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 is 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 meters 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)
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