Areas of the US have experienced more than their fair share of drought over the last several years, and now China is facing possibly its worst drought in more than half a century. Some environmentalists, though, are blaming not just natural weather patterns but also human interference for a complex and still-developing problem.
Many northern parts of China are arid and have long suffered water shortages. A nearly 50-year-long project begun in 2002 is intended to convey water from the Yangtze River Basin in the south—about 36 billion cubic meters per year, ultimately—to the northern provinces. But now the south, with a supply of water once considered nearly limitless, is also experiencing drought.
It’s not only the South-North Water Diversion Project—which will cost $62 billion dollars if completed, more than twice the cost of the Three Gorges Dam—but also the dam itself that’s drawing criticism. The Three Gorges Dam, the largest in the world, is believed to be disrupting the water bodies downstream, preventing annual floodwaters from feeding into downstream lakes and causing them to shrink.
Although the huge hydroelectric project does have provisions for water from the Yangtze to be released to the downstream areas during the dry season, some critics, like Chinese environmental writer Ma Jun, say it’s not working, or at least not as originally intended. His 1999 book, China's Water Crisis, was one of the first widely published books on the country’s environmental problems. He advocates the rethinking not only of the South-North diversion effort, but also of the planned dozen or more dams planned for the Yangtze and its tributaries.