Lhasa's old neighborhoods to be better protected (2)

Has water resources in Lhasa been affected?

Ground water unaffected, collapse and sinkhole unlikely

The microblog entry said: "At the edge of the Old City of Lhasa, a huge shopping mall Divine & Times Square keeps extracting ground water which may put the old city of Lhasa under risks of cracks, subsidence and even sinkhole." A photo is also posted to show “The Lhasa River is blocked and drying, and many Tibetans spontaneously went to save the fish in water". What happened actually?

The reporter learned from the Lhasa water plant that the drinking water for the residents of Lhasa comes from the water plant on the western outskirts of Lhasa which covers an area of 80 acres. 87 percent of the total area of the plant is covered by plants. To ensure water safety, the water plant is far from the urban areas and each well is more than 100 meters away from others, Pan Tieshuan, the director of the plant told the reporter.
　
The Divine & Times Square mentioned in the microblog entry was built in 2011. Due to construction of the underground garage, it indeed extracted some ground water, which also caused concerns at that time.

Meng Fanhua is a painter who runs calligraphy and painting shop in Jiangsu Road of Lhasa. Graduated from hydraulic engineering major, he is dismissive to the claim that extraction of groundwater would cause cracks even sinkhole. "So to speak, if this room is full of water, and you extract groundwater from under the teapot, what would happen to the surrounding water when the water under the teapot was extracted? Of course it would be a whole entity," said Meng Fanhua. Cracks or sinkhole may occur only when the water in the entire room was pumped out, he said.

The Lhasa municipal government has held a press conference, and the experts from Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Land and Resources concluded that the drainage in the project would not affect the ground water resources, and would not cause land subsidence or pose threat to the surrounding ancient architectures.

The reporter walked around the mall and did not see any cracks, but found a suspected crack on the Beijing East Road near the mall. Ouyang Liping, directer of Water Conservancy Bureau of Lhasa, thinks that the vibrations of laying underground pipes and road excavation in old city of Lhasa would cause cracks on the ground. "But it does not necessarily relate to the extraction of groundwater, and sinkhole is unlikely,” she said.

As to the rumor of "the Lhasa River closure", the reporter found it is an overstatement. The Lhasa River is divided into two rivers by the Xianzu river island. One continues flowing along the southern edge of the island and the other flows through the city along the north side. In order to promote the development of Tibetan cultural industries, from last year the government began to construct the China Tibet Tourism Cultural Creative Park and hall for large-scale live performance “Princess Wencheng" in the Cijiaolin village 6 kilometers from Lhasa. To connect the Cijiaolin village and Lhasa, the Cilinjiao Bridge on the south side of the Island was begun to be built across the Lhasa River. The construction team temporarily directed the original south flows into the north flows, which significantly reduced the flows in the south side of the river.

The flows of Lhasa River vary greatly in wet and dry seasons. “In wet seasons the flows average 1,000 cubic meters an hour, while it is only a few dozen cubic meters in dry seasons," said Ouyang Liping. The reduction of water amount of the external Lhasa River (south flow) also related with the river flow reduction in dry season, in addition to the temporary diversions during construction.

"When the Cijiaolin Bridge is repaired, the Lhasa River will restore the original look," a construction staff told the reporter.