Water Transfer Project
West-East water Transfer Project in China is a project that was built to help draw water from the areas with sufficient water supply to regions experiencing a water shortage crisis. The water diversion project is expected to divert a volume of 44.8 billion cubic meters per year. It has three distinct routes, the Easter Route, transferring 14.8 billion m3, the central route diverting 13.0 billion m3, and the Western route transferring 17.0 m3 of water annually. The water transfer project has benefited over 12 million people in Beijing since its inception in late 2014. The project has also transferred over 1.21 billion m3 of water to the Chinese capital (Water diversion project 2019). Some of the benefits of using the water transfer projects include: reducing over-withdrawal of underground water, increased water supply to industries in the north, as well as helping China cope with water pollution problem (Water diversion project 2019).
However, there have been some concerns about water transfer projects. Due to the rapid climate change, there have been a series of droughts in the country. The drought and decreased rainfall have resulted in less water supply in the South region. Hence, there is not enough water to supply other parts of the country. Moreover, there are significant concerns about water pollution as the water flows through the Eastern route, which has many industries releasing effluent to the rivers. Therefore, the water ends up reaching the destination region having low drinking standards (Water Transfer 2015). It is therefore essential to develop other methods to mitigate the water scarcity crisis. Coastal reservoirs are ideal for this work because they can supply water all year round.
Moreover, the water collected by the reservoirs meets almost the required drinking water standards. Besides the construction of the water transfer project was capital intensive compared to the development of coastal dams; hence, the coastal reservoir in the PRD is economically feasible. The transfer project also has other costs to clean the polluted water, unlike the coastal reservoir has only a one-time cost for construction.