Water WarningsUrgent Tasks for ChinaWater has long been considered an inexhaustible resour

Water Warnings

Urgent Tasks for China

Water has long been considered an inexhaustible resource. But China is facing an unmistakable water crisis, and recently, because of increasingly hard-to-miss symptoms of the shortage, people in all parts of society are beginning to realize just how precious commodity water really is.

At first glance, it seems like there should be enough: China's total supply of freshwater resources ranks sixth in the world, after Brazil, Russia, Canada, the United States and Indonesia. But despite this apparent advantage, China's per capita water resources fall far below the world average of 7,600 cubic meters per-capita due to the country's enormous population size. China's per-capita amount of 2,200 cubic meters is expected to decrease further as the country continues its rapid economic growth and population expansion.

"Without excessively exploiting underground water, China has a water gap of nearly 40 billion cubic meters. The country's 320 million rural people aren't able to drink safe water and over 400 cities don't have sufficient water supply, 110 of which face a serious shortage," Wang Shucheng, Minister of Water Resources, said recently.

Some water resources experts warn that the current shortage is no more than a warning signal, with a greater crisis yet to come. The Ministry of Water Resources issued a water crisis warning as early as November 2001. At the time it said that when the Chinese population peaks at 1.6 billion in 2030, China's per-capita water resources could fall to 1,700 cubic meters, the internationally acknowledged level below which an area is said to be experiencing "water stress".

Poor Natural Conditions

Scant water resources to slake the thirsts of a population of 1.3 billion, and the uneven geographical distribution of these resources, form. the basis of water conditions in China.

Affected by monsoons (季候风), China's precipitation (降水量) varies considerably among different

seasons. The time of precipitation overlaps (交迭) with the hottest seasons, mostly in summer and autumn and scarcely in winter and spring. Generally, regions with the lowest precipitation levels receive it concentratedly only at certain times of the year, which easily gives rise to drought in spring and flooding in summer. Meanwhile, two thirds of China's water resources is comprised of runoff flooding, which means rivers often flood in the rainy season and dry up at other times.

China's water resources are also distributed geographically unevenly, inconsistent with the distribution of land, mineral resources and productivity. Generally, water resources are concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the country, and in mountainous areas. Annual precipitation amounts vary from more than 3,000 millimeters in the southeast to less than 50 millimeters in the northwest.

China is prone to floods and droughts, such-as the severe drought that hit Chongqing and Sichuan in southwest China this summer, the country's worst in 50 years. While per capita water resources in some areas of the north approach the level of the driest countries in the world, the water-rich south often suffers from seasonal droughts, which adversely affects rice, the major crop reliant on watering, as well as other cash crops. The last two decades have seen a nominal change in the country's surface water resources and total water resources. Yet clue to factors such as global climate change and river drainage, and total water resources in south China are rising while water resources in the north are falling significantly.

A Series of Measures Adopted by Chinese Government

Against these difficult conditions, the Chinese Government has taken a series of measures to try and guarantee the basic water demands necessary for daily life and social and economic development. Since the founding of t

A．Y

B．N

C．NG