Tag: Miyun

Beijing’s water regulations

(October 18, 2011) The Miyun Reservoir happens to be the major water supply for Beijing and the county is an important ecological shield. To protect the ecology of the area, no major industrial projects have been allowed in and around the Miyun area. In addition, farmers who live upstream from the reservoir are not allowed to use chemicals and fertilizers in crop production. So says China Daily.

Beijing off the deep end

(May 6, 2011) Beijing really is trying to turn its water dilemma around. This Circle of Blue – Reporting the Global Water Crisis spotlight looks at what action the city’s municipal government is taking to reverse the capital’s water crunch but finds, in spite of acting with speed and authority, current measures are not fast or strong enough. Zhang Junfeng, a Beijing-based engineer and environmental activist, who has been researching Beijing’s water crisis for years, tells Circle of Blue the government still doesn’t clearly recognize the true extent of its problem and seems to think that as long as the country’s GDP is growing, the capital “can just buy the water” it needs. Not realizing that without water, hoped-for growth will falter.

Before the crisis: When Beijing was rich with water

(July 16, 2010) In “Daxing County’s Water Gone Forever,” the eleventh in a series of oral histories produced by a team of investigative environmental historians and water experts in Beijing and led by China’s prize-winning journalist Dai Qing and Probe International, Li Zhenwe, a former engineer at the water bureau in the Beijing’s southern Daxing County talks about his childhood in one of the county villages where annual floods and a surfeit of water were once an integral part of village life.

Can the South-North water diversion project save North China?

(May 18, 2010) Falling water tables in North China resulted in the creation of the world’s largest subsidence funnel. According to an official report, overexploitation of groundwater in the past 50 years, amounting to 120 billion cubic meters of water and equivalent to 200 Lake Baiyangdians in Hebei Province, has led to the creation of the funnel in North China—Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin included.

Beijing’s never-ending thirst

(April 14, 2010) Ongoing delays to the South-North Water Diversion Project will defer the delivery of one billion cubic meters of water annually over the next four years to Beijing. Now, a number of analysts in Beijing are offering suggestions on how the city should cope with its water crisis. Wang Jian And Liu Qiong, two Beijing-based water experts, say the city must ease the subsidies for water consumption to ensure that the price reflects its true cost, while implementing policies that promote the recycling of water and efficient use.

As economy booms, China faces major water shortage

(March 16, 2010) A decade ago, China’s leaders gave the go-ahead to a colossal plan to bring more than 8 trillion gallons of water a year from the rivers of central China to the country’s arid north. The project would have erected towering dams, built hundreds of miles of pipelines and tunnels, and created vast reservoirs with a price tag three times that of the giant Three Gorges Dam.