Learn from desert nations to avoid dry future

• Source: Global Times
• [02:35 March 23 2010]
• Comments

Deeply afflicted by a once-in-a-century drought, many in the Dai ethnic group of Yunnan Province are thinking of scaling down their celebration of the upcoming Water-Splashing Festival. Various ways of saving water while celebrating their most important traditional festival are under discussion.

Water scarcity is not a dilemma facing the Dai people alone. Nor is it a problem merely related to drought. The systematic efforts needed by China to tackle the issue go far beyond the compromise between maintaining ethnic traditions and facing the severe reality of drought.

Yesterday marked the 18th World Water Day and the start of the 23rd Chinese Water Week. While Chinese have long prided themselves on the country's river network, which includes the world's third and fifth longest rivers, a water crisis looms large.

It would be no exaggeration to say that China's water shortage has snowballed into a problem no less severe than that of desert nations like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Water scarcity is expected to hit the danger limit in 2030, when the 1,700 cubic meters per capita water resources quota will be breached.

The life-threatening crisis, which will impact the sustainable growth of the whole nation, can be mitigated when China follows the suit of desert nations in water resources management.

At first glance, a water crisis appears to be a natural disaster, but in China, it is more of a man-caused calamity, in essence.

Take drought-plagued Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. With water resources ranking third in the country, Yunnan's water utilization rate of 6 percent lags far behind the 16 percent national average.

In stark contrast, desert countries such as those in North Africa and the Middle East usually have a water utilization rate as high as 40 percent.