The Haibowan water control hub in Wuhai, a city in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, has been included in the state's large reservoir construction plan, the local water affairs bureau said Tuesday.

It said that construction work would likely start within the year.

Reports of feasibility and environment assessment for the project have passed examination by the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, according to the bureau.

The project would be the first anti-ice-run water control hub on the mainstream of the Yellow River in the autonomous region, the bureau said.

It will cost approximately 2.7 billion yuan (395.3 million US dollars).

The project would have a storage capacity of nearly 500 million cubic meters and a designed flood-discharge capacity of 6,100 cu m per second, the bureau added.

The Yellow River, China's second longest at 5,464 km, originates in Qinghai Province in the northwest and flows through Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Shandong before emptying into the Bohai Sea.

Sections of the river freeze and thaw at different times. When an ice run flows into a frozen section, it can block the river. If the blockage persists, water levels may rise and cause flooding and dam bursts, threatening lives and property. The ice-run takes place at the start of winter and spring.

China has built several large anti-ice-run water control hubs on the mainstream of the Yellow River, including the Liujia Gorge, Qingtong Gorge and Xiaolangdi projects.

(Xinhua News Agency March 10, 2009)