China is no stranger to drought, having experienced severe water
shortages hundreds of times during the past two millennia. Despite
the country's long experience with drought, however, it is
ill-prepared to cope with the current dry spell, one of the worst
in decades.
The drought itself, which is affecting even tropical southern
regions, is a climactic phenomenon. But its effects are being
exacerbated by poor infrastructure, a lack of comprehensive relief
plans, river diversion, and increasing water demand from an
expanding population and growing industrial economy. Public
awareness of the scope of the problem is also low.
Residents around Poyang Lake in eastern China's Jiangxi Province
were astonished in early December to see the country's largest
freshwater lake almost literally drying up before their eyes.
The lake, which covered an area of 300-500 square kilometers
last winter, has shrunk to less than 50 sq km, the smallest since
hydrological records began to be kept. More than 100,000 residents
of the Poyang region are suffering drinking water shortages.
"I have not seen such a severe drought since I was born," said
one 60-year-old, whose family lived by the lake for
generations.
China has long suffered frequent droughts. Official records show
that from 206 B.C. to 1949 A.D., the country had 1,056 droughts, or
one every two years, on average. But a worrisome phenomenon has
been observed over the past few years. In addition to the northern
and northwestern regions that are accustomed to droughts, the
northeast and areas south of the Yangtze River, which historically
had abundant precipitation, recorded dry weather more
frequently.
Earlier this year, Hainan, a rainy island province in
southernmost China, saw around 100 reservoirs and ponds drying up.
Meanwhile, in the southwest, Sichuan, called the "province of one
thousand rivers", and Chongqing, a municipality called the "city of
rivers", were stricken by drought all last year, an unprecedented
situation over the past century.
"In recent years, all 31 provinces, autonomous regions and
municipalities on the Chinese mainland suffered droughts, with no
exception," said Zhang Jiatuan with the office of the State Flood
Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
Zhang said that, since the 1990s, China has had frequent
droughts -- one about every three years -- and they tended to
linger. In the north, drought has persisted for 14 years, a
duration rarely seen since 1949.
Zhang said in the 1950s, China annually lost 4.35 billion
kilograms of grain to drought, or 2.5 percent of the annual total
yield. But during the 1990s, agricultural losses increased sharply,
to an annual figure of 20.9 billion kg, or 4.4 percent of the total
yield. Since 2000, the situation has worsened further, with annual
losses of about 37 billion kg, or more than 7 percent of the
total.
This year, 39.93 million hectares of crops were affected by
drought, with 349,267 ha yielding no grain at all, and 37.36
billion kg of grain were lost, according to Zhang.
In addition to grain production, water supplies for all sorts of
uses are threatened by a dry climate, especially with supplies
under growing pressure from a larger population and an expanding
industrial sector.
Although the government has spent scores of billions of yuan on
water projects each year since 2000, there are still 30 million
rural dwellers who are short of drinking water. Another 20 million
people in the cities face some kind of drinking-water shortages
every year as well.
In some drought-stricken areas -- for instance, the remote
northwestern region of Ningxia -- people spend much of their time
searching for water, and some have to go as far as 50 km from home
to secure supplies.
In the more-developed Guangdong Province, in southern China,
about 250,000 people have experienced shortages of drinking water
following a two-month dry spell during the latter part of this
year.
Zhang said industry had actually been harder hit by the drought
than the agricultural sector.
"Since the 1990s, China annually has lost some 300 billion yuan,
or 1.1 percent of its GDP on average, from droughts. The percentage
even reached 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent during severe
droughts."
Since fall, the Beijiang River in northern Guangdong has fallen
to its lowest level in a century, with its width narrowing from
1,000 meters to 200 meters. Irrigation and shipping facilities were
affected, particularly coal and cement transport, which usually
peaks in winter.
Worse, ecological systems have been degraded. The Lijiang River
in Guangxi and Crescent Spring in Gansu, famous for their lush
scenery, have shrunk, and part of the former body has dried up.
Global warming is being blamed for more frequent droughts, not
only in China, but also in central Asia, Europe, Africa and
Australia. But aside from natural factors, drought relief work in
China is also challenged by some man-made problems.
One is a deficiency of infrastructure. Only 55.3 million ha out
of the 1.23 billion ha of farmland nationwide has irrigation
equipment.
Another problem is the dam system. Yang Yunxian, the head of the
local flood control and drought relief office of Hainan, said the
province had many reservoirs at risk, which were prone to dam
collapses during rainy seasons. Water levels had to be kept low to
guard against this risk, and thus water couldn't be stored for dry
seasons, Yang said.
Other problems with drought relief include poor emergency
response, which stems from a lack of spare water resources,
drilling of wells and irrigation equipment, and insufficient
funds.
The central government has earmarked only 730 million yuan for
drought relief, although that was the most over the past few years.
Two-thirds of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have
not allocated any funds for drought relief in their latest annual
budgets, according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters.
Although China is among the nations that regularly experience
the most serious droughts and incur the heaviest economic losses,
it has failed to develop a comprehensive drought-relief plan.
"Quite a few regions only have short-term arrangements for
drought relief, and some resulted in overlapping construction
projects and waste of money," Zhang Jiatuan said.
Developing water resources in an ad hoc manner has also been a
disaster for many rivers. Unplanned water diversion, for example,
caused downstream sections of the Yellow River to dry up in 1997,
according to Zhang.
"Water resources should be managed and distributed in a unified
way," he said.
And finally, the public has yet to become broadly aware of the
lack of water resources, Zhang stressed.
(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2007)
