Experts fear Lintao’s dry-up is a sign of things to come. Probe International fellow and noted Chinese environmental journalist, Dai Qing, says China’s water scarcity and toxicity is the greatest danger facing her country today.
Journalist Sharron Lovell’s gallery of striking images portray the losing end of China’s massive water transfer scheme to alleviate some by taking from others.
Imagine waking up one day to be told your home and way of life is to be upended for the construction of a massive state water project?
Late last year, Mu Lan, the editor of Probe International’s Three Gorges Probe news service in Chinese, followed the central leg of China’s massive South-to-North Water Diversion Project with his camera as it made its way from Hubei Province to Beijing, the project’s ultimate destination.
China’s ambitious South-to-North Water Diversion project officially begins flowing next month and the impacts of the costly geo-engineering giant are starting to be felt in the regions tapped to redistribute water to the country’s parched north. “This project from the beginning has been as controversial as the Three Gorges,” says Probe International fellow and leading Chinese environmental journalist, Dai Qing.
While there is no doubt China’s industry-heavy northeast is parched, some critics say China’s geo-engineering South-North Water Diversion project is yet another example of China trying to engineer its way out of a problem that could be largely solved through better policies, such as a tiered pricing system for water and better monitoring. Stian Reklev for Reuters reports.
(May 27, 2014) Another excellent entry in a growing number of critiques examining China’s South-to-North Water Diversion project and the controversial geo-engineering giant’s large-scale problems.
(June 29, 2010) Delays in the controversial South-to-North Water Diversion Project are worsening Beijing’s water crisis, says a recent report from China Daily.
(April 29, 2010) Excessive spending that allows Chinese officials to put on an oversized Expo in Shanghai, also allowed them to engage in monumental nation-threatening efforts, such as building the Three Gorges Dam.
(January 20, 2010) Neighboring province tightens its belts to ease Beijing’s shortage. Four reservoirs in Hebei are expected to be called upon again this year to supply water to Beijing, but the water delivery plan is still being negotiated by the Beijing and Hebei governments. The temporary plan for Beijing to get water from the four reservoirs – two in Shijiazhuang and two in Baoding – will bridge the gap until the South-to-North water diversion project is completed in 2014.
(January 25, 2004) The eastern plain in north China’s Hebei Province has a long record of groundwater over-exploitation. Now it finds itself home to the world’s largest acreage of subsidence.
(January 13, 2009) The Yangtze River in South China is expected to provide 1 billion cubic meters of water every year to Beijing starting 2014, according to the municipal water authority.
(December 16, 2008) China would accelerate the construction on the country’s huge south-to-north water diversion project next year, head of the project office Zhang Jiyao said on Monday.
(November 28, 2008) Engineers on China’s massive project to divert water from the Yangtze River to the parched north of the country are struggling to repair a breached canal that flooded 70 hectares of farmland.
(September 18, 2008) A water shortage in Beijing is being tackled with an emergency diversion of 300 million cubic meters of water from Hebei Province that started at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
Patricia Adams
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Lawrence Solomon
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