A towering dam in central China holds back a vast expanse of water destined to travel over 1,000 kilometers north to Beijing, but critics say it will only temporarily quench the capital’s thirst.
The city is expected Saturday to receive its first flows from the South North Water Diversion Project, one of the most ambitious engineering projects in Chinese history.
After decades of planning and at least $33 billion of investment, over a billion cubic meters of water will flow from the Danjiangkou reservoir to the capital every year, through more than 1,200 kilometers of channels and pipes ― the distance from London to Madrid.
Another 8.5 billion cubic meters ― equivalent to 3.4 million Olympic-sized swimming pools ― will reach provinces along the way, planners say.
The Chinese government says the project, which will ultimately have three routes and an estimated $81 billion total cost, will solve a chronic shortage in China’s northern cities.
Water availability per person in Beijing is on a par with Middle Eastern countries such as Israel, threatening economic growth, a key source of support for China’s ruling Communist party.
“This water needs to go to the North,” said a tour guide at the reservoir surnamed Chen, standing atop the 110-meter-high dam at the reservoir in the central province of Hubei, fed by the Han and Dan rivers……
…..The capital’s annual water use has reached 3.6 billion cubic meters, and with supplies at only about 2.1 billion cubic meters it already faces a shortfall of 1.5 billion cubic meters every year.
Environmentalists say water conservation is an urgent priority, and prices ― currently well below global averages at 4 yuan per cubic meter ― need to rise.
A “supply-side approach” such as the project “does not address the underlying causes of the region’s water stress,” said Britt Crow-Miller, assistant professor of geography at Portland State University, who has studied it.
“China’s current development model is very short-sighted,” she added. “It’s about keeping things growing at all costs ... and deferring the consequences as far into the future as possible.”
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