BEIJING: The South-North Water Diversion Project has in the past decade diverted 76.7 billion cubic meters of water from the Yangtze River basin to the country’s drought-prone northern regions, benefiting 185 million people, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.
Initiated in the 1950s, the water diversion project consists of three routes. The volume of diverted water is over 5,000 times the water in the well-known West Lake in Zhejiang provincial capital, Hangzhou, which has a surface area of more than 6 square kilometers, and is more than 19 times the annual average water consumption in Beijing.
After sustainable expansion of areas covered by the project, it now supplies water to 45 medium and large-sized cities, Wang Daoxi, vice-minister of water resources, said on Thursday at a news conference marking the 10th anniversary of the operation of the project’s middle route.
The news conference was organized by the State Council Information Office.
“The project’s positive influence has progressively extended beyond medium and large cities to rural areas, leading to an increasing multitude of individuals reaping its benefits year after another,” he said.
Wang said that in the basin of Heilonggang River, over 5 million individuals have relinquished their dependence on water rich in fluoride and marked by a bitter saltiness, a traditional source that has sustained their daily needs for generations. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
