China's Yellow River agency wins LKY Water Prize

In 11 years, it has turned 'China's Sorrow' into river of life for 160 million people
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 4 Mar 10;

THE agency behind China's Yellow River has been awarded this year's Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize for its water-management policies.

In its 11-year history, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC) put in place flood control measures along the 5,464km river, which used to burst its banks and cause devastation, earning it the name 'China's Sorrow'.

The YRCC has also contained pollution, dumping of sediment and soil erosion there.

Today, although the area the waterway drains makes up only 2 per cent of China's water catchment area, it provides 160 million people - 12 per cent of the country's population - with a cleaner, more reliable source of water.

It also irrigates 15 per cent of China's crops.

The YRCC beat 49 other water-related projects that were considered for the third Water Prize, an international award named after Singapore's first prime minister and current Minister Mentor, whose policies have been widely credited for giving Singapore its sustainable water supply.

The prize, worth $300,000, will be presented at the highlight of this year's Singapore International Water Week in June.

The inaugural Water Prize in 2008 went to Canadian chemical engineer Andrew Benedek, who created a way of purifying water cheaper and safer than by using chemicals. Last year's prize went to Dutch professor Gatze Lettinga for his invention of an energy-saving, waste-water treatment reactor.

The YRCC, which has an annual budget of several billion Chinese yuan, has built dams and dykes to quell the Yellow River's floods and reservoirs to store water for nearby communities.

Second in length to the Yangtze in China and the fifth-longest in the world, the river rises in the Tibetan mountains, flows through nine provinces and empties into the Bohai Sea in Shandong province.

It draws its name from the silt it carries and is the world's most heavily sedimented river. When the river slows down, especially as it nears the sea, this sediment is dropped, which makes the river shallower with time.

In response to this, the YRCC has widened the river bed to increase its capacity. It also flushes the river to reduce sedimentation. By 2050, these measures will have halved the sediment load to 800 million cubic metres.

The YRCC's work has also restored large tracts of wetlands and with that has come animal life: Almost 300 species of birds are now there, twice that in 1992.

National water agency PUB chairman Tan Gee Paw, who headed the nominating committee for the Water Prize, said the sheer reach of the YRCC's work meant its achievements stood out and were 'unrivalled in scale', and that it had brought widespread and sustainable social, economic and environmental benefits to more than 100 million people.

YRCC director Li Guoying, speaking to reporters in Singapore via a video link from Beijing, said the agency's work was not yet done. He said he expects the pressure from competing demands for the finite supply of water to go up in the next decade, even as pollution and floods continue to pose challenges.

To keep these at bay, more investments in infrastructure will be key, he added.

Yellow River Conservancy Commission is 1st Asian winner of Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize
Wang Eng Eng, Channel NewsAsia 3 Mar 10;

SINGAPORE: For the first time, a project from Asia has won the third Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize. The Yellow River Conservancy Commission beat 50 other nominees to the award.

They won for innovative river management initiatives and policies for China's second longest river.

Historically, frequent floods and droughts threatened the livelihoods of communities living along China's Yellow River.

In 1999, the Yellow River Conservancy Commission set out to change that.

Sun Feng, director, International Cooperation, Yellow River Conservancy Commission, said: "Entering the 1990s considering urbanism and industrialisation, agricultural uses and domestic demands increased water demand along the Yellow River. This means we have shortage of water and so we have to manage it well and balance all the interests along the Yellow River."

And they saw results in just ten years.

The river sees 1.6 billion tonnes of sediments annually causing the river-bed to rise and water to overflow.

Through regular flushing of sediments, the commission was able to reduce the risk of flooding for 90 million people living downstream.

It was also able to supply water to 100 million people in nine provinces for domestic, industrial and agricultural use, all by creating over 10 reservoirs along a 3,000 kilometre stretch.

The commission also managed to restore biodiversity in the Yellow River delta.
Despite the achievements, challenges remain.

Mr Sun Feng said: "For many years, we have been trying to reduce the sediment through structural measure by planting vegetation. We have already reduced 300 million tones sediment into the flow but still we have a lot of sediment. We need to do more efforts in soil conversation work."

The Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize will be given out at the Singapore International Water Week on June 29. - CNA/vm

Singapore honours China's Yellow River conservation agency
Yahoo News 3 Mar 10;

SINGAPORE (AFP) – Singapore said Wednesday it was awarding more than 200,000 US dollars to a Chinese conservation agency for its work to improve water supply and reduce flood risks on China's Yellow River.

The Yellow River Conservancy Commission (YRCC), in charge of the river and its inland basins, was chosen as this year's winner for the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize, named after Singapore's founding father and former prime minister.

Resource-starved Singapore, which recycles sewage into clean water for use in factories and homes, each year honours persons or groups for "outstanding contributions" in solving the world's water problems.

Last year's winner was Gatze Lettinga, an environmental engineer from Amsterdam who pioneered an environmentally friendly, low-cost way of treating waste water and refused to patent the process.

"The improved, reliable supply of water brought about by YRCC's efforts have benefitted... the quality of life for over one hundred million people both in the basin and in regions served by the river," the award organisers said.

"Large areas of wetlands and biodiversity in (the) Yellow River Delta have also been restored over the years, returning life and vitality to the river."

With the highest volume of sediment concentration among the world's major rivers, the Yellow River is highly prone to flooding.

But the commission was able to reduce flood risks by regulating water and sediment flow in an integrated management operation that required the use of technology and consultations with the affected communities.

The Singapore award comes with a cash prize of 300,000 Singapore dollars (214,000 US) and a gold medallion.

Lee, now a senior adviser in the cabinet with the title of minister mentor, will present the award during a water conference in Singapore in June. The YRCC beat 49 other nominees for the prize.