Olympics Worsening Water Crisis in China

Fresh water is increasingly scarce, particularly in China. The average annual supply, per capita, is 348 cubic meters. The UN defines anything below 1000 as a water shortage. Beijing residents have only 250 cubic meters.

Plans to divert water from the northeast provinces to Beijing and some hydropower projects will have dire consequences for millions of peasants. However, China has a long history of being cavalier about the consequences of its policies on the lives of the masses. Is there enough risk of rebellion for things to be different this time?

From the Financial Times:

An Qiyuan, a member and former chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee for Shaanxi province and former Communist party chief of Shaanxi, warned of an impending social and environmental disaster because of overuse of scarce water resources.

In a critical tone seldom heard from Chinese officials, Mr An called on Beijing to provide compensation to the provinces that have been told to pump their cleanest water to the capital in order to ensure potable supplies during the Olympics.

Beijing will need an estimated 300m cubic metres of additional water just to flush out the polluted and stagnant rivers, canals and lakes in its central areas to put on a clean, environmentally-friendly face for Olympic visitors, according to municipal officials.

“In order to preserve the quality of Beijing’s water we have to close all our factories. But we still need to live. So I say the government needs to compensate Shaanxi,” Mr An said. “If you don’t compensate the masses then how can they survive?”

He called on the central government to remove hydropower projects on the Yellow River – particularly the Sanmenxia Dam built in the late 1950s – which he blamed for extreme flooding, worsening pollution and dwindling water supplies….

“Beijing is facing a water crisis and it is fighting for water with neighbouring cities, including Tianjin and Zhangjiakou,” said Wang Jian, a Beijing government employee and activist on water issues. “The price of water does not reflect its true value, but the government has decided to control the price in order to maintain a harmonious society in the run-up to the Olympics.”

The government has launched a grandiose $60bn “south to north water diversion project” that will channel about 1.2bn cubic metres of water a year from wetter southern provinces to the country’s arid north.

Many experts have criticised the scheme for being short-sighted and say the concrete reservoirs and channels being built to transport the water will increase evaporation and lower already depleted water tables by reducing the amount of water absorbed into the soil.

“As the economy develops water usage has increased greatly and our water has become increasingly polluted – even the soil is polluted,” Mr An said.

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2 comments

  1. Jojo

    China is doing everything it can to put on a good face for the Olympics. I doubt that Western reporters and TV crews will be able to wander outside of the staged areas. Everyone in the west knows what is going on so I guess the game they are playing is going to be for internal political control.

    But I wonder what will happen if the USA economy really tanks hard by then? China will be in a lot of pain if its biggest customer sinks hard prior to the games.

    Will China be able to cover up the additional pain they will face? Will they be able to keep their people and internal dissenters suppressed?

  2. Nicolas

    Actual water crisis is really scaring and i would like to help people taking conciousness of that. I’ve recently discovered this website:
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    http://www.StopWaterCrisis.com
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    with funny and original stuff showing an image of our “home” as you have never seen before…!

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