With its massive population, China’s focused on massive
infrastructure projects to address what remain growing problems of water
scarcity and drought. In the spirit of a grand scheme that dates back
to early medieval Chinese times, China’s government is now looking to
build the South-North Transfer, a vast new water pipeline that would
transport massive amounts from the country comparatively water-rich
south to its more water-starved north, according to a ClimateWire report (subscription required).
Pressed by population growth, climate change and rapid
industrialization, China’s now facing a water crisis, one that feats of
large-scale engineering alone will not solve, according to “Drying Up,” a new Asian Development Bank report.
The incidence of frequent and severe droughts is on the rise in
China, yet it is China’s increasing demand for water, over-extraction of
water and its inefficient use that pose the greatest threats to
sustainable management. “Over extraction and inefficient use of water
resource is creating water shortages in cities and putting large
populations at risk when a drought occurs, the ADB notes in a press release.
“The country’s traditional approach of building more infrastructure is not enough to fill the widening gap between water supply and demand,” said Qingfeng Zhang, ADB’s Lead Water Resources Specialist and one of the authors of the report. “An integrated water resources management approach is needed to bring balance and prepare safety net supplies for droughts.”
The Chinese government has been trying to reduce Chinese society’s
water use, but doing so is proving very difficult. Local governments are
taking advantage of opportunities to mitigate the impacts of these
extreme weather events. Meanwhile, the rapidly industrializing country
is experiencing “increasingly frequent and intense droughts.”
“Between 2001 and 2006, over 400 cities in the PRC suffered perennial water shortages and 11 suffered severe water shortages,” the report authors point out. “The 2011 drought which affected the Yangtze River left 3.5 million people with minimal drinking water. The 2009 drought affected 60 million people and compromised 6.5 million hectares of land. Between 2004 and 2007, droughts cost the PRC an estimated $8 billion of annual direct economic losses.”
Mitigating the Effects of Drought, Shortages: Disaster Preparedness, Demand Management, Efficient Use
Drawing on experience inside China, in “Drying Up” the ADB water
resources team proposes a three-pronged approach for reducing the
impacts of drought in China.
- Strengthen its disaster preparedness, including risk monitoring and early warning systems, to reduce response time and costs incurred by losses, damages and rebuilding.
- Manage demand through water savings, building better capture and storage facilities, re-evaluating tariffs, and boosting water efficiencies in agriculture, industry, and cities.
- Take an integrated approach to water management at the municipal level based on water allocation schemes and monitoring that ensure nature, people, and the economy have secure supplies.
The authors draw on the experience of Guiyang residents in the
southwestern Guizhou province to illustrate the social, economic and
ecological benefits such an approach offers. A severe drought affected
the city in 2010, leaving people without drinking water. Some 170,000
needed rations of grain to survive.
The municipality would have had 20% more water during the drought had
Guiyang government officials taken the step of requiring the use of
water-saving fixtures in residential and commercial buildings, imposing
higher industrial water efficiency standards and reducing system
leakage.
“Demand management alongside a system that monitors flows and water
allocation can propel the country to greater resilience,” according to
the report. “This would significantly close the supply-demand gap, which
cannot be done by infrastructure alone.”
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