Ciaxin Online Artificial bodies of water are popping up in some of the driest parts of China at the behest of local governments looking to beautify landscapes
(Zhengzhou) — Clouding a newly-made watery basin created for Zhengzhou’s tourists are questions over whether such lakes will ultimately be viewed as mistakes or marvels. On October 18, water from the Yellow River was diverted into the capital of Henan Province as part of plans to turn the area into a lake with a 5.6 square kilometer surface area.
It has taken two years of digging and cost the city 1.66 billion yuan to dredge up a space which is slated to be twice as large as the popular West Lake in Hangzhou. In addition to this, nearly 90 million cubic meters of water will be required to change the lake’s water four times a year for maintenance.
Zhengzhou is just one of several parched metropolises in China looking to add shorelines to the local scenery. In the heart of the country’s dustbowl, Ningxia Province, Yinchuan City has started to bill itself as the “Venice of the East,” with more than a dozen lakes created in recent years.
In Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi, all provinces located in western and northwestern China, an artificial-lake boom is underway.
Meanwhile the annual flow of the Yellow River has dwindled to less than 20 billion cubic meters. In terms of the total volume, up to 70 percent of the Yellow River’s water is consumed by the people living along its banks. Hydrology experts say rivers that undergo more than 30 percent water consumption can result in major ecological changes.
But beyond the Yellow River, the construction of artificial lakes has been integral to China’s rapid urbanization in recent years. Northern cities short of water are now looking to the river to compete with the more water-rich economies near the Yangtze River.
An Unnatural Waterworld
The city of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province announced a plan this summer to build 28 large and medium-sized lakes at a cost of over 10 billion yuan. Meanwhile, Harbin, in the northeast province of Heilongjiang, has set itself a goal of becoming the “northern water town” with the creation of 18 artificial lakes.
But these northern cities are located in traditionally arid or semi-arid regions with limited annual precipitation. In some cities, annual evaporation is several times greater than the precipitation. In southern China, where rainfall is plentiful, artificial lakes are becoming popular amidst a water scarcity problem that has developed over the past few decades.
After the eight lakes it created in 2010, Shanghai still has several other lake projects lined up. Wuhan, historically called the City of 100 Lakes, saw many of its natural lakes disappear over the past three decades, through land reclamation or filling. But now it is undergoing a “lake-creation movement.” In a reversal of fortune for Mengze Lake, the first site chosen in the project, the city’s policymakers plan to dredge up the very same area they filled in less than a decade ago.
Water Supply, Money Supply
The new lakes have precious water resources flowing in, along with a steady stream of funds in construction costs. Take the 28 lakes of Xi’an for example. A preliminary calculation of the cost of the investment involved is already up to 10 billion yuan, as is the urban section of the Yongding River by Beijing, a project that is composed of six separate lakes and 37 kilometers of canals connecting the lakes.
Yet these figures only represent the direct investment. The relative social costs of the excavation of a lake are huge. Dragon Lake in Zhengzhou required the demolition of 12 administrative villages and 37 natural villages, forcing 22,000 people to leave their homes. Other additional costs to artificial lake infrastructure in some cities include new roads, flyovers and bridges.
Many of these lake-building projects will rely on the South-North water transfer project, a colossal undertaking that will divert water from the Yangtze River in the south to the shrinking Yellow River in the north.
Among experts interviewed, many say the greatest cost in creating the lakes is not the direct and indirect investments, but the bill for transferring the water itself. For example, Ningxia’s artificial lakes will require about 1 billion cubic meters of water from the Yellow River. In the Central Route plan of the project for “diverting water from south to north,” the price per cubic meter is nearly 10 yuan. The cost to the region is estimated at nearly 10 billion yuan.
Li Qilei, professor at the Water and Development Research Institute of Chang’an University, as well as a task-force member for Xi’an’s lake creation, told Caixin that the current water supply to Xi’an won’t be enough to support the planned 28 lakes.
With less and less water flowing from river to sea, China’s ocean waters have also started to experience changes. The Bohai Sea is suffering a serious imbalance in its nitrogen to phosphorus ratio. In 2008, it had a ratio of 67. In certain parts of the bay today, the ratio is more than 200, four times the ratio that is considered ecologically stable.
Indeed, the fishing stock of the Bohai Sea is nearly all but gone, while other smaller marine organisms have become extinct. While this has come about through several factors including excessive fishing and pollution, many experts say a huge reduction in fresh water has played a large role.
The new lakes themselves have experienced other problems with the witnessing of algal blooms in nutrient imbalances, known as eutrophication.
Completed in 1980, Xiliu Lake was once a postcard spot of Zhengzhou City. Through a lack of supervision and management, it was turned into a dumping pit for construction waste and industrial wastewater. By 2010, the pollution was so bad that a large area of the lake had dried up.
Cui Guangbai, professor of the Institute of Water Resources at Hohai University, notes that construction of an artificial lake is a very complex undertaking. Since the lakes are “pools” without the functions of a natural lake, the work is not finished when the lake is completed. The real challenge comes in managing the lake and maintaining water quality standards.
Big Fish in a Little Pond
Reflected in the massive boom of artificial lakes are the goals of local policymakers that are not asked to coordinate on a region-wide scale. Several scholars interviewed pointed out that the building of artificial lakes is the result of “messy accounting,” with construction green-lighted solely by the local authority.
To many local government policymakers, water resources stand as a hidden cost, against the backdrop of the relatively cheap price tag from construction. Weng Lida, an expert at the Yangtze Valley Water Resources Protection Bureau said many of the cities in Ningxia, Gansu and Shaanxi are all expecting to use water from the South-North Water Transfer Project for lakes geared toward tourism. “If the issue of conserving water in these cities hasn’t been solved yet, what’s the point of building these artificial lakes?” said Weng.
