A major water-resources project for Beijing will be basically
completed by the end of this year, according to the State
Council.
The project will supplement the Olympic host city's water
resources next year.
Belonging to the central route of China's gigantic
south-to-north water diversion scheme, the project links
Shijiazhuang City in north China's Hebei Province with Beijing to
divert water from south to the country's capital.
Construction began on the central route of the 1,277-km-long
project in 2003. It aims to divert water from Danjiangkou Reservoir
in central China's Hubei Province to northern China, including
Beijing and Tianjin Municipalities.
China is among the 13 countries with the lowest water supplies
per capita in the world. Among the country's 668 cities, more than
400 are short of water, and shortages are severe in more than 100
cities.
The municipal government has earmarked 100 million yuan to
prevent water pollution and conserve water in Zhangjiakou and
Chengde, two cities in Hebei Province whose water feeds two major
Beijing drinking water sources, the Miyun and Guanting
reservoirs.
Beijing will divert up to 400 million cubic meters of water a
year from Hebei to safeguard supplies for the Olympics, a top water
official said in May.
The water from Hebei, equivalent to more than 10 percent of
Beijing's 2006 consumption of 3.43 billion cubic meters, would be
ready to be pumped from four of Hebei's reservoirs by April 2008,
said Bi Xiaojun, deputy head of the Beijing Water Authority.
(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2007)