China - South-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP)

PROBLEMS IN CHINA:

• Water Distribution
  • South China has too much water
  • North China has too little water
    • More than half of China's population live in the north
• Desertification in the North 
  • Sandstorms are frequent in the spring
  • 28% of china has been turned to desert, effecting 400 million people.
  • Logging, over-grazing, over-farming and ‘reckless water use’ are the causes
  • An estimated 1000 square miles is lost to desert per year
  • In areas such as Ningxia in northwest china, people are struggling to survive in a waterless, barren environment.
  • Government spent US$350 million on a project to create fertile farmland in the middle of the desert, but this is controversial because despite improving lives of many people, it strains the Yellow River
• Sewage
  •  278 out of 662 major cities in China don’t have sewage treatment plants meaning that only 23% of sewage is being treated and 77% is being discharged raw
  • 50 sewage plants in 30 cities are operating below capacity due to insufficient sewage collection, inability to handle some toxic material and high operational costs.
  • According to the UN, less than half of the wastewater China pumps into the ocean is treated
  • Research shows that the discharge of wastewater (treated and untreated) has doubled between 2000 and 2005
• Industrial Pollution
  • One survey showed that…