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Largest Water Diversion Plan to Kick Off
The construction of China's largest water diversion project is expected to begin next year, channeling water from the Yangtze River for thirsty people and scorched lands to the north.
The State Council is expected to approve the construction of the first phase of the project's east line late this year, sources with the Ministry of Water Resources said Monday at a conference in Shanghai.
In the next 15 years, construction of the east and middle lines are scheduled to be completed and put into operation.
During the period, further research on the west line, the most difficult parts of the scheme, will continue, with preparations ready for its possible construction.
Water authorities are gearing up by preparing the project's overall layout and the construction of the first two phases of the east and middle lines, said Zhang Guoliang, president of a special design administration.
Zhang released a new abridged edition of the project, the most detailed ever published. The plan calls for 2,400-kilometre canals to be built in each of the first two phases of the project's east and middle lines to link the Yangtze to the drought-stricken north.
By 2015, the project will divert some 16 billion cubic metres of water from the Yangtze into areas north of the Yellow River that includes the major cities of Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang.
The thirsty areas have one-third of China's total population, gross national product, farmland and output of grain. This has forced the central government to build the project fast as possible.
On the 140 billion yuan (US$17 billion) investment, Zhang said he hopes 60 per cent can be granted by the central government with the rest by localities that will benefit.
"Small parts of the needed funds can use domestic and overseas bank loans," the paper suggested.
The price of the water from the project's trunk canal is estimated at no less than 1.6 yuan (US$0.20) per cubic metre, the rough equivalent of the present water price in Beijing and Tianjin, Zhang said.
Actual cost could double, some senior experts indicated.
Zhang said the project is designed at completion to transport as much as 48 billion cubic metres of water from the Yangtze each year, with up to 35 billion cubic metres of water available for industries, urban areas and irrigation in North China.
Plagued by flooding in the south but drought in the north, China hopes to optimize its water resources with the help of an integrated national network of water distribution systems.
Under the systems, three major rivers, the Yellow, Huaihe and Yangtze, will be linked by the project's three longitudinal canals from the south to the north.
The water the entire project would transfer is roughly equal to the existing annual runoff of the Yellow River, China's second longest.
The announcement confirmed the fact that China's decision-makers finally feel compelled to dust off their five-decade-old water schemes to minimize worsening drought conditions and the water shortage crisis in northern China.
Second only in construction scale to the mammoth Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze, this project has aroused public concern about its merits and what the quality and price of water will be in the north.
Source: China Daily
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