Chinas Big Blue Challenge - Water
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A crisis is developing beneath China’s thirsty farms and cities, but no one knows its full extent. With about 20% of the world’s population but only about 5–7% of global freshwater resources, China draws heavily on groundwater. Those reserves are being depleted at an alarming rate in some regions and are badly polluted in many others, warned experts last week at the International Groundwater Forum 2010 conference in Beijing. The scientists also warned that confronting the crisis will require dealing with other short - ages: of knowledge and regulation. They say that a nationwide network to monitor ground - water levels is urgently needed, and that the government should improve data sharing, cut water waste and help farming become more efficient. “The water crisis is not unique to China,” says Frank Schwartz, a hydrologist at Ohio State University in Columbus, who was at the meeting. “But the problem here is orders of magnitude bigger than anywhere else.” Groundwater is used to irrigate more than 40% of China’s farmland, and for about 70% of the drinking water in the dry northern and northwestern regions. According to Opportunities and Challenges in the Chinese Groundwater Science, a 2009 report sponsored by China’s National Natural Science Foundation and China Geological Survey (CGS), part of the Ministry of Land and Resources (MOLR), the past few decades have seen groundwater extraction increasing by about 2.5 billion cubic metres per year to meet these needs. Consequently, groundwater levels of the arid North China Plain have dropped as fast as 1 metre a year between 1974 and 2000, forcing people to dig hundreds of metres to access fresh water, according to research presented by Bridget Scanlon, a hydrogeologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Already, water is scarce for two-thirds of China’s 660 cities, according to a survey by the Ministry of Water Resources (MOWR). And as China’s economy expands, so will its demand for water. The country will consume 750 billion cubic metres of water a year by 2030, about 90% of the total amount of usable water resources in the country, projects the MOWR. Read on.... You may also download the recent issue of the Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q02/2014.
