China's Water Transport Mega Project Saves 42 Cities From Drought

The mega-project, based on diverting water from one place to another, has benefited more than 150 million citizens, according to officials. With the project in question, water drawn from major rivers in the south of the country for the last eight years is transferred to the drought-stricken northern regions.

The Ministry of Water Resources announced that the south-to-north water transfer project provides the opportunity to transport 58,6 billion cubic meters of water to the arid regions of the north via the central and eastern waterways. Annual water transfer amount increased from 2 billion cubic meters to 10 billion cubic meters in the process. In this way, a contribution was made to the strengthening of the local economy of 42 large and medium-sized cities.

The mega project for transporting water from south to north takes shape on three transport axes. Of the three, the middle waterway is the most important because of its role in the process of supplying water to the Chinese capital, leaving the Danjiangkou watershed in the central province of Hubei, passing through Henan and Hebei provinces to Beijing and Tianjin. This carriageway started to supply water as of December 2014. The eastern waterway was put into service in 2013, and the planning of the western waterway of the mega-project continues.