By David Stanway
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - As droughts loom,&nbsp;China&nbsp;is planning ambitious&nbsp;new&nbsp;water&nbsp;infrastructure projects in hope that moving more of the precious liquid across the country will mitigate the impact of&nbsp;climate&nbsp;change&nbsp;- but experts warn more river diversions may be costly.
At the end of May, officials released plans to build a national "water&nbsp;network" of&nbsp;new&nbsp;canals, reservoirs and storage facilities they say will boost irrigation, and cut the risk of floods and droughts.
Minister of&nbsp;Water&nbsp;Resources Li Guoying said the plan would "unblock the major arteries" of the river system by 2035, boosting the state's ability to even out&nbsp;water&nbsp;supply distribution.
But experts say this approach is not only expensive and environmentally disruptive, but could leave regions in the south more vulnerable to supply disruptions and require additional infrastructure to address.
"What they have been doing so far is using engineering solutions to try to physically supply&nbsp;water&nbsp;and fix their&nbsp;water&nbsp;problem," said Mark Wang, a geographer at Melbourne University who studies the impact of&nbsp;China's&nbsp;water&nbsp;infrastructure. "If&nbsp;China&nbsp;can reduce&nbsp;water&nbsp;use and increase efficiency, it doesn't need mega-diversion projects."
China's Ministry of&nbsp;Water&nbsp;Resources did not respond to a request for comment.
Although this year's drought is not expected to be as severe as last year's, when months of high temperatures parched large parts of the Yangtze basin, state forecasters warn that central and southwestern&nbsp;China&nbsp;could suffer.
Parts of the southwest have already imposed special measures, with a&nbsp;water&nbsp;company in Sichuan province's Liangshan County urging residents not to shower more than four times a month.
China's per capita&nbsp;water&nbsp;resources are much lower than the world average and distribution is uneven. It has long relied on large-scale infrastructure to deliver&nbsp;water&nbsp;from the flood-prone south to the arid north and find engineering solutions to its long-term supply woes.
Some measures to curb demand are in place. Local governments have been pushed to reduce&nbsp;water&nbsp;consumption, improve wastewater&nbsp;recycling and tackle pollution.
Alongside that,&nbsp;China&nbsp;has embarked on more than 100 diversion projects over the last five years, Wang added.
Total investment in fixed&nbsp;water&nbsp;assets exceeded 1.1 trillion yuan ($154 billion) last year, up 44% compared with 2021, analysts said. It rose 15.6% to 407 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2023 and officials say even more funding will be made available.
"The costs of building these enormous projects is likely to continue increasing," said Genevieve Donnellon-May, a researcher at the Oxford Global Society who studies&nbsp;China's&nbsp;water&nbsp;issues.
'CHAIN REACTIONS'
Part of the&nbsp;new&nbsp;plan involves the expansion of the South-North&nbsp;Water&nbsp;Diversion Project (SNWDP), an ambitious engineering project that diverts surplus Yangtze River&nbsp;water&nbsp;to the arid Yellow River basin in the north.
The government says the project has played a vital role in "optimising"&nbsp;China's&nbsp;water&nbsp;supplies, and has diverted more than 60 billion cubic metres of&nbsp;water.
But as the project's name suggests, the direction of&nbsp;water&nbsp;flows only one way, and it was unable to help during last year's droughts.
By relying on additional projects of that scale, experts fear that&nbsp;China&nbsp;will merely relocate shortages. They say&nbsp;megaprojects&nbsp;such as the SNWDP and the Three Gorges Dam have triggered a "chain reaction" of unforeseen consequences that require billions of yuan in&nbsp;new&nbsp;infrastructure to fix, Wang of Melbourne University said.
For example, the transfer of&nbsp;water&nbsp;to the north via the Danjiangkou reservoir has depleted&nbsp;water&nbsp;downstream on the Han River, forcing authorities to propose another 60 billion yuan project to connect Danjiangkou with the Three Gorges reservoir.
Three Gorges, which sequesters as much as 40 billion cubic metres of Yangtze&nbsp;water&nbsp;for power generation and flood management, has itself been blamed for record low&nbsp;water&nbsp;levels in Poyang Lake. To resolve the problem, authorities are considering plans for a&nbsp;new&nbsp;sluice gate that critics say will destroy local habitats.
China&nbsp;has also proposed a project to divert&nbsp;water&nbsp;from Tibet to northwest&nbsp;China, which has alarmed India and other countries dependent on rivers such as the Brahmaputra and the Mekong.
Alternative approaches that focus on wastewater&nbsp;recycling, desalination or reductions in demand could prove more effective, Wang said.
With about 60% of&nbsp;China's&nbsp;water&nbsp;supplies used for agriculture, efficiencies could be found by switching crops or using alternative irrigation methods, he said.
"For some engineering solutions - if they are feasible, if the local environmental impact is not huge, I am not totally against them," Wang said. "But the scale and the scope and the impact is huge&hellip; if you put the same effort into the demand side and can achieve a better result, that's the point."
($1 = 7.1429 yuan)
&nbsp;
(Reporting by David Stanway. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

you might like

As climate change hits, China weighs new water megaprojects