South-North Water Transfer nearly done

The RMB38.1 billion (USD$62 billion) South-North Water Transfer Project is set to start pumping 9.5 billion cubic meters of water annually from a reservoir in southern China to parched northern provinces this October, providing more than a third of Beijing’s water supply, Reuters reported. The program has been criticized as unsustainable and harmful to regional development by critics, including Qiu Baoxing, the vice minister of housing and urban rural development. “By transferring such a significant volume of water away from the Han River Basin, the project is depriving the area of the most basic input it will need to develop in the years and decades to come,” said Britt Crow-Miller, a research assistant professor at Portland State University.