 |
China Working on Goals to Tame Yellow River
With the start of the second phase project to enhance soil conservation along the Yellow River, China has met the schedule set in the last century for harnessing the country's second-longest river.
The country carried out a comprehensive project to harness the river in the 1950s, focusing mainly on keeping the river embankments from frequent breaching, said Li Guoying, director of the Yellow River Water Resources Committee.
The dykes of the Yellow River, known as the cradle of Chinese civilization, have been intact for the past 50 years.
Statistics from the committee revealed an annual reduction of 30 million tons of silt has been prevented from washing into the river on average in the past two decades. While some 185,000 square kilometers of soil erosion area, or 37 percent of the total eroded coverage along the river, has been turned back to green.
The river running through the Loess Plateau in north China has the most serious soil erosion problem in the world. Some 160 million tons of silt sinks into the river annually.
The silt has raised the level of the river bed and aggravated riverbank collapses during heavy floods. Historical records show some 1,500 cases of breaches of the river's dykes in the past 20 centuries.
The soil conservation project, aided by a World Bank loan, was launched in 1994 and finished in 1998. Under the project, 14,000 square kilometers of soil-eroded area in four provinces along the river was treated. The cost of the work was 270 million U.S. dollars, including 150 million U.S. dollars of WB loan.
The World Bank added another 150 million U.S. dollars to help kick off the second-phase project after the success of the first one.
In order to find a sustainable way to harness the river, 163 academicians from Chinese academies of sciences and engineering sent a joint appeal in 1998 to the government and the public to save the Yellow River.
From 1998 to 2000, the Central Government invested 7.6 billion yuan (950 million U.S dollars) in flood-control projects in the river's lower reaches.
The Xiaolangdi Water-control Project in Henan Province, which will cost 40 billion yuan (5 billion U.S dollars) upon completion in 2005, marks the turning point in the control of the river.
The project has already played multiple roles: controlling floods, curbing ice, reducing mud, irrigating farmland, supplying water and generating power.
In the past few years, sand drifted to the Yellow River Delta in the lower reaches has been reduced by 84 percent on average, as a result of ecological recovery in the upper reaches.
While breaching has been prevented for 50 years, dry runs pose a new threat. A record 226-day drought in the lower river was made in 1997, bringing disaster to the area.
This month, the Central Government announced its goals for Yellow River control in this century: no breaches, no drought, no bed raising, and control of water pollution.
The State Council announced in 1999 that the consumption of water from the river for daily use in provinces should be rationed monthly by the water resource committees.
Water drawn from hydraulic projects such as Xiaolangdi plays an important role in the allocation. Wang Shucheng, minister of Water Resources, said that power generation in the Xiaolangdi Reservoir should give way to the water allocation in order to ensure the water supply.
As a result of the water regulation, when northern China suffered drought in 2000, the Yellow River did not run dry. It also channeled one billion tons of water to ease the drought in Tianjin, a coastal municipality in north China.
China has been fully aware that advanced technology is imperative for the successful control of the river. The Yellow River Studies Center, the first professional institute for the research of the control of the river, was set up early this year in the prestigious Qinghua (Tsinghua) University in Beijing.
The center is committed to the study of flood control, silt reducing, ecological protection and water source utilization in the river valley, and members act as consultants for policy makers.
In recent years, high-technology has been introduced in treatment of the river, included remote sensing, GPS river surveying, and computer networking of hydrological information.
Dredging has been promoted by experts in recent years to combat flooding, and an ambitious dredging project was launched in May. Experts said that the project will lower the river bed, while the sand dredged out can be used to reinforce the embankments.
Legislation and supervision are considered indispensable in the soil conservation drive. In the middle reaches, 230 counties have issued statutes and policies to regulate lumbering and grazing, and more than 300 counties have set up supervision organizations.
"Through these endeavors, China will ultimately harness the river to safeguard the economic development and social stability," said Li Guoying, of the river's water resources committee.
In This Section
|