Shanghai hit by salinity crisis

By Other News Sources on November 6, 2008 • ( Leave a comment )

(February 6, 2006) Shanghai has been hit by its first salinity crisis this year, with a chloride concentration above the recommended level, municipal water authorities announced.

Shanghai: China’s financial center of Shanghai was hit by its first salinity crisis this year – but tap water remained safe, the municipal water authorities announced on Monday.

The water sample taken at the metropolis’ drinking water intake spot at Chenhang reservoir in the Yangtze River Delta revealed a chloride concentration of over 250 mg per liter of water, which is above the recommended water salinity level.

Reservoirs supplying water to the coastal city had made early preparations for the salinity disaster by maintaining high water levels in January. So far, tap water is still safe.

Shanghai’s daily water consumption reached 6.83 million cubic meters during the Spring Festival, a little lower than the typical amount since many local residents traveled and industrial production slowed down during the week-long Spring Festival holiday.

The reduction in water consumption has helped ease the pressure of water supply during the salinity crisis, reported the water authorities.

Xinhua, February 6, 2006

Three Gorges Probe editor’s note: In an interview published by Three Gorges Probe in Sept. 2005 (Rivers in chaos and Shanghai at risk ), Prof. Chen Guojie, senior researcher at the Chengdu Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, warned:

“I am extremely worried about Shanghai, situated at the mouth of the Yangtze River. In my view, Shanghai is the place that will be most affected by the Three Gorges project, the cascade of dams being built on the upper Yangtze and the south-north water diversion project. All these colossal schemes will affect Shanghai in some way, and we really should be looking into that. Few people are taking seriously the potential combined impact on the city of all these projects.

“During the Three Gorges feasibility study, Chinese scientists did look into how building the big dam would affect Shanghai, but I don’t think they did enough on the issue. What worries and surprises me is that nobody is concerned about the issue any more, let alone doing any further studies. …

“On completion of the south-north water diversion project, if the three routes [east, middle and west] take water from the Yangtze to the north simultaneously, and if the river is experiencing a year or a month in which its mean rate of flow is at a low point, problems are bound to occur.

“In a normal year, Shanghai extends as much as several dozen additional metres into the sea each year as new land is created by the river-borne silt. However, less water arriving from upstream means less silt and less new land. One of the more serious problems is the inland movement of the sea in years when the mean rate of flow on the river is low. This phenomenon could become more frequent and more severe. A major inland-intrusion of the sea could bring serious consequences that are hard to predict, though past experience shows that one likely result is salinization of the soil in the river valley.”