The Chinese government has pledged more efforts to protect the
country's "Golden Waterway", the Yangtze River, Cai Qihua, a Hubei
deputy attending the ongoing Fourth Session of the 10th National People's
Congress from March 5 to 14 in Beijing, said in an exclusive
interview with china.org.cn on Sunday.
Ms Cai is the director of the Yangtze River Conservancy
Commission under the Ministry of Water Resources.
"If the objectives of building a resource-conserving and
environment-friendly society, as listed in the
11th Five-Year Development Guidelines (2006-2010), are met,
this will be an extremely positive result for the Yangtze River
drainage area, as well as for the whole country," she said.
The 6,211-kilometer-long Yangtze, also known as China's Golden
Waterway, is the longest in China. Its drainage areas include the
Tibet Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Qinghai,
Sichuan, Yunan, Guizhou, Gansu, Shaanxi, Hubei, Hunan, Henan,
Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, and
Chongqing and Shanghai municipalities.
The water resources in these drainage areas account for 35
percent of the country's total. Potential hydropower generation is
half of the country's total. Population in these areas is 427
million or a third of China's total, while their combined gross
domestic product (GDP) makes up an average 35 percent of the
country's total.
Despite these promising figures, only 15.2 percent of these
water resources and 27 percent of its hydropower-generation
potential are being actualized.
"The development of the Yangtze River economic zone concerns not
only the interests of the people in the drainage areas, but also
plays a crucial role in the country's overall economic development
pattern."
Cai believes that the success in the Yangtze project could
sustain China's economic and social development.
The challenges facing further development include a strain on
resources and pollution. This is because of the sheer size of the
overall population in the drainage areas and a concentration of
industry along the river.
"To ensure the orderly development of the Yangtze water source,
our commission has set 14 restrictive indicators to monitor
development and its impact on water quality and the surrounding
environments. For example, hydropower utilization is to be no more
than 60 percent of the total, and water consumption in the drainage
areas is to be no more than 30 percent of national levels.
On the subject of the use of resources, the central government
launched the South-North Water Diversion Project in December 2002
to ease water shortages in north China, especially in Beijing and
Tianjin.
The project involves three water diversion routes, all of which
take water directly from the Yangtze.
Cai pointed out that the project has little impact on the water
resources of the Yangtze. She said: "The total volume of water
being diverted is only 5 percent of what's is available."
But she added: "During low flow season, the lower reaches of the
Yangtze, the river mouth in particular, are vulnerable to salt
tides."
To address this problem, Cai said that her commission intends to
optimize planned water conservancy projects, the Three Gorges
Reservoir project for instance, to adjust water drainage
volumes.
She also stressed the importance of a change in the
administrative system of the drainage areas.
"A national comprehensive administrative structure comprising
deputy governors from the 19 provinces and municipalities in the
Yangtze River drainage areas should be set up in order to better
harness the potential of the river."
(China.org.cn by staff reporter Tang Fuchun, March 13, 2006)
