China Water Plan Sows Discord Project Aims to Ease Shortage in North But May Be Just Temporary Fix
BEIJING -- The Yellow River, known as the cradle of Chinese civilization, sometimes runs dry before it finishes its 3,400-mile journey to the ocean, a dramatic symptom of China's mounting water crisis.
Now, an engineering project as ambitious and controversial as the Three Gorges Dam is attempting to divert billions of tons of water from China's flood-prone south to the Yellow River and the cities that rely on it.
Critics of the project, which would require the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people, worry it will waste tens of billions of dollars, hurt the environment and offer only a temporary fix to northern China's chronic water shortage. But water officials see it as the only way to provide enough water to China's burgeoning cities while taking pressure off the overburdened river and the north's badly depleted underground aquifers.
The lack of water in China's north is so severe that planners have quickened construction of a part of the canal network to make sure there is enough water to supply the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
"This is a project we have to do. There has to be some sacrifice and a compromise between environmental protection and business development," says Prof. Liu Changming of Beijing Normal University.
Mr. Liu is a member of a group of scientists working with the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, which is trying to minimize the environmental impact of the part of the water project that would divert water from the headwaters of the Yangtze River in Tibet to the Yellow River.
Critics and proponents of the project alike acknowledge the severity of the water shortage in China's north. The world's most populous nation has on average one-quarter of the per capita water resources of the world average; in Beijing, it is one-thirtieth. Some 136 cities face severe shortages. Irrigation for agriculture takes up most water use, but industrial and residential use is rising fastest as wealth increases.
Pollution is worsening the crisis. More than 300 million people, almost a quarter of the population, lack access to clean drinking water, as more than half of major waterways are badly polluted, according to government statistics. One-quarter of the waterways can't be used for industry or irrigation. Water shortages on average have reduced industrial output $25 billion a year, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.
If no steps are taken, Beijing could face a shortfall of one billion metric tons of water a year by 2010, estimates Ma Jun of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an environmental group compiling a database of pollution figures on China's waterways.
There is no consensus for how to solve the problem. Government officials, led by the Ministry of Water Resources and the Yellow River commission, have pushed a plan raised in 1952 by Mao Zedong to transfer water from China's lush south to the historically arid north. Beijing, wary of criticism about its environmental policies, is allowing some public debate over the project's scope, unlike the Three Gorges project, which tolerated no dissent.
The Yellow River, China's second-longest river, is as central to the nation's myth as the Mississippi is to Americans. It played a crucial role in early Chinese history going back thousands of years and passes by a number of major cities. When the lower reaches of the river went dry for most of 1997, it sparked shock and soul-searching among Chinese. The river, which gets its name from the silt it carries, floods periodically because the riverbed in some places is higher than the surrounding land, earning it the name "China's Sorrow."
At the end of 2001, Beijing announced it would launch the South-to-North Water Diversion, to divert water from the Yantgze River basin in central China north to the Yellow River and its tributaries.
The entire project, which could take decades to complete at an estimated cost of more than $60 billion, would build three canals in the east, center and west to carry nearly 45 billion tons of water north. The eastern part of the project would upgrade the Grand Canal, the longest in the world, stretching more than 1,100 miles and started some 1,400 years ago.
By 2010, the government wants to complete the central canal from a tributary of the Yangtze River up to Beijing -- mostly along open-air canals, but eventually bypassing the Yellow River via an underground tunnel.
Some 220,000 people along the central canal will be relocated by the route.
A final route in the west would transfer water along canals carved through rock from the headwaters of the Yangtze in Tibet to the Yellow River. Construction is slated to start in 2010.
This past summer, Lin Ling, a professor at the Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences, published a book collecting the work of 60 scientists and scholars that questions the proposed Tibetan route.
The book's contributors argue that the western canal would cause more ecological damage than good. And it would deprive hydroelectric dams powering the southwestern province of Sichuan.
Many worry that funneling water north fails to address problems of waste and inefficiency. If the project goes through, Beijing could still find itself short of water again in a few decades, says Elizabeth Economy, director for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank and author of "The River Runs Black," a book on environmental degradation. Instead, she and others argue, the solution should be to encourage conservation and better manage waterworks.
Human-rights advocates worry that the forced relocations could spark a repeat of the abuses seen in the forced migrations of more than 1.1 million people to accommodate the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.
南水北调引来如潮争议
黄河被誉为中华文明的摇篮，但它有时候却会出现断流，这种现象正是中国水危机日益严重的生动写照。
现在，一项与当年三峡工程一样雄心勃勃且充满争议的黄河拯救工程又被提了出来，人们计划从水资源丰富的中国南方调水上百亿吨给黄河以及北方那些依靠黄河水生存的城市。
这一项目的批评人士担心，以耗费数百亿美元资金以及造成环境损害为代价换来的只是中国北方长期水缺乏问题的暂时缓解。但水利官员们认为，要想使中国蓬勃发展的城市获得充足的供水，缓解过量使用黄河水以及中国北方地下水严重超采的问题，上马这一项目是唯一的出路。
就在围绕这一项目的争论不断加剧之际，北方严重的缺水问题已经迫使中国政府不得不提早建设这一项目的部分输水管网，以确保2008年北京奥运会能有充足的供水。
身为中国科学院院士的北京师范大学刘昌明教授说：“这是一个我们不得不上马的项目。在环境保护和商业开发之间必须有所牺牲和妥协。”
刘昌明是黄河水利委员会(Yellow River Conservancy Commission)一个专家小组的成员，这一小组的科学家们正试图将该项目的长江上游引水工程对环境的影响降到最低。
这一项目的批评和支持人士都承认中国北方水资源短缺的严重性。作为世界上人口最多的国家，中国的人均水资源拥有量只有世界平均水平的四分之一；而北京人的水资源拥有量更是只有世界平均水平的三十分之一。中国严重缺水的城市约有136个。虽然农业灌溉占用了大部分水资源，但随着经济的增长，工业和居民生活用水量也在迅速增加。
污染问题则使水资源危机进一步恶化。政府的统计数据显示，中国有3亿多人无法获得清洁的饮用水，他们几乎占了中国全部人口的四分之一，原因是中国一半以上的主要河流都遭受了严重污染。中国四分之一的河水已不适合于工农业使用。经纪公司里昂证券亚太区市场(CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets)发布的一份报告称，水资源不足使中国的工业产值平均每年少增长250亿美元，并使工业产值每年损失190亿美元。
公众与环境研究中心(Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs)的马军估计，如果不采取措施，到2010年北京将每年缺水100亿吨。该中心编制了一个有关中国河流污染情况的数据库。
但人们在如何解决这一问题上并未达成共识。水利部(Ministry of Water Resources)和黄河水利委员会等机构的官员们支持实施最先由毛泽东在1952年提出的南水北调计划。中国政府由于担心外界批评其环境政策，因此允许对这一工程的具体规模展开某种程度的公开讨论，这在三峡工程当年上马前是不存在的。
作为中国第二大河，黄河在中国人心目中的地位就相当于密西西比河之于美国人。它对孕育中国远古文明起了重要作用，兰州、乌海、包头、开封和济南等主要城市都位于黄河沿岸。当黄河中下游1997年出现严重断流时，中国人在震惊之余开始了反思。这条因携带大量泥沙而得名的河流经常泛滥成灾，因为它下游的河床要高于周围地面，这使黄河获得了“中国之忧患”的名声。
中国政府在2001年底宣布，将开始实施南水北调工程，把长江水引到黄河及其周边地区。
这一工程全部完工预计需要数十年时间，累计投资估计将超过600亿美元，它将分东、中、西线修建三条引水渠，把近450亿吨长江水引向北方。东线引水工程将在现有京杭大运河的基础上兴建，这条世界上最长的运河全长1,800公里，最早兴建于1,400多年前。
东线工程的一期将在2008年之前把长江水引到东部省份山东及北方港口城市天津。
到2010年时，从长江支流汉江向北京输水的中线引水工程将会完工，中线引水渠大部分为明渠，但穿越黄河的一段将为地下渠道。
中线引水渠沿线的约22万居民需要动迁，这条引水渠将穿越一系列古代建筑和考古遗迹。提高对被占农田的补偿增加了引水工程的建设成本。据官方通讯社新华社(Xinhua News Agency)报导，南水北调工程项目的负责人张基尧今年5月表示，东线和中线工程的建设成本已被向上修正了80%，达到280亿美元。
西线工程将通过开凿在山 间的一系列渠道把长江上游的水引向黄河。这一工程定于2010年开工。
该工程的规模甚至会使渠道和堤坝绵延数百英里的美国加州引水工程相形见绌，而它引发的争议也丝毫不比美国这一农业灌溉工程当年逊色。美国那些工程因将水引向远离自然水源地的大城市而造成了一系列意想不到的后果，因此环保人士担心同样的情况也会发生在中国。
四川省社会科学院的林凌教授今年夏天编辑出版了一本书，书中收录了60位专家和学者质疑南水北调西线工程的文章。
林凌说：“我仍然坚持认为，政府在最终决定上马像南水北调这样一个大工程之前，需要发动官员、专家和学者对其进行广泛讨论，以避免今后犯大错误。”他说：“现在是2006年，在西线工程2010年开工之前我们仍然有充足的时间对其进行充分的讨论和研究。”
这本书的文章作者们称，西线工程在生态方面弊大于利。它将降低西南地区一系列水电工程的发电能力。这本书出版之际四川省恰好遭受了50年一遇的大旱，那里等待取水车供水的人排成了长队。
许多人担心，向北方输水无法解决中国水资源浪费和水资源使用率低下的问题。美国外交关系协会(Council on Foreign Relations)亚洲研究主任易明(Elizabeth Economy)说，即使这一工程上马兴建，中国政府几十年后可能会发现自己仍然面临缺水问题。易明着有一本探讨环境恶化的书《河水变黑了》(The River Runs Black)。
她和其他一些人认为，解决之道应该是鼓励节水和改善对供水系统的管理。
在中国政府内部有些人似乎也同意这一观点。建设部副部长仇保兴说，仅仅使中国城市现有用水量的三分之一实现循环再利用就能抵得上南水北调工程的全部输水量。他上个月对官方的《中国日报》(China Daily)说，以引水方式来解决缺水问题会打乱水资源的自然循环。
而人权活跃人士则担心，对引水渠道沿线居民的强制动迁有可能重新引发三峡工程百万大移民工作中出现过的政府滥用职权问题。
Shai Oster
