[Desdemona remembers when it was the Martians who were building desperate canal mega-projects to save their world…]China's South-North Water Transfer Project, knitting together China's main rivers - the Yangtze, Yellow River, Huaihe, and Haihe. Image by The New York Times.

Beijing (UPI) Sep 30, 2010 – China’s $62 billion South-North Water Transfer Project is forcing the relocation of 330,000 people and may not even deliver clean water. The system, designed to supply 45 trillion gallons of water for hundreds of millions of people in Beijing and drought-prone northern China by 2030, involves a mix of canals, tunnels and aqueducts spanning thousands of miles across the country. Sans pumps, it will rely entirely on gravity to run water from the south’s higher elevations, to the north. … Wang Shushan, who is in charge of the South-North diversion project in Henan province, where most of the construction is now focused, compared the massive endeavor to China’s Great Wall, saying it is “essential for the survival of China,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “It is a must-do project. We can’t afford to wait.” China’s current total water shortage is around 1.5 trillion gallons, equal to three times the annual water supply of New York City, says China’s NDTV. Annual water demand in Beijing is expected to swell to 1.1 trillion gallons by 2020, city government estimates indicate. But Liu Changming, a government adviser on the project from the Chinese Academy of Sciences acknowledges that the diversion project does carry risks. … The Chinese government has also acknowledged that the water from an eastern spur of the project is so toxic that it may not even be fit for agriculture, the Times said. “They are robbing the water of the rest of China to supply Beijing — and it probably won’t work anyway,” said Dai Qing, a pro-democracy activist who focuses on water issues. …

China water diversion project poses risksWorker on China's South-North Water Transfer Project. Jonathan Watts

By Jim Yardley
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 SHIJIAZHUANG, China — Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater. Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city’s water table. “People who are buying apartments aren’t thinking about whether there will be water in the future,” said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for 20 years to raise public awareness about the city’s dire water situation. For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China’s galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China — even as demand keeps rising everywhere. … The North China Plain undoubtedly needs any water it can get. An economic powerhouse with more than 200 million people, it has limited rainfall and depends on groundwater for 60 percent of its supply. Other countries, like Yemen, India, Mexico and the United States, have aquifers that are being drained to dangerously low levels. But scientists say those below the North China Plain may be drained within 30 years. “There’s no uncertainty,” said Richard Evans, a hydrologist who has worked in China for two decades and has served as a consultant to the World Bank and China’s Ministry of Water Resources. “The rate of decline is very clear, very well documented. They will run out of groundwater if the current rate continues.” …

Beneath booming cities, China’s future is drying up


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