Groundwater recharge, seawater freshening, vegetation restoration in deserts... these are some of the prescriptions for China's serious water shortage set forth by the country's government advisors and lawmakers while they meet in Beijing to discuss State affairs.

"We shall turn our groundwater reserves into a 'water bank'," said Li Guo'an, a member of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top government advisory body.

Li, currently deputy commander of the Inner Mongolia Military Area of the People's Liberation Army who had spent decades looking for groundwater sources and sinking wells for army garrisons and civilians in arid regions and even Gobi deserts, said nearly 70 percent of China's 1.3 billion population rely on groundwater for drinking purposes.

"The State should exploit, manage and protect the groundwater resource in a well-planned manner so as to guarantee a fine ecological cycle," said Li, urging the central authorities to set up a "State Groundwater Protection Center" for that end.

To attain the goal of building underground "water banks", it is crucial to plant more grass and trees in the water source areas, which can effectively prevent a large proportion of the precious rainwater from flowing away, said Li, adding that the saved rainwater can then be refilled underground through natural or artificial channels.

Li also voiced his backing of the government policy to return farmland to forests and pastures in China's vast northern and western parts in a bid to restore local ecology.

"An excessive reclamation of farmland in those regions has resulted in a rapid deterioration of environment, with desertification as a typical feature," he acknowledged.

Official statistics show that the total area of land affected by desertification in China has reached 2.62 million sq km, more than one quarter of China's land territory.

However, Li also cautioned against an overuse and even waste of water in the vegetation restoration efforts. "It will be both uneconomical and unsustainable if we try to maintain the growth of vegetation in deserts or arid areas with enduring irrigation," he said.

Wang Wulong, another CPPCC National Committee member, held that China should take seawater desalinization as an essential means to overcome its current water shortage problem.

China's per capita possession of fresh water resource stands at a mere 2,200 cubic meters, nearly one quarter of the world average. In better-developed coastal industrial centers like Shanghai, Tianjin and Dalian, the level is even lower at less than 500 cubic meters.

"For the present, the importance of seawater freshening has not yet been fully recognized by relevant decision-making departments, while the State has not made sufficient investment in the research and development of seawater desalting technologies," said Wang.

The central government should pay more attention to the growth of the newly-emerged seawater desalinization industry, take measures to draw more private investment into this industry, and encourage the import of advanced foreign technologies and domestic research and development efforts, he noted.

"Now it's imperative for the government to sponsor the building of some 'model seawater freshening plants' with the annual desalinizing capacity of 10,000 to 100,000 tons," he added.

Unlike Li and Wang, Jia Danbing, a deputy to the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, held that the key to solving the country's water shortage problem lies in the fostering of a "water-saving society".

In 2002, water consumption for every 10,000 yuan (US$1,200) of GDP realized in China reached 540 cubic meters, four times of the world's average level. Meanwhile, in 40 percent of Chinese metropolises, at least 12 percent of the water supply is lost due to pipeline leakage and unthrift users, Jia noted.

"There is a serious lack of water on one hand and, on the other, there is a huge waste of water. This situation is really perplexing and worrisome," Jia said.

She suggested the government taking immediate action to increase every citizen's water-saving awareness, build up a substantial, valid water-saving mechanism, and promote water-saving through legal, administrative, economic and technical means.

"Measures I want to strongly recommend here include raising water prices, encouraging more inventions and a wider use of water-saving devices, as well as enhancing sewage processing and recycling capabilities," she added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2004)