Monday, April 19, 2004
Thirsty China turns to sea to solve water crisis
Indo-Asian News Service Tianjin, April 19
China, the world's most populous country, has now turned to the seas to quench its thirst after building reservoirs and tapping the humid south, reports Xinhua.
The State Commission for Development and Reform -- the country's top planner and financier -- is mulling a special programme to freshen seawater for its drought-hit northern and coastal areas.
Officials and scientists said the programme spells China's strategic choice in the new century to tap new water sources through seawater desalination to address a water resources crisis.
"Freshening seawater and saltwater has become a strategic guarantee for China to resolve its water crisis," said Gao Congjie, who is with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China's top scientific research body.
"Seawater freshening is a necessary, feasible and inevitable choice in China," Gao told an international seminar on seawater desalination and use held in north China's Tianjin municipality.
According to the seawater freshening programme, China will upgrade its capability to desalt 100,000 to 150,000 tonnes of seawater each day in 2005 to satisfy the daily demands for about 7.5 million people.
The daily amount of desalted seawater will then increase to 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes to meet the consumption of more than 20 million Chinese by 2010, compared to China's current 40,000 tonnes of desalted seawater.
Abdul Hamid Al Mansour, president of the International Desalination Association (IDA), said desalted seawater had become an important part of world freshwater production.
Mansour said seawater desalination was of great importance to developing countries like China too because more than 100 million people worldwide are now relying on desalted seawater for drinking.
With a population of about 1.3 billion, China, though ranking only after Brazil, Russia and Canada in freshwater resources, has become one of the 13 countries with the most serious water shortage problem in terms of per capita water resource availability, especially in its arid northern and northwest regions.
Currently, over 400 out of 600-odd Chinese cities are short of water, with Beijing and Tianjin, the national capital and a major port city in the north, facing a critical water shortage, according to the water resources ministry.
Meanwhile, rural people in some arid areas as well as those living in many coastal cities have to endure acute water shortage, either for farming or drinking.
China will be short of 40 billion cubic meters of fresh water this year and reach its extreme limit of water consumption by 2030, according to one report.
To curb water shortage, many large projects including the $59 billion gigantic water diversion project to channel water from the country's water-rich south to the dry northern part are now under construction in China.
Chinese state leaders include water shortage in their speeches on the nation's development strategy while slogans advocating water saving seem to have become a fixture at public taps.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao both recently underscored the importance of fostering a water-saving society.
Minister Water Resources Wang Shucheng acknowledged that water shortage and pollution have become a bottleneck impairing China's sustainable development.
Though raising water prices to curb waste is on the government's agenda, Wang Shichang, a seawater desalination researcher in Tianjin University, said desalting seawater in coastal areas and bitter water in arid northwest regions is also a good choice due to lower costs involved in its processing. The costs to freshen seawater in China have dropped in recent years because major desalination equipment is now 50 percent cheaper than about 10 years ago with the cost of desalted water nearing the gap with tap water and that for industrial use.
"The current seawater desalination technologies have explored a new stable and lasting way to supply water for China and the world," said Wang. "Freshening seawater has become inevitable.
"Desalted seawater can become the second major source of water supply in Chinese coastal cities in the short run. In the long run, desalted seawater can ease or even ultimately solve the water crisis in north China."
China currently has 10 seawater desalting plants in coastal cities and more are to be built in Shandong, Tianjin and Zhejiang with a daily capacity of 100,000 to 200,000 tonnes each.
Scientists suggest seawater desalination technologies can also be applied in drought-hit west China to freshen salted water there. Meanwhile IDA had promised to build a long-term information exchange mechanism with China whil e planning its branch in the country.
© Hindustan Times Ltd. 2004.