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Nov. 9 - Water is due to flow north to Beijing from reservoirs in neighbouring Hebei province starting in late 2007 in the first phase of a massive scheme to divert water to China's parched1 capital, a city official said on Wednesday.
Beijing is greening up for the Olympic Games in 2008 when it hopes to showcase China's development, and the capital will be the first beneficiary of China's 200 billion yuan ($25.42 billion) plan to bring water from the south to the drought-striken north along three separate routes. The city is expected to host an extra 2.5 million people during the Games, and will need reliable water for drinking, hotel rooms and the belts of greenery being planted along its roads. But in the short term at least, quenching2 Beijing's thirst will come at a cost to Hebei, an industrial and agricultural province that itself is very dry. The connection from Hebei to Beijing is part of the 1,300 km (800 miles), 67 billion yuan ($8.51 billion) middle route that will ultimately draw water from a Yangtze tributary3 in central China. "We have thought about the problem of water resources, and the conflict with the local area's need for water," Bi Xiaogang, deputy director of the Municipal Water Affairs Bureau, told reporters. WATER SPARED "Obviously, most of Beijing's water needs will continue to be met from its own sources. At the same time, in Hebei the agricultural sector4 will be able to reduce water needs through more efficient irrigation, so some water can be spared for Beijing." Canals from Beijing to the Hebei provincial5 capital of Shijiazhuang should be completed by 2007. The full middle route of the south-north water diversion scheme is slated6 for completion in 2010, Bi said. Two other routes are planned: a western route that would tunnel 300 kms (190 miles) through mountains to divert water from the Tibetan plateau to the parched Yellow River, and an eastern route that would bring Yangtze water to the north through coastal7 provinces. The plan to complete the middle route requires raising the water level at the Dujiangkou reservoir on the Han River, which joins the Yangtze in central China, and diverting the water north. 点击  收听单词发音
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