Jiangxi province will possibly introduce water rationing for urban domestic, industrial and agricultural use in 2004 to curb waste.

A spokesman for the provincial hydrological bureau said the bureau had worked out two water-saving programs that set quotas for urban residents and major industrial products to prevent a possible water crisis.

Urban residents in Nanchang, the provincial capital, will be assigned a daily quota of 170 to 210 liters each, under the programs which are still under consideration by experts from the quality management, water resources, water supply and health departments.

At the end of 2002, the daily per-capita water consumption of Chinese urban residents was 219 liters.

Under the programs, office workers will be given 200 liters of water each a day while 2,000 liters will go to the house building industry per square meter and luxury hotels per bed.

"If the programs are approved by the provincial legislature, they will be implemented early next year," the spokesman said, acknowledging that they would be adjusted every three to five years according to social development.

Water shortages have affected China's cities in their rapid economic growth, especially in northern and eastern regions.

Droughts, dwindling groundwater resources, pollution and inappropriate facilities constituted the major reasons for the problem, officials with the Ministry of Water Resources noted.

A report from the Ministry of Land and Resources earlier this month said that more than half of China's 668 cities faced severe shortages of groundwater and over 70 million people were using sub-standard groundwater.

The country's extraction of groundwater had gone up by an average annual rate of 2.5 billion cubic meters over the past two decades and reached a total of 119.1 billion cubic meters in 2002.

China has launched a water-saving campaign to lower daily water consumption by urban residents to under 230 liters per person by 2005 and 240 liters by 2010.

China hopes to keep its annual water consumption at around 620 billion cubic meters by 2005 and 670 billion cubic meters by 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency November 10, 2003)