"As pollution of major rivers and lakes worsens across China, mere water diversion will not answer the problems of water shortage, and certainly not help in building a water saving society," said Bu Shuhe in Beijing last week. Bu is a senior engineer at the Ministry of Water Resources' Hydro Power Plan & Designing Institute and a member of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which is currently having its annual session in Beijing.

"If we do not save water while protecting the environment, there will be no water to divert in the future," warned Bu, who has always fought to conserve China's water resources.

Wen Jiabao's government report delivered on March 3 as the annual session of the National People's Congress (NPC) opened pleased Bu since it announced that China had improved drinking water access, bringing it to 32 million people in the last year.

The national per capita water availability is woeful 2,700 cubic meters, a miserly quarter of the global average. The increasingly serious water pollution has further intensified water shortage, crippling both national development and people's very livelihoods. This highlights the desperate need to address and resolve this problem, since its far-reaching consequences are both intricately political and intensely personal.

Current priorities in terms of water conservation efforts lie in securing a steady supply of drinking water for people and livestock, revealed Bu, who has shouldered the responsibility of examining water-related programs nationwide. Prior to 2006, China had taken some steps to this end, investing 8 billion yuan which alleviated the crisis for around 20 million people. However, this portion of good news does not hide the plight of the 320 million still denied access to safe drinking water. With no sustainable short-term relief program available, the government has taken a ten-year view, aiming to resolve the problem within a decade by aiding 32 million people a year.

According to her, addressing drinking water safety lies within two areas, namely quantity and quality. Water shortage in China has several grassroots reasons: pollution, a lack of resources and a lack of facilities such as reservoirs. The epidemic is now spreading with 400 of China's 600 larger cities facing water shortages.

Seeking any avenue possible to alleviate the crisis, many cities have begun water diversion projects that often cost billions of yuan each, warned Bu. For example, the central line of the south-to-north water diversion project which aims to take water from the Yangtze River and transport it to drought-stricken northern areas, has already seen a staggering investment of 100 billion yuan (US$12.9 billion). It is scheduled to be completed when the Olympic Games roll around in 2008.

Inevitably, economic growth and its impact upon the environment as a whole is an unavoidable issue. However, warned Bu in closing, an equilibrium must be found between environment and development to ensure a sustainable resolution to the conflict, adding that public awareness of water conservation should also be enhanced in order to alleviate the problems.
 
(China.org.cn by Guo Xiaohong, March 12, 2007)