How water from the South quenched the thirst of the North

I walked into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to wash the dishes after lunch. Not a single drop of water came out, and the tap made a strange noise. For a moment, I fell into a trance, wondering whether the regional water shortage that had haunted the early years of my life was back.

I soon came to my senses and laughed off the thought. Frequent water stoppages have long been a thing of the past, although the miserable experience remains deeply etched in the memories of many Chinese. I checked our neighborhood WeChat group and found a notice from the property management office: the water supply would be temporarily cut off for 70 minutes because of home renovations in the neighborhood.

Water shortage was once almost universal in cities across North China, where frequent droughts compounded the scarcity of water resources. One of my most vivid childhood memories is of rushing to the public water station in our neighborhood with buckets at midnight when the water supply resumed for a few hours.

When I came to Beijing to work in the early 1980s, I found the capital a paradise because water stoppages were rare. Later, I learned the relatively stable water supply came at the expense of neighboring areas, which diverted water from their reservoirs to ensure the capital's normal functioning.

In Beijing's neighboring Tianjin Municipality, the water supply was not insufficient. Many older residents would tell you that when they made soup in those days, they didn't add any salt because the water itself was salty enough.

In many other northern cities, water was rationed, with each resident allowed only two buckets a day.

The central government had to invest heavily to divert water from nearby rivers and reservoirs to ease the shortage. The problem was so serious that in 1982, thousands of servicemen were sent to help divert water from the Luanhe River, more than 200 kilometers away, to Tianjin. In less than two years, the Luanhe River water finally reached Tianjin at the cost of about 20 lives of servicemen, workers and volunteers.

These water diversion projects eased drinking water shortages in the northern cities, but they were not enough to meet the demands of further development.

The central authorities therefore decided to launch the ambitious South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

Under the plan, water would be diverted from the resource-rich South to the North through three channels — eastern, middle and western. Each route would cover roughly 1,500 kilometers.

Construction of the eastern route kicked off in 2002, making extensive use of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which was built about 2,500 years ago. One of the major challenges was to lift water about 65 meters from the lower-lying South to the higher North. After years of hard work, the eastern route began supplying water to many cities in Shandong province and Tianjin.

The middle route construction began in 2003 and was completed in 2014. It diverts water from a reservoir in Hubei province, carrying it through Henan and Hebei provinces before reaching Beijing and Tianjin.

The Ministry of Water Resources announced in August that since their completion, the two routes have channeled more than 90 billion cubic meters of water from the South to the North. The achievement has helped optimize the allocation of water resources and secure supplies for domestic, ecological and industrial use along the routes, according to the ministry.

Ordinary people like us may not be able to fathom such enormous figures. But as a Beijing resident, I know that we are no longer troubled by water stoppages. I have also seen the environment improve, with previously dried riverbeds once again filled with water. Water from the South now accounts for nearly 80 percent of the water used in Beijing's central urban area.

Without this water, it would be difficult to imagine Beijing's population growing from 12 million in the late 1990s to today's 21.8 million. Nor would it be possible for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to develop into one of the country's major economic hubs.

The importance of the project cannot be overemphasized. Its significance will be fully realized by our descendants hundreds of years from now — just as we today marvel at the Grand Canal.

Thousands of families made sacrifices by moving to other places to make way for the water diversion routes, while thousands of engineers and workers labored day and night to ensure that the water reached us cleanly. We have no excuse for not treasuring this precious resource and using water wisely.

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily.

kangbing@chinadaily.com.cn