Being blind, Kang Denglan never sees the "mother's cellar" in her courtyard, but she knows very well how her life was changed by the national charity project that provides water storage cellars in the country's poor, dry areas.

Much to her delight, Kang and her husband, who is also blind, can now fetch water for themselves. They no longer have to rely on neighbors to make the trip to the well some kilometers away.

All of the 250 families in Kang's village in Yongdeng County, northwest China's Gansu Province used to rely on the same rudimentary well. Some had to walk five kilometers to fetch water every day. A burden that occupied much of day for the women of the village.

The "Mother's Water Cellar" project launched in August 2000, now provides readily accessible potable water for about one million people in rural China.

"Almost every family in village has their own water cellar that provides drinking water for both people and livestock. Some families even use the collected rain water for irrigation," said Wang Xiaoling, an official with the Yongdeng county government.

Building cellars to collect rainwater has been a longstanding practice in western areas. A decent water cellar can guarantee enough potable water for an entire family.

The Mother's Water Cellar project has built 90,000 cellars and 1,100 water facilities in 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China. The project has been extended to other regions outside the West as the cellars cost little and they have an instant effect.

In Gansu Province alone, 130,000 people and 180,000 head of livestock now have access to portable drinking water thanks to the national project, according to Ding Wenjian with the Gansu Branch of All-China Women's Federation.

Construction of a cellar costs around 1,000 yuan (US$125), but many poor rural families could not afford even that amount until the project was launched by the All-China Women's Federation and the China Women Development Fund.

The project's primary aim is to alleviate the burden of mothers in poor rural regions experiencing serious water shortages.

Before the charity project a total of 2.53 million water cellars in Gansu have been built in the past decade providing portable water for 2.52 million people and irrigating 304,000 hectares of farmland.

"Gansu has been taking local actions for a global challenge," said Gu Hao, spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources.

"Local actions for a global challenge" is the theme of the Fourth World Water Forum to be held in Mexico City later this week.

Gansu's success in easing water shortage by collecting rain water in water cellars was hailed at the third World Water Forum held in Kyoto, Japan in 2003.

Since then foreign experts from a number of countries including New Zealand, Rwanda and India have come to the province to learn from local expertise.

China is striving to build a water-saving society and curb water pollution as parts of the country experience water shortages and a possible water crisis while other regions enjoy soaring economic growth.

"Water shortages and dry spells are an essential characteristic of China," said Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng on Sunday.

An annual report by the ministry said recently that the total volume of water resources have decreased of 12.9 percent since 2003.

Currently 1.1 billion people in the world live without safe drinking water, and 2.2 billion people lack adequate sanitation, according to the World Water Council.

(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2006)