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China to divert more Yellow River water for Olympics
2008-03-07
China has begun diverting water from the Yellow River towards Beijing for the second time this year as part of a major effort to supply the capital ahead of the Olympics, state press said Thursday. The diversion of up to 156 million cubic metres (41 billion gallons) of water from the already parched Yellow River to Lake Baiyangdian near Beijing began on March 1 and would continue for 20 days, the China News Service reported. A nearly equal amount of water had already been diverted along a 399-kilometre (250-mile) canal between the river and the lake in late January and early February, it said. The project was being carried out to "safeguard the environmental security of the region surrounding the Olympic Games and the ecological balance of north China," the report said. The amount of water in each diversion is the equivalent of roughly 17 days worth of water to the capital, based on Beijing's average water use of about 9.4 million cubic metres a day in 2005, the latest official figures. Although the water does not go directly to Beijing, the government has already cut off the flow from four major reservoirs that naturally feed Baiyangdian, northern China's largest freshwater lake, and diverted that to the capital, which suffers chronic shortages. The lake, about 70 kilometres from Beijing, has been decimated by environmental degradation for more than a decade as both water use and pollution has skyrocketed in tandem with China's booming economy. Northern China is wracked with water shortages due to soaring demand, an ongoing drought and global warming. Per capita water usage in Beijing is already far below national averages. The Yellow River, China's second largest and of huge symbolic and cultural importance, has itself been hit by rising water usage and has run dry short of the ocean for long periods in recent years.
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