As water security becomes an increasingly important issue, the analysis of the conflict between water supply and demand has gained significance in China. This paper details a bibliometric review of papers published between 2003 and 2018 on the water footprint in China, one of the global hotspots of water resource research. The tendencies and key points of water footprint research were systematically analyzed based on 1564 articles, comprising 1170 original publications in Chinese from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure database and 394 publications in English from the Web of Science database. The results show that the literature associated with water footprint research has expanded significantly. The number of papers published increased from 104 in 2003–2006 to 735 in 2015–2018. Water footprint research has been applied to agricultural, industrial, and regional water resource management to quantify the impact of human activities on water resources and the environment. Water footprint metrics were extracted for regional comparisons. There are obvious regional characteristics of the water footprint in China, but the uncertainty of results makes further investigation necessary. Further water footprint modeling and field experimental research is needed to explore the water–ecological environment under complex systems.

Climate impacts of the South‐to‐North water diversion project in China on water‐receiving areas (WRA) is simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The results show that during the 2015–2022 water diversion period, the WRA experiences increased precipitation and decreased temperature. Annual precipitation increased by 2.8 mm, mainly dominated by non‐convective precipitation (1.92 mm). Although the upwind region receives more water, the increase in water vapor flux is more dramatic in the downwind region due to the spring northwest monsoon; The decreased temperature effect is most pronounced in spring (over 0.15°C), and over 10 mm of evaporation increase in the downwind region. The sensible heat flux decrease is less pronounced than the latent heat flux increase, mainly because of the insulating effect, which prevented evaporative cooling reduction. This study advances our understanding of the mechanisms by which large‐scale water diversion affects WRA climates.

With the intensification of human activities, the natural water cycle has a significant nature-society dual feature, and identifying the mutual feedback mechanism between natural and social water cycles is an important basis for a more accurate simulation of the dualistic water cycle. In this study, two indexes of cumulative runoff change rate and social water cycle feedback rate are put forward, representing the degree of change in socio-hydrological unit runoff under the mutual feedback of the natural social water cycle in all upstream regions, and the degree influence of the water intake, consumption, and discharge process of the social water cycle on the natural water cycle in the socio-hydrological unit, respectively. Taking the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, which is marked by strong human activities, as the study area, the 2035 natural-social dualistic water cycles were simulated by a water allocation and simulation (WAS) model. Different water supply types and use structures cause the social water cycle to increase or decrease local runoff in different areas. The social water cycle feedback rate is greater than 1 in Beijing and Tianjin, and less than 0.25 in the mountainous areas and the Hebei plain, indicating that the social water cycle of each unit in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region increases or decreases local runoff due to different water supply types and use structures. The cumulative runoff change rate in this region was 0.66, indicating that the overall runoff was attenuated due to the social water cycle, and runoff attenuation was greater in the south than the north.

How to better harmonize the relationship between humans and rivers is a global issue of widespread concern at home and abroad, and science-based and integrated evaluation of rivers themselves is crucial to river management. Based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and according to the World Happiness Report and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, this paper argues that a happy river is a river that can maintain its own health, support high-quality economic and social development in the river basin and the region, reflect harmony between humans and water, and give people in the river basin a high sense of security and the ability to gain and satisfaction. This paper also analyzes happy rivers at five levels, including water security, water resources, water environment, water ecology, and water culture, and develops the River Happiness Index (RHI) and its indicator system, as well as assesses the overall river happiness in China’s 10 first-grade water resource zones. The results show that China’s RHI is at a medium level, with flood control capacity at a near-good level. On the grounds of the RHI evaluation results, the paper puts forward targeted measures for river basin governance, and provides a systematic solution to national river protection and governance.