China Diverting Major River to "Water" Beijing Olympics
source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080228-china-water.html
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This article was posted in February.
Landlocked Beijing has begun tapping a lattice of reservoirs, rivers, and canals across eastern China to provide plentiful water for this summer's Olympic Games.
As part of the initiative, more than 150 million cubic meters (39.6 billion gallons) of water are being diverted from the Yellow River through a network of canals stretching across three provinces to refill a lake south of the historically drought-stricken Chinese capital.
A parallel project is diverting water to the east coast resort of Qingdao, which will host the Olympic sailing competitions.
"Athletes from all over the world will come to China to join the Olympic Games [in August]," said Huang Feng, a researcher at the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, which is in charge of the river's diversion.
"So Beijing is implementing its master plan to provide the very highest quality of water."
The current rerouting is just the precursor to a 60-billion-U.S.-dollar hydro-engineering project expected to see three human-carved rivers carry water from southern China to the arid north.....Postel, of the Global Water Policy Project, predicts that conflicts over water could ricochet across Asia.
"By 2015 nearly three billion people—40 percent of the projected world population—are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize enough water to satisfy the food, industrial, and domestic needs of their citizens," she said.
Read more of the article at the link above.
Landlocked Beijing has begun tapping a lattice of reservoirs, rivers, and canals across eastern China to provide plentiful water for this summer's Olympic Games.
As part of the initiative, more than 150 million cubic meters (39.6 billion gallons) of water are being diverted from the Yellow River through a network of canals stretching across three provinces to refill a lake south of the historically drought-stricken Chinese capital.
A parallel project is diverting water to the east coast resort of Qingdao, which will host the Olympic sailing competitions.
"Athletes from all over the world will come to China to join the Olympic Games [in August]," said Huang Feng, a researcher at the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, which is in charge of the river's diversion.
"So Beijing is implementing its master plan to provide the very highest quality of water."
The current rerouting is just the precursor to a 60-billion-U.S.-dollar hydro-engineering project expected to see three human-carved rivers carry water from southern China to the arid north.....Postel, of the Global Water Policy Project, predicts that conflicts over water could ricochet across Asia.
"By 2015 nearly three billion people—40 percent of the projected world population—are expected to live in countries that find it difficult or impossible to mobilize enough water to satisfy the food, industrial, and domestic needs of their citizens," she said.
Read more of the article at the link above.
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- tags:
- China, 2008 Olympics, River, water supply, 2 more
