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Bureau of South-to-North Water Transfer
Planning & Design
Ministry of Water Resources
Although possessing a total water resources of 2812.4 billion m3 and ranking the fourth in the world, the available water amount per capita in China is only one fourth of the world’s average due to the heavy population. Therefore, China is a country suffering from relative water shortage problem. Moreover water resources in China is much unevenly distributed in time and space, as a result how to rationally distribute the limited water resources is one important topic for China’s social and economic development. For this purpose, the engineers in the country proposed the South-to-North Water Transfer Project after the study for dozens of years which will help to bring water from the Yangtze River to the north.
1. Situation of Water Shortage in the Huang-Huai-Hai Area
The Huang-Huai-Hai Area (referring to the Yellow River, the Huai River and the Hai River basins) is the national political, economic and cultural center with an area of 1.445 million m3, amounting to 15% of the country’s total, the population there is about 35% of the total, the GDP is 35% of the total and the area of the cultivated land and the grain production is 36% and 37% respectively while the water resources there is only 7.2% of the country’s total.
1.1 Basic Information and Features of Water Resources
a. Less precipitation and high evaporation
The mean annual precipitation in the Huang-Huai-Hai area is 565mm of which only 26% transferred into surface water and groundwater, which means a less rainfall and high evaporation compared with the country’s average, i.e., 648mm of the mean annual precipitation and 45% of it transfered into surface and groundwater.
b. Uneven distribution between years and within a year
About 80% of the annual precipitation in the Huang-Huai-Hai area is concentrated in the period from July to October with dry year appeared continuously. In history, these was a dry period for successive 11 years from 1922 to 1932 in the Yellow River Basin, and the dry period for successive 7 years had been appeared for 14 times in the Hai River Basin. The phenomenon of continuous dry years in North China area which appeared since 1997 still exists.
c. Less water resources per capita and per unit cultivated land area
The per capita water resources in the Huang-Huai-Hai area is only 501 m3, especially 348 m3 in the Hai-Luan River Basin, which is 100 m3 less than the national water consumption per capita, and about one fifth of the world average. The water used per hectare cultivated land is only 4095 m3. The inadequate water resources per capita and per unit cultivated land area are the primary reasons for water shortage and deteriorated environment in the said area.
d. High sediment concentration
The Yellow River is famous for its large amount of sediment in the world. The serious water and soil erosion in loess plateau caused about 3700t sand loss per square kilometer area. The high sediment concentration in the Yellow River resulted in heavy sedimentation in reservoir and river course and difficulty in water resources development and utilization.
1.2 Present States of Water Resources Exploitation and Utilization and the Existing Problems
In 1999, the total water consumed in the Huang-Huai-Hai area is 149.2 billion m3 of which 19.2% for both domestic and industrial use and 80.8% for rural use. The total water supplied is 143.8 billion m3 of which groundwater amounts to 40.7%.
Over 60% of water resources in the Huang-Huai-Hai area was utilized in 1999, particularly 90% in Hai River Basin which exceed the international standard of 40%. The over utilization of surface water has caused the shrinking of river/lake water area, the drop of flood discharging capacity and the obvious reduction of water flow into sea. Since 1990s, the Yellow River suffered heavy dry-up continuously and even lasting for 226 days in 1997. The same phenomenon also appeared in the middle and down streams of many rivers in Hai River Basin and Huai River Basin.
According to the initial analysis, the annual over-exploited groundwater in the Huang-Huai-Hai area reaches 6 billion m3, accounting for 70% of the national gross exploitation. Along both sides of Jingguang Railway in the Haihe Plain, the shallow groundwater is heavily exploited, the buried depth of groundwater in most areas has dropped from 2-3m before exploitation to 10-31m. The salty water and brackish water is predominant in southeast part of the Haihe Plain, where fresh water is so scarce that deep groundwater with high fluorine is also exploited. After exploitation, the buried depth of groundwater table in funnel central area drops 3-5m per year. Till 1998, the accumulated area with the sunken depth more than 300mm in Hebei Plain is 18200 km2, the accumulated area with the sunken depth more than 1.5m in Tianjin area is 133 km2.
1.3 The Necessity and Urgency of Implementation of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project
The analysis result of water supply and demand in the Huang-Huai-Hai Basin shows that the present water shortage in said area is 14.5 to 21 billion m3, the number will reach 21 to 28 billion m3 in 2010 and 32 to 39.5 billion m3 in 2030. Particularly in the Hai River Basin, the water shortage will be 10 to 12 billion m3 in 2010 even with efforts on water saving.
The South-to-North Water Transfer Project must be implemented as soon as possible while strengthening water saving and sewage recycling so as to relieve the contradiction of water supply and demand in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin.
2. General Layout of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project
The Yangtze River is the longest one in China with plenty of water resources and its mean annual runoff is 960 billion m3 and 760 billion m3in extreme dry year. There is about 94% of the river water flowing into East Sea annually. Thus, it is possible to transfer some amount of water from the Yangtze River Basin to the northern area to ease the water shortage problem.
Since the earlier study on the South-to-North Water Transfer Project started in 1950s, the following general layout of the project has been worked out: three water transfer sub-projects, i.e. Eastern Route Scheme (ERS), Middle Route Scheme (MRS) and Western Route Scheme (WRS) will divert water from lower, middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River respectively to meet the increasing requirements of the Northwest and North China. By combining the three schemes with the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Huai and the Hai rivers, a big water network with “ the four horizontals and three verticals” will be gradually formed. With the natural advantages of the Yellow River crossing the north China from the west to the east and by taking the engineering measures and optimizing the operation, the national adjustment and allocation of water resources between the South-to-North Water Transfer Project and the Yellow River will be realized.
The general layout of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, i.e. WRS, MRS and ERS, will basically cover the Huang-Huai-Hai area, the Jiaodong Peninsula and partial northwestern area, which could relieve the contradiction of water supply and demand in northern area. The annual total water transferred will be 45 billion m3, equal to water quantity of the Yellow River.
3. General Planning of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project
3.1 The Eastern Route Scheme(ERS)
ERS will be built on the basis of the existing water diversion project from the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province, Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Huai River harnessing projects and other relative projects. The scheme will divert water from lower reaches of the Yangtze River to supply water for the eastern Huang-Huai-Hai Plain with the termination in Tianjin City by raising water levels in stages through Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. There will be two diversion spots, sanjingying where Huai River enters the Yangtze River and Liuwei where Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal crosses the Yangtze River. The main diversion channel will be 1156km in total length from the Yangtze River to Tianjin. There will be 701km in a total length of subsidiary routes reaching Yantai and Weihai through Jinan.
The ERS will supply water for Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei Provinces and Tianjin Municipality. The total water transferred in ERS will be 14.8billion m3 based on flow of 800m3/s water by-passing the Yellow River will be 3.8 billion m3 with flow of 200 m3/s and supply 2.1 billion m3 of water to Jiaodong area with flow of 90m3/s. The project will be constructed by three stages. The first stage, covering 5 years period, will mainly supply water to Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. It will increase 3.9 billion m3 of pumped water and the supplied water to Shandong province will be 1.68 billion m3. The stress of this stage project will be the water pollution prevention and treatment.
3.2 Middle Route Scheme (MRS)
The MRS will divert water from Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Hanjiang River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, to Beijing Municipality through canals to be built along Funiu and Taihang Mountains. The total length of the diversion canal is 1267km.
The MRS will supply water for Tangbaihe Plain, middle and western parts of Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. Since limited water quantity in Hanjiang River, the MRS can not meet all the requirements of planned water supply areas, it will mainly provide water for municipal and industrial use in Beijing, Tianjin Municipalities, Hebei, Henan and Hubei Provinces, especially for over 20 large and medium-sized cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, etc. to solve the water shortage problems. And it will also give consideration to the agricultural and environmental water uses along these areas.
The mean annual water quantity to be diverted will be 13 billion m3. The MRS will be constructed by two stages. The annual water diverted in the first stage will be 9.5 billion m3 with duration of 8 years.
3.3 Western Route Scheme (WRS)
The WRS will divert water from Tongtian River, Yalongjiang River and Dadu River to the Yellow River. In accordance with the initial study results, from those three rivers, the maximum transferable water quantity is about 20 billion m3. The water diverted will be supplied for Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces and the Ningxia Hui and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous regions.
20 billion m3 water from three rivers will be diverted by WRS to increase the irrigated area by 30 million mu and to supply water for the domestic and industrial uses by 9 billion m3 for Qinghai, Gansu, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia Autonomous regions, consequently promoting the economic development of northwest and inland areas, and improving the biological environment of northwest Loess Plateau.
The total water transferring by the WRS will be 17 billion m3 and the scheme will be constructed by three stages. The water to be transferred in the first stage will be 4 billion m3.
4. Ecological and Environmental Recovery, Pollution Control and Water Saving
The Chinese government has attached great importance to environmental recovery in the planning of South-to-North Water Transfer Project and puts forward the principle of “water conservation before water trasnfer, pollution control before water conveyance and environment protection before water utilization”. The issues on the environmental protection and pollution control are fully considered in the general planning of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. The special plans for water saving and pollution control are also worked out.
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