Yangtze lakes drying up as China’s water crisis spreads
A water scarcity crisis is expanding from the north of the country to the south, with major lakes along the Yangtze river drying up, state media reports.
And even at lakes and rivers that are not drying up, pollution means the water is often unusable, according to Xinhua.
It was no longer surprising to see parts of Poyang lake – the country’s largest fresh water lake – become grassland during winter due to overexploitation of water resources upstream, an official in Jiangxi (江西) province said.
The lake had become so dry that local authorities needed to warn people about fire prevention in the newly created grassland, the report said.
The situation was similar at Dongting lake, in Hunan (湖南) province, where inflows of water from the Yangtze have dropped more than 40 per cent, according to provincial statistics.
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The drying up of the two lakes has led to the disappearance of nesting grounds for birds and spawning grounds for fish.
Rivers in northern China – the Haihe river, the Yellow river and the Liaohe river – were also being exploited far beyond internationally recognised safety limits, the report said.
Overexploitation of groundwater was also a problem, with Hebei (河北) province seen as the worst offender.
The province has surpassed internationally recognised sustainable limits for groundwater extraction by 6 billion cubic metres to support its industrial and agricultural growth.
Outside Xingtai city, villagers in Wei county must now dig 360 metres deep to reach groundwater. Traditionally, their wells were just 120 metres deep.
A Wei county official said it had purchased water from upstream in 2014 to replenish the drying waterways, but success had proved short-lived and the method was not sustainable.
Last year, Beijing received 822 million tonnes of water through a massive water diversion project that brought supplies from the Yangtze river to the country’s northern provinces.
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But the city still requires a further 600 million tonnes to support its population of more than 21 million.
Meanwhile, industrial pollution, fertilisers and pesticides have made many other resources unusable.
In Anhui (安徽) province, a branch of the Huai river was so polluted that fish caught from it smelt foul when cooked, the report said.
In northern China, groundwater from about 15 per cent of 2,071 water wells was of “good” or “relatively good” quality, a survey found in 2014.
Wang Jianhua, a researcher with China Institute of Water Resources, said the country’s water crisis was expanding from the north and west – regions with a scarcity – to east and south, where resources were more plentiful, but hit by pollution.
“The shortage is set to become even more severe as the economy continues to grow,” he said.
