A comprehensive water-balance approach is used to examine the relationships between agricultural policies in the North China Plain, the water management practices that evolved from them, the quantity of water that was actually consumed, and the consequent groundwater depletion beneath Luancheng County, Hebei Province, from 1949 to 2000.  Results indicate that a single, longstanding policy—that of using ground water to meet the crop-water requirements not supplied by precipitation—is responsible for the steady rate of ground-water decline.
Attempts to make water use sustainable have centered on improving irrigation efficiency to reduce groundwater pumping. Indeed, pumping rates for irrigation in Luancheng County have decreased more than 50 percent since the 1970s. However, water-table declines have continued unabated. This is because in Luancheng County, irrigated areas overlie the shallow aquifer, so any excess irrigation water supplied by ground-water pumping passes through the soil profile and replenishes the water supply.  Thus, the only significant inflows to and outflows from this hydrologic system are precipitation and crop evapotranspiration, respectively. As long as the irrigated area remains unchanged, crop evapotranspiration remains virtually constant. In this physical configuration, irrigation efficiency improvements save no water. 
We explore various proposals to stabilize water levels, including crop changes, water-saving technology, and urbanization.  The conclusion of this analysis is that withdrawing some land from irrigation is an essential requisite for achieving sustainable water use in the North China Plain. This finding counters China’s longstanding and successfully implemented policy of continually increasing the irrigated area in order to achieve the key societal objective of food self-sufficiency. This work is based on data, maps, reports, and interviews obtained in Shijiazhuang City and Luancheng County, Hebei Province, China in 2001.