China promised to minimize the adverse environmental impact on the
area surrounding the planned south-to-north water diversion
project.
"Necessary measures have been implemented, including increasing
storage capacity of water and digging irrigation ditches at the
lower reaches of the Yangtze River," said Yuan Guolin, member of
the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
To
quench the thirst of its north regions, China is launching a
multi-billion-dollar project to divert water from southern China
during the 10th Five-Year-Plan period (2001-05), a project the late
Chairman Mao Zedong envisioned half a century ago.
"The south-to-north water diversion project is a mega-project that
is strategically aimed at realizing the optimal allocation of water
resources," said Chen Bangzhu, a member of the Standing Committee
of the Ninth National Committee of the CPPCC.
Chen, also director of the Committee of Population, Resources and
Environment of the CPPCC, said the thirsty areas have one-third of
China's total population, gross national product, farmland and
grain output. This requires the state to build the project as
quickly as possible, he said.
In
China, water is scarce not only in landlocked areas but also in
some coastal regions.
A
recent survey shows that 400 out of 600 major Chinese cities are
suffering from water shortages, which cause economic losses
amounting to more than 120 billion yuan (US$14.5 billion) annually.
In Tianjin, the largest port city in north China, the price of tap
water has soared 25 times in 20 years to around 2 yuan (US$0.24)
per ton, up from about 0.08 yuan in the 1980s.
Even with the ambitious diversion plan, experts and CPPCC members
insisted China should adopt new water preservation strategies,
including water-saving agriculture, urban water pollution control
and sustainable water utilization.
Studies by Beijing-based environment technology institutes have
shown only 14 percent of urban waste water is now treated and
recycled in China.
But China's water shortage problem is one of the world's worst and
cannot be reversed through conservation efforts alone, said Wang
Guangqian, a CPPCC member and director of the Institute of River
and Coastal Engineering of Tsinghua University.
China will face a serious water problem with its population
expected to peak at 1.6 billion in 2030, a report released by the
Chinese Academy of Engineering said.
According to the draft plan of the south-to-north water project, it
would annually divert some 38 billion to 48 billion cubic metres of
water to the north.
When the project is finished, Chen said, the annual diversion will
be equal to the annual run-off of the Yellow River, the
second-longest river in China.
(China Daily 03/08/2001)