China Needs More Water. So It's Building a Rain-Making Network Three Times the Size of Spain
China tests weather modification system to bring more rain to Tibet.
Source of Mekong, Yellow, and Yangtze Rivers Drying Up
from chinadialogueIn 2015, the Chinese government announced plans to set up a new nature reserve in the Sanjiangyuan (“three river source”)...
China-Backed Hydropower Project Could Disturb a Sensitive Siberian Ecosystem
from Rivers without BoundariesLake Baikal contains 20 percent of the world’s freshwater resources and affects the regional climate of North Asia and the Arctic Basin. The lake is home to 2,500 aquatic species and local communities in Mongolia and Russia revere the lake as the...
Drinking the Northwest Wind
Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little...
Drinking the Northwest Wind
Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little...
China’s Bottled Water Industry to Exploit Tibetan Plateau
from chinadialogueTibet wants to bottle up much more of the region’s water resources, despite shrinking glaciers and the impact that exploitation of precious resources would have on neighboring countries.
This week, the Tibet Autonomous...
Can the South-North Water Transfer Project and Industry Co-Exist?
from chinadialogueSixty-two years after Chairman Mao first envisioned the South-North Water Transfer project, the Middle Route (SNWT-MR) formally began transferring supplies of water from Danjiangkou reservoir on the border of Hubei and Henan in...
Bottled Water In China: Boom Or Bust?
It has only taken China two decades to become the world’s largest bottled water consumer and a major producer. But given China’s much publicized water woes from pollution to scarcity and droughts, can China’s bottled water market continue to boom...
Beijing Slams Henan Capital for Using Scarce Fresh Water to Combat Smog
The Yellow River: A History of China’s Water Crisis
from chinadialogueDuring the hot, dry month of August 1992, the farmers of Baishan village in Hebei province and Panyang village in Henan came to blows. Residents from each village hurled insults and rudimentary explosives at the other across the Zhang River—the...
Why Xinjiang’s Economy Is Sputtering
It has been almost one year since a terrorist bombing in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, shocked the nation and brought economic woes and social conflicts in the largely Uighur-populated area into the spotlight again.
I arrived...
Cities in China’s North Resist Tapping Water Piped From South
Huge project transferring water from Yangtze River to drier regions runs into budgetary constraints.
Towards A Water & Energy Secure China
China’s waterscape is changing. Water risks in China, be they physical, economic or regulatory, have great social-economic impacts and are well recognized, especially those in China’s water-energy nexus. Today, 93 percent of power generation in...
Parched Beijing’s Olympics Bid Based on Fake Snow
from chinadialogueWhere better for a Winter Olympic Games than famously arid north China?
Drought and a fast growing economy have created water shortages so severe that China’s government has spent more than a decade, and up to U.S.$80 billion, constructing...
China’s Water-Energy-Food Roadmap
The water-energy-food nexus is creating a complicated challenge for China and the world. Energy development requires water. Moving and cleaning water requires energy. Food production at all stages—from irrigation to distribution—requires water...
China’s Water Diversion Project Starts to Flow to Beijing
The project has roots in an offhand comment by Mao Zedong who, on an inspection tour in the early 1950s, said: “The south has plenty of water, but the north is dry. If we could borrow some, that would be good.”
Indian Critics of Tibet’s First Dam ‘Exaggerating’ Dangers
from chinadialogueTibet’s first major dam, the Zangmu hydropower station, started generating electricity at the end of November. This prompted complaints from Indian media that Chinese dam building on the Yarlung Zangbo River could reduce water flow and cause...
China Needs to Import More Food to Ease Water, Energy Shortages
China should boost imports of food so it can dedicate more of its scarce water supplies to energy production, especially in arid but coal-rich regions like Xinjiang and Ningxia
Staying Afloat
Climate Change Darkens Life in China
from chinadialogueAsia faces a worsening water crisis, according to a leaked report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Water demand from rising populations and living standards, and...
It’s Time to Cooperate on the Yarlung Tsangpo
from chinadialogueThis is part of a special series of articles produced by thethirdpole.net on the future of the Yarlung Tsangpo river—one of the world’s great transboundary...
If You Think China’s Air Is Bad...
China’s more than 4,700 underground water-quality testing stations show that nearly three-fifths of all water supplies are “relatively bad” or worse. Roughly half of rural residents lack access to drinking water that meets international...
Beijing Water Shortage Worse Than the Middle East
from chinadialogueBeijing’s annual water consumption has reached 3.6 billion cubic meters, according to statistics released by the Beijing Water Authority, far more than the 2.1 billion cubic meters locally available.
The per capita annual water...
The Water Challenge Facing China’s Coal and Power Sector Is “Inescapable”
from chinadialogueIt is an inescapable truth that China needs coal—and that coal needs water. The coal industry, from mining to power generation and coal-to-chemicals, accounts for one-sixth of China’s water withdrawals. This is not sustainable and in some areas...
Water-Trading Could Exacerbate Water Shortages in China
from chinadialogueLarge-scale engineering projects and rigorous state control are hallmarks of the Chinese developmental model, and both have been apparent in the country’s approach to water management.
A US$62 billion project to divert water from the south...
Singapore’s Growth Story Holds Lessons for Water-Scarce China
from chinadialogueWhen the tiny city-state of Singapore gained independence in 1965, its social, economic, political, and environmental constraints appeared so formidable that many of those looking in from outside predicted a future of dismal dimensions.
...
Why Has Water-Rich Yunnan Become A Drought Hotspot?
from chinadialogueYunnan’s drought continues. During China’s annual parliamentary session in March, the deputy party secretary of the southwest Chinese province, Qiu He, blamed spring floodwaters that flow through Yunnan and on into other countries for the water...
China’s Massive Water Problem
This Spring 2013 China is expected to finish the first phase of its gigantic South-North Water Transfer Project, though the project highlights the limits of engineering solutions to problems of basic environmental scarcity....