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Yangtze River to Go West, North
While China's west is to pipe natural gas to the east, Chinese engineers are planning to channel water into the west in order to support local development.
The plan to divert water from the Yangtze River in the south to northern part of the county is progressing smoothly, and the first phase of the project is expected to start in 2010, said Tan Yingwu, chief engineer of the western route of the gigantic water diverting project.
To meet the demand of developing the vast west, water from the upper reaches of the 6,300-kilometer-long Yangtze River, the longest river in China, will be re-routed to the west via the Yellow River, the second-longest river in the country.
Tan said that water from the Yangtze would therefore be able to flow westward into the eastern part of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Hexi Corridor, an 1.1 million square kilometers area of land with oasis west of the Yellow River, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Hebei Province in the north as well.
The western route will run across highlands with the lowest altitude of over 3,400 meters. The Yangtze water in higher elevations will easily flow into the Yellow River at a lower altitude.
Tan said that a water conservancy system will then be established in north and northwest China by making use of the Yellow River's water course.
Water shortage has become a knotty problem restricting the development of China's western region. It is estimated that areas in the upper and middle reaches of Yellow River will face a water shortage of four billion cubic meters by the year 2010. And the figure will skyrocket to 11 billion cubic meters in 2030.
"The strategy of developing the west mapped out by the central government has become an opportunity for diverting water from the Yangtze to the west," Tan said, adding that the water diversion project will also help improve the deteriorating biological environment in Beijing, China's capital.
A series of severe sandstorms which hit Beijing and the Inner Mongolia in April and May alerted the authorities and the public to the urgency of the water crisis.
Beijing, with its water table and key reservoirs at their lowest levels in the past two decades, is expected to impose water quotas on industries, hotels, restaurants and universities during the second half of this year.
Tan said that a project is in the planning stages to divert three billion cubic meters of water from Daduhe River, a major branch of Yangtze, into Yellow River.
China started research on the western route diversion plan in 1987. Over 1,000 engineers and researchers contributed to a report on the north-to-south water diverting project submitted in 1996, which focused on moving 19 billion cubic meters of water to the north from the headstream of the Yangtze.
The 19 billion cubic meters of water will increase the average annual runoff volume of the Yellow River by one-third, and will substantially ease the water shortage in the drought-prone northwest.
Tan, who has been involved in the south-north water diversion project since the 1950s, said that he has a dream that one day the ancient Silk Road will reappear with its lush green prairie and winding streams.
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