Nam Thuy Bac Dieu – China’s controversial water transfer ambitions

China’s Xinhua News Agency reports Nam Thuy Bac Article ProjectOn August 25, the world’s largest water transport system transported water from southern China to northern China through the Yellow River bed. A test phase was carried out to evaluate the operation of all 155 units and to bring the entire mega-project into operation.

It took China 50 years from the idea to start implementing the project. Scheduled for completion in 2050, Nam Thuy Bac Dieu is expected to deliver nearly 50 billion cubic meters of water annually to the northern urban area.

This grand project will connect four major rivers in China China Including the Yangtze River (also known as the Yangtze River), the Yellow River, the Haihe River, and the Huaihe River, the three major water transport trunk lines run from south to north and run through the eastern, central and western regions of China.

The entire project is estimated to cost about $62 billion, twice as much as China’s controversial Three Gorges Dam.

In northern China, which is densely populated and densely populated by industry and agriculture, water shortages have always been a headache. Groundwater here is over-exploited to meet the needs of urban and industrial development, leading to water scarcity in many rural areas. Groundwater depletion also makes the region prone to frequent subsidence and dust storms.

To solve this problem, Chinese leader Mao Zedong proposed the concept of water transfer to the south in 1952, aiming to alleviate the increasingly serious water shortage problem in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and northern provinces such as Hebei, Henan and Shandong.

Half a century later, on August 23, 2002, the project was approved by the State Council after extensive research, planning and discussions. The project started on the Eastern Front in December 2002. A year later, the center line opened.

A special limited liability company was established to be responsible for the construction, operation and maintenance of the project, requiring each province to establish a water supply company to manage infrastructure matters and administration in the region.

Eastern line It is expected to supply water to Shandong Province and northern Jiangsu in 2007, connecting Shandong with the Yangtze River, and transporting water northward to the Huanghuaihai Plain through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.

It diverts from the main tributary of the Yangtze River near Yangzhou City, flows along the existing river into Weishan, Shandong, and then passes through the Yellow River into Tianjin through a tunnel.

The total length of the east line is more than 1,155 kilometers, with 23 pumping stations in the first phase, with an installed capacity of nearly 454 megawatts, supplementing the existing 7 pumping stations.

The eastern route also includes a 9-kilometer-long tunnel extending from the exit of Dongping Lake to the entrance of the Wellin Canal, including a 634-meter-long pipeline and two 9.3-meter-diameter tunnels, 70 meters below the Yellow River.

Construction was delayed due to industrial chemical pollution and agricultural activities that threatened water quality. However, water was diverted to Shandong in 2014 and to Tianjin in October 2017.

central line Construction started in December 2003. Originally scheduled to be completed before the opening of the Beijing Olympics in August 2008, it will provide water for the Chinese capital. However, by September 2008, only 307 kilometers of the project had been completed.

The middle line diverts the water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir of the Hanjiang River through the new canal near the western edge of the Huanghuaihai Plain and flows into Beijing via Henan and Hebei provinces. The total length of the route is about 1,267 kilometers.

The middle line project was postponed to 2014 due to the expansion project of Danjiangkou Reservoir. By December 2014, the Central Line was operational.

The nearby city of Tianjin can also draw water from a branch near Xushui County in Hebei Province. The original designed annual water delivery capacity of the central line is 9.5 billion cubic meters, and it is expected to reach 1.3-14 billion cubic meters by 2030. The project also includes two tunnels with a diameter of 8.5 meters and a length of 7 kilometers, with a flow of about 500 cubic meters per second.

The reduction in the storage capacity of the Danjiangkou Reservoir has prompted Chinese engineers to propose plans to pump more water from the Three Gorges Reservoir to increase supply.

project West LineThe project involves the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 3000-5000 meters and is scheduled to start in 2010.

It is expected to be completed in 2050. The west line will transport 4 billion cubic meters of water nearly 500 kilometers from the three major tributaries of the Yangtze River, including Tongtian River, Yalong River and Dadu River, to the northwest through the Bayankala Mountains. China.

The Chinese side believes that the South Water and North Emperor project is “two birds with one stone”, which not only solves the problem of drought and water shortage in the north, but also solves the problem of flooding in the south. Access to new water also helps sustain industry and infrastructure in the north.

According to the report, as of now, the east and middle routes have transported about 54 billion cubic meters of water since their opening, benefiting 140 million people. China Daily.

The project is also regarded as a great technological achievement, which is the pride of China. Beijing also hopes that the Northern Emperor of the South Waters will become a work that attracts many tourists.

However, this magnificent project also attracted a lot of attention and controversy during its construction. Qiu Baoxing, China’s vice-minister for housing, has said the project is difficult to maintain and unnecessary because it will only lead to a waste of water.

Ma Jun, China’s chief environmental expert, warned that the project would increase pollution, which has worsened in China and will only make northern cities more careless with their water use. He assumed they had drained the groundwater because they knew the southern floodplain would provide them with water.

From the beginning of the project, there have been concerns about the potential for water-borne diseases, especially schistosomiasis, to spread from southern China to northern China. The project designed a number of water treatment plants, but many scientists and environmental experts remain skeptical about their effectiveness in preventing the risk of disease spreading from the water.

The construction of the canal is also controversial due to severe ecological consequences, including seawater intrusion and habitat destruction. In the summer of 2013, aquaculture farmers at Dongping Lake on the east coast complained that polluted water from the Yangtze River, which flows into the lake, was killing their fish in large numbers.

Farmers in several areas in Hebei province have been told to switch from growing rice to corn to save water for one of Beijing’s two main reservoirs. At least 330,000 people were displaced to serve the project construction program.

Some cities along the diversion route were forced to close businesses to make room for projects or avoid polluting water sources. This has led some places to face reduced tax revenue and rising unemployment due to major water diversion projects.

Even more worrying is that the water diversion project will damage some of China’s most important rivers, including the Han River, the main source of water for some 30 million people, and the Yangtze, which flows through 11 provinces for 400 million people.

When all three diversions are completed, only about 5 percent of the Yangtze River’s water flows into the ocean each year, the project manager said. They also claim that local governments have built additional dams to ensure downstream water flow to cities such as Xiangyang.

However, the people of Tuong Duong say that since the implementation of the project, their river water has not only decreased but also become more polluted.

According to a report from the Wilson Center in Washington, USA, the mega-project could also affect the water resources of the South Stream River.

It is estimated that China draws 200 billion cubic meters of water each year from rivers originating in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, such as the Brahmaputra, Tanwen and Mekong. About 3 billion people depend on water from China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Experts also believe that reduced river flow slows sedimentation, which is important for the formation of wetlands that help reduce pollution and nourish ecosystems.

“If these problems are not solved, this project will be meaningless. You haven’t even solved the old problem, but you have created a new one,” said Yang Yong, a Chinese environmentalist.

Cheongdam (follow China Daily)