NOZOMU HAYASHI/ Correspondent
BEIJING–Although China’s South-North Water Diversion Project is touted as a marvel of modern civil engineering to solve the nation’s long water woes, the government marked the recent completion of one of the three massive canals with little fanfare.
Beijing received the first flows from the project, which was first proposed in 1952 under the leadership of Mao Tse-tung, on Dec. 27, but ceremonies and media coverage were kept to a minimum due to concerns over the project’s effectiveness and potential damage to the environment.
The Xinhua news agency reported that the first water, which traveled the 1,400-kilometer canal, flowed into a reservoir near the Summer Palace in Beijing on Dec. 27 after the floodgate in the outskirts of the capital was opened.
The water, taken from the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, will be used as a drinking supply for Beijing residents, while excess water will be reserved in dams located in the outskirts of the capital to be used in the event of a drought.
Opened in December, the canal is one of the three channels of the South-North Water Diversion Project, called the central route. It connects Danjiangkou Reservoir, which straddles Henan and Hubei provinces in central China, and major cities in north, including Beijing and Tianjin.
The project was the brainchild of Mao, who said in 1952 while looking over the Yellow River: “The north of China needs water and the south has plenty. It would be fine to borrow some, if possible.”
The central route broke ground in 2003, and was completed at a total cost of 200 billion yuan (3.9 trillion yen, or $33.1 billion), making it one of the most expensive civil engineering projects in history.
“The project will ensure access for 60 million people in Beijing and Tianjin, as well as Hebei and Henan provinces, to high-quality potable water,” a government official was quoted as saying in a Xinhua report. “There will also be about 100 million indirect beneficiaries of the project.”
According to the news agency, an average Chinese person consumes a volume of water of only around a quarter of the world average annually, while Beijing residents are provided only 100 cubic meters of water each year.
The central route is projected to divert 9.5 billion cubic meters of water to northern China annually, the report said.
Although the project is hailed as one of the most ambitious engineering projects under the Communist Party regime, the government did not celebrate the completion of the central route with a national ceremony, while the media gave it relatively little coverage.
The government’s reluctance to play up the completion apparently reflects the ambiguity that the general public and experts harbor over the effectiveness and environmental impact of the project.
The project has forced 420,000 people to relocate from their hometowns, and the Beijing Daily has reported that the project will not solve the water shortage in the Chinese capital. With its rapid urban growth, the capital has a shortage of 1.5 billion cubic meters of water annually, but the newly completed canal will only provide 1 billion cubic meters.
By diverting a large amount of water from the Han River, the volume of water that reaches the river downstream is estimated to drop sharply to one-fourth of the previous amount.
Environmental and biological experts have voiced concerns that the project will jeopardize the water quality of the river and its ecosystem.
“As long as our society puts maximum priority on economic development, which is accompanied by rapid urban sprawl, such a civil engineering project will remain as a stopgap measure–it’s effectiveness in mitigating water shortages is temporary,” said Shao Wenjie, a researcher with the Chinese nature conservation group Nature University. “Unless we shift our our focus to create social development harmonious with the natural environment, we cannot fundamentally solve the country’s water problem.”
View of the central route section of the South-North Water Diversion in Taocha reservoir, Xichuan county, central Chinas Henan province, 13 December 2014. (AP photo)
