including trade exchanges in natural resources.

Hydropower development causes a multitude of negative effects on freshwater ecosystems, and to prevent and minimize possible damage, environmental impact assessments must be conducted and optimal management scenarios designed. This paper examines the impacts of both existing and proposed hydropower development on the transboundary Amur River basin shared by Russia, China, and Mongolia, including the effectiveness of different tools and measures to minimize damage. It demonstrates that the application of various assessment and conservation tools at the proper time and in the proper sequence is the key factor in mitigating and minimizing the environmental impacts of dams. The tools considered include basin-wide assessments of hydropower impacts, the creation of protected areas on rivers threatened by dam construction, and environmental flows. The results of this work show how the initial avoidance and mitigation of hydropower impacts at early planning stages are more productive than the application of any measures during and after dam construction, that the assessment of hydropower impacts must be performed at a basin level rather than be limited to a project implementation site, and that the full spectrum of possible development scenarios should be considered. In addition, this project demonstrates that stakeholder analysis and robust public engagement are as crucial for the success of environmental assessments as scientific research is for the protection of river basins.

This article describes several important topics in river management relationships between the Chinese, Mongolian and Russian governments, such as hydropower, water transfer and flood control, to illustrate various less known aspects of transboundary river basin management patterns in the Amur River basin. This is intended to establish a baseline account of transboundary water management in this shared river basin in the wake of major changes dictated by China’s wider transboundary and domestic policies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and Ecological Civilization and to consider to what extent the emerging shifts in environmental and development policies have already been manifested in cooperation on the transboundary river.

Data of remote sensing of the Earth surface were used to carry out thematic mapping of watercourses affected by gold mining in the Amur R. basin and to evaluate their characteristics. GIS-technology...