China drought threatens water supplies: state media
By Staff Writers
Jan 24, 2011 Beijing (AFP) – A months-long dry spell across northern China is threatening drinking water supplies and crops, and more bone-dry conditions are expected, state media said Monday. The capital Beijing has had no significant precipitation in more than three months, the longest such spell in the city in 40 years, the Beijing Times said. The dry conditions in Shandong province along the northeastern coast are the worst in more than 60 years and have left hundreds of thousands of people facing drinking water shortages, the China Daily reported. Northern China has for years battled a water shortage that experts say is caused by global warming, drought, and surging consumption, especially among the tens of millions of people who live in Beijing and booming adjacent areas. About 90 percent of winter wheat seedlings around the sprawling city of 20 million have wilted dangerously, the Beijing Times quoted the city weather bureau’s climate chief Chen Dagang as saying. City reservoirs that had dwindled for years were expected to be particularly hard-hit this year by the lack of replenishing winter snows and no end in sight to the dry conditions, it quoted Beijing’s water resources bureau as saying. Rainfall in heavily-populated Shandong has dropped by 86 percent since October and as many as 300,000 people could soon face water shortages, up from the current 240,000, the China Daily said, quoting drought relief officials. In some areas, local authorities have sent fire trucks to deliver drinking water to citizens, it said. Authorities have launched a project to divert water from a tributary of the Yangtze River — China’s longest — in the central part of the country to help alleviate the north’s water woes. Water was originally due to begin flowing from the central line to Beijing by 2010 but was postponed to 2014 largely due to the issues arising from the resettlement of people affected by the huge undertaking, media reports have said.
China drought threatens water supplies: state media
China’s wheat output this year is likely to decline as drought conditions in some major producing areas affect the winter-planted wheat, said analysts on Friday. Wheat planting areas in China’s six major producing provinces, which account for nearly 80 percent of the country’s total output, have suffered from various degrees of drought since last November, when the crop was planted, state media reported. The drought has been most severe in Shandong, Henan and Hebei provinces, which produce about half of the country’s total wheat output, the state-owned People’s Daily Online reported. About 51 percent of the wheat areas in Shandong are suffering from the drought, while one quarter of wheat areas in Henan and one third of wheat areas in Hebei are experiencing drought conditions, said Hai Yang, an analyst with Zhengzhou Esunny Information & Technology Co., who made the calculations based on media data. The weather is cold and dry, and irrigation is not possible because it will freeze the crop, she said, adding the drought will affect final output. Winter wheat accounts for more than 90 percent of China’s total wheat output, and spring wheat can’t make up for the loss, said an analyst with a foreign trading house, who declined to be named. ”If the drought lasts until March, which is very likely due to the impact of La Niña, final output may be reduced by 1.5 million tonnes, according to our calculation,” she said. China National Grain and Oils Information Center estimated that China’s wheat output last year was 115.1 million tonnes, similar to that in 2009. The rolling five month high gluten wheat futures contract, traded on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange, closed morning session 2.36 percent higher at 2,773 yuan per tonne.
