An inconvenient truth
Besides the project, China has spent tens of billions of dollars to dam rivers, build reservoirs and dig deeper wells. Beijing has also tapped underground water to meet its needs, with the water level in the plains falling to 11 to 24 meters below sea level over the past decade, according to a Xinhua report.
Such demand for water is unsustainable. The World Bank warns that dwindling water supplies will pit rich against poor, and rural against urban, in China. Without dramatic changes in water use, tens of millions of Chinese will turn into environmental refugees over the next decade, the World Bank says.
According to Wang, China has an unbalanced distribution of water resources, with a freshwater resource per capita that is only a quarter of the world's average.
China's lakes, including the Poyang Lake, have been steadily shrinking for decades under the effects of climate change and human activity, according to Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources.
China has lost about a third of its 3,000 natural lakes in the past 50 years, partly caused by the massive campaign called "farmland reclamation from lakes" in the densely-populated Yangtze River basin beginning in the 1950s. The reclamation was halted in the 1990s by the central government due to environmental concerns.
A painful method
Wang suggested raising water prices for both industrial and daily use to better manage freshwater resources. He said it costs 2.5-3 percent of a family’s income to cover its water bill in developed countries, while in China it is 0.6 percent.
Wang said incorrect agricultural irrigation wastes millions of cubic meters of water every year in China.
"The cost of hundreds of cubic meters of water from the Yellow River is only worth one bottle of water," he said. "How can you expect farmers to go easy on irrigation?"
According to a price model drawn by Wang in 2006, water prices in Beijing should be raised from 5.07 yuan (US$0.78) per cubic meter to 11.42 yuan (US$1.77). The government also needs the address the livelihoods of low-income families, Wang added.
Pollution is another culprit to be blamed for the shortage.
Although sewage disposal of factories is being monitored closely and harsh sewage discharge standards have been enforced by the Ministry of Water Resources, water pollution is still severe, especially in industry-heavy areas such as the Zhujiang Delta in South China's Guangdong Province, Wang said.
Wang suggested that the government should impose sewage discharge quotas on every factory built along riverbanks.
Unlike sparsely populated western countries, as many as 100 factories may be in operation along the banks of a river in China. "The same standard is more than enough to keep a river clean in the US," Wang said, "but it is not enough in China."
