Olympics: China to divert Yellow River water for Beijing Games

Yahoo News 23 Jan 08;

China will begin diverting water from the Yellow River towards Beijing this month as part of a major project to boost dwindling supplies ahead of the Olympics, state press reported.

Up to 150 million cubic metres (5.3 billion cubic feet) of water will flow 399 kilometres (250 miles) along an ancient canal to Lake Baiyangdian, south of Beijing, over the next three months, the Dazhong Daily said.

"The plan to transfer water from the Yellow River to Lake Baiyangdian will be implemented to resolve the lake's water shortage crisis," the paper said on Monday.

At the same time, four reservoirs that naturally feed Baiyangdian, northern China's largest freshwater lake, will instead provide additional water for Beijing, which suffers chronic shortages, according to the paper.

The lake, about 70 kilometres from Beijing, has been decimated by environmental degradation for more than a decade as both water use and pollution has skyrocketed in tandem with China's booming economy.

The Yellow River diversion will begin in Liaocheng city in Shandong province in eastern China, the report said, citing the province's Yellow River Management Bureau.

It would then largely flow along the ancient "Grand Canal," one of China's earliest water projects, built nearly 1,400 years ago.

The first time such a transfer took place, in November 2006, it took 479 million cubic metres of water diverted at Liaocheng to supply 100 million cubic metres of water to Baiyangdian, the paper said.

The Yellow River, China's second largest and of huge symbolic and cultural importance, has itself been hit by rising water usage and has run dry short of the ocean for long periods in recent years.

Northern China is wracked with water shortages due to soaring demand, an ongoing drought and global warming. Per capita water usage in Beijing is already far below national averages.

Meanwhile, a separate project to divert Yellow River water to the Shandong city of Qingdao, where Olympic sailing events will take place, was completed last week, the paper said.

In that project, 105 million cubic metres of water was diverted from the Yellow River which eventually added some 70 million cubic metres into Qingdao's Jihongtan reservoir.

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