Title: Fwd: [riverlink] Water crisis is taking China
towards 'Dry
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Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2005 12:58:24 -0000
Subject: [riverlink] Water crisis is taking China towards 'Dry
Age'
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Moderator's Note: All governments which, promote the fallacy of
Big
is Beautiful put their countries in a situation where China finds
itself.
China with the fifth-largest water resources in the world and a
population of 1.3 billion is moving towards a situation which the
World Bank calls the 'danger level'. Water sources in China are
running drying up. In response China has launched its yet another
mega
public works projects to transfer water from the Yangtze River in
the
south, to the drying Hwang Ho, Huai and Hai rivers in the north
every
year. The project entails ploughing three separate channels about
800
miles long between China's flood-prone south and the arid north.
It
would join China's Three Gorges Dam and 3000-mile Qinghai-Tibet
Railway as one of the world's largest, and most controversial,
public
works projects.
Environmentalists say the project will displace millions people to
be
relocated and damage delicate eco-systems. Yangtze itself is in
danger
of running dry. Chinese Environmental Protection Agency warns the
government "most countries no longer undertake large-scale
cross-watershed transfer projects because they are very expensive
and
have severe environmental consequences".
Moderator
WATER CRISIS
The drying up of China
China's water crisis has serious economic and ecological
implications
for itself - and the world.
It's easy to mistake the long but otherwise incongruous looking
bridge
just outside Luoyang city in Henan province as a monument to
China's
endemic corruption. At first sight, it appears to be built over
nothing but an expanse of dry field which could easily have been
crossed with a normal road.
It's only after one travels a bit down its 3-km length that one
realises that it is in fact a monument marking China's decaying
environment. For a kilometre along the bridge, one suddenly sees
the
Hwang Ho, or Yellow River, running below, and one realises it was
to
span this river that the bridge was originally built. It's just
that
the river has shrunk to about one-third its original size, leaving
wide, dry embankments on either side as it ebbs apologetically
down
the narrow centre of its original river bed like some anonymous
provincial tributary.
"Once, if it rained a lot, the water would even touch the
bridge,"
says Wang Tong, a local taxi driver. "But the water's
disappearing".
Wang speaks softly, almost in disbelief, and says it still seems
unimaginable that the mighty Hwang Ho "which we always used to
see
drawn on all maps" could disappear.
Indeed, the 4,700 km-long Hwang Ho, and the 6,300 km-long Yangtze
River further south, have been the cradles of Chinese civilisation
for
over three thousand years. Even today, the Hwang Ho, which rises
in
China's far west, is the major source of water for northwest and
north
China. It provides water to over 12 per cent of China's population
across 50 large and medium-sized cities before emptying into the
Bohai
Sea in the east. Well, almost emptying. For three years
straight,
starting in 1995, the river did not
reach the coast. In 1997, it
reached up to Kaifeng City in Henan Province, about 800 km from
its
mouth. Decent monsoons in 2002 and 2003 helped the Hwang Ho reach
its
delta once again. Today, from the bridge, we can see little boats
bobbing along the river and the sailors smile and wave at us. But
the
river's volume has shrunken by a third, and its speed has slowed
by
half, down to less than 50 cubic metres per second.
That's the story across much of China, where numerous water
sources
are running dry. Apart from shrinking rivers, a recent survey
revealed
that the water table beneath the North China plain, where 40 per
cent
of China's grain is produced, has fallen five feet in the last
five
years. After five years of drought, Chinese officials have become
so
desperate that they are using airplanes, rocket shells and
anti-aircraft guns to shoot cloud-seeding chemicals into the air.
From
1995 to 2003, the nation spent $266 million on rainmaking
technology.
The World Bank and the Washington DC-based Worldwatch Institute
say
the problem is burgeoning water consumption in China's towns
coupled
with reckless industrial and agricultural use. This perfect storm
of
economic and environmental factors, they warn, could exhaust
China's
strained water resources, and trap the country in a new 'Dry Age'.
Giant Problem
>From a staid but functional office at the headquarters of the
China
Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower in Beijing, Wang Hao,
the
institute's director, says "water shortage is one of the most
serious
challenges" looming over China's swelling prosperity and
population.
"I think about it night and day," he says to no one in
particular as
he paces around the bulky conference table in the room. The series
of
numbers he reels off to amplify the problem are so stark that they
almost make an idle sipping of the bottled water at the table feel
like a guilty pleasure.
Though China currently has the fifth-largest water resources in
the
world, given its population of 1.3 billion, the country's per
capita
water supply is only 2,200 cubic metres - 25 per cent of the
global
average. By the Chinese government's own admission, water supply
is
expected to fall to 1700 cubic metres per person, which the World
Bank
calls the 'danger level', by 2030. During the same period, the
demand
for water is expected to jump from 120 billion tonnes a year to
400
billion tonnes.
Using uncharacteristically strong language, the World Bank has
warned
that the situation "will soon become unmanageable with
catastrophic
consequences for future generations."
Four hundred of China's 668 cities are suffering from water
shortage,
according to government reports. Predictably, the quantitative fall
in
China's water resources has also been accompanied by a fall in the
country's water quality. The World Bank says three-fourths of
China's
rivers are polluted, and over 700 million of China's 1.3 billion
people drink contaminated water.
Though China's western provinces such as Gansu and Shaanxi have
always
been parched (in the worst regions, some people say they have
literally not bathed for a decade), even northern regions are now
facing shortages.
Hubei Province in central China was poetically called the 'Province
of
a Thousand Lakes'. But today, leaping industrial demand for water
in
this economically supercharged region has turned 815 of these once
pristine lakes into sandpits. Seen from the air, the once fecund
ground looks arid and angry, and this change is spreading across
the
area. In many indigent villages across China's northern regions
and
Mongolia, locals who rear sheep and other animals for a living say
the
encroaching desert has eaten into traditional grazing grounds,
forcing
them to move several times. Scientists estimate that within 20
years,
such desertification could spread across a region the size of
France.
In many rural provinces, the circumventing of traditional
occupations
and livelihoods because of water shortages is causing riots,
raising
the spectre China's leaders fear most - political instability.
The
current regime in Beijing has little
in common with the peasants' and
workers' revolution, in whose name it still rules. But the fact is
that it still uses old rhetoric to cling to power, and the bulk of
the
People Liberation Army is primarily recruited from rural areas.
In 2002, thousands of farmers in the Yellow River basin of China
clashed with police over a government plan to divert water to
cities
and industry. Numerous clashes like this have been reported across
the
country.
Not far from the Yellow River Bridge, residents near the Xiao
Langdi
dam, China's largest water-management project on the Hwang Ho, say
they forced authorities to stop the dam from generating electricity
to
increase the irrigation water supply when the area was plagued by
drought in 2001. Still, with the river having shrunk by half,
there
just isn't enough water. "I think we could grow two, maybe
three
rounds of crops here every year (but) we only get water for one,"
says
Lu Zheng, a local farmer.
As peasants unable to make a living off the land are migrating to
cities and shrinking the local tax base, local authorities are
often
raising taxes on those who remain. This then drives them to leave,
or
protest violently. With concerned Central government authorities
in
Beijing warning village councils against indiscriminately taxing
farmers, thousands of villages are sinking into decay and
destitution.
Further, denying water to industry has also had its share of
consequences, and not just economic ones. Numerous Chinese
industries,
particularly heavily water-dependent ones such as power
generation,
say they are concerned with maintaining their global
competitiveness
and growth in the face of falling water supply, rising water
prices
and increased release of water to farming areas. Analysts warn
that
with job-generating economic growth being one of the primary
handles
China's Communist Party leverages to stay in power, the prospect
of
urban recession combined with rural unrest could be very
frightening.
Giant Solution
Beijing's response has been to launch another of its mega public
works
projects, one that will transfer 50 billion cubic metres of water
from
the Yangtze River in the south, to the drying Hwang Ho, Huai and
Hai
rivers in the north every year.
"Eighty per cent of China's water lies south of the Yangtze but
this
region has only 53 per cent of the population and 36 per cent of
the
farmland," says Hao, at the China Institute of Water Resources
and
Hydropower, whose institute will be closely involved in executing
the
project. "Hence transferring water from the south to north
makes
perfect sense."
The project, first conceived by Chairman Mao in the 1950s, entails
ploughing three separate channels about 800 miles long between
China's
flood-prone south and the arid north. It would join China's Three
Gorges Dam and 3000-mile Qinghai-Tibet Railway as one of the
world's
largest, and most controversial, public works projects.
Environmentalists say the $25-billion project, which is scheduled
for
completion in 2009, will force over 250,000 people to be relocated
and
damage delicate eco-systems. Some even fear it will cause the
Yangtze
itself to run dry. Even the official State Environmental
Protection
Agency has warned the government that "most countries no
longer
undertake large-scale cross-watershed transfer projects because
they
are very expensive and have severe environmental
consequences".
While the World Bank says that the environmental issues facing the
project can be addressed, and that in some places the project
could
actually mitigate river pollution, it warns that the project could
prove futile unless China fundamentally changes the way it
consumes
and manages its water.
Indeed, China does not act like a nation in the midst of a water
shortage. Taps run freely everywhere because the government
subsidises
water supplies, especially to farmers.
Industrially, China's water consumption efficiency is one-tenth
that
of developed countries. And only 25 per cent of China's
industrially-used water is recycled, mostly because local
governments
are loathe to burden local firms with
costly recycling rules.
The vice-minister of water resources, Zhai Haohui, admits that
China
loses more than 30 billion cubic metres of water every year, causing
a
$28 billion loss in industrial output. Poor irrigation facilities
have
also meant that China exploits just 25 per cent of its irrigation
potential. Zhai, one of the reformers within government, says he
is
committed to making the tough decisions needed to correct the
situation.
One of the ministry's more innovative moves has been to encourage
government-funded organisations, such as the China Women's
Development
Fund (CWDF), to take on grassroots level water management
projects.
Qin Guoying, CWDF's deputy director, says her organisation has
spent
over $11 million to help almost a million families build water
collection wells in western China.
Zhai says his ministry has also introduced water conservation and
recycling programmes, and will raise the price of water supplied
to
farmers and industry through the water transfer project.
This is essential as some 1,000 cubic metres of water from the
Hwang
Ho river costs the same as a 1.5-litre bottle of mineral water.
The Asian Development Bank has been working with the government on
water pricing, and a pilot project in Zhangjiakou, a northern
Chinese
city, found that raising the price of water by 40 per cent and
employing a progressive pricing plan rate for individual and
corporate
users allowed water consumption in the city to fall by nearly 14
per
cent over two years. Majority of the reduction came from
factories,
which instituted water recycling programmes.
Steps are also being taken to arrest the rapid deforestation and
soil
erosion taking place across the country. Hydropower, which creates
large evaporating reservoirs, is increasingly being complemented
with
wind power.
Meng Xian Gan, director of the China Solar Energy Institute in
Beijing, says: "China is on track to generate 10 per cent of its
power
from wind and solar energy by 2010." Innovative programmes to
desalinate sea water using solar energy are also in place in
numerous
cities, says Meng.
Lingering Concerns
But none of this is likely to be enough, and the consequences of
China's massive water problems are expected to spill over borders,
creating regional, even global consequences.
Despite Beijing's attempts to keep water flowing to its farmers in
the
middle and long run, the imperatives against doing this are just
too
strong. Today, agriculture uses 70 per cent of China's water,
producing relatively little in return. For example, in China, a
thousand tonnes of water produces one ton of wheat, worth perhaps
$200. If the same amount of water is used in industry, it could
generate up to $14,000 in additional output, according to experts.
With China desperate for economic growth and jobs, and flush with
over
$600 billion in foreign exchange with which to buy food in the
global
market, it makes perfect sense for the country to divert its water
away from food production and buy grain from the world market.
Worldwatch's Lester Brown calculates that water shortages could
cut
China's annual agricultural output by 9 million tonnes. Though
China
can afford to make up for this shortfall by buying grain in the
world
market, Brown warns that such purchases would push up world food
prices, something he describes as 'life threatening' for the
world's
1.3 billion poor who live on less than $1 a day. In short, falling
water supply in China could mean rising food prices for the entire
world, including India.
Some security experts also say that China's thirst for war could
lead
it to divert regional rivers, and bring it into conflict with
several
of its neighbours, including India. Diplomatic sources in Beijing
say
they are already worried by China's damming of the Mekong River,
which
it shares with Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and its
diverting
of water away from those countries.
Indian security experts fear a similar run-in with China because
many
of them say Beijing is toying with the idea of damming and
diverting
rivers such as the Brahmaputra, Indus
and Sutlej, which are critical
to India, Pakistan, and Burma, but which originate in
Chinese-controlled Tibet.
Tensions over what exactly China is doing to Tibetan water sources
crested in July 2000 when satellite imaging from the Indian Space
and
Research Agency (Isro) confirmed that a flash flood which killed
over
130 people and destroyed property worth $20 million in Arunachal
Pradesh had been caused by a breached dam in Tibet.
A similar tragedy occurred in Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh
in
August 2000 when more than 100 people died and 120 kilometres of a
strategic highway in the Chini sector and about 100 other bridges
were
washed away by another flash flood caused by what Beijing called
another 'natural' dam collapsing. The multi-crore Nathpa-Jhakri
1,500
MW hydroelectric project on the Sutlej River was also severely
damaged. Satellite imaging from Isro also confirmed the cause of
the
flood to be a breached lake in Tibet.
With China not allowing Indian scientists to visit the Tibetan
lakes,
there have been murmurings in security think-tanks that Beijing
might
be experimenting with water-diversion projects in the area.
Recently,
Chinese engineers further unnerved India and much of the world when
a
group of them at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in
Beijing
proposed using nuclear explosives to carve a canal that would
divert
the Brahmaputra's waters into northern China. Though the
government
was quick to publicly distance itself from the idea, experts say
it
revealed the thinking in Chinese circles.
The possibility of all this triggering 'water wars' may seem
far-fetched, but it has not stopped the US National Intelligence
Council, the umbrella over all US intelligence agencies, to begin
monitoring China's water situation closely. "In China," says
Meng,
"water could end up being more important than oil."
Jehangir S. Pocha
http://www.businessworldindia.com/feb2805/indepth01.asp
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