Look on the bright side: your chances of drowning have gone down
From the Economist:
One in three country-dwellers in China lacks access to safe drinking water. More than 100 big cities, of which half are deemed “seriously threatened”, are short of water. Water tables are dropping by a metre or more every year across much of northern China. Even in Beijing, supply per head now stands at a perilously low 300 cubic metres (66,000 gallons) a year. Reduced flow rates on China’s greatest rivers have made hydro plants reduce badly needed power output: many smelters, paper mills and petrochemical plants are no longer sure of getting the huge amounts of water they require. Droughts, historically more common in northern China, are now hitting the south too. This year Guangdong province, home to 110m people, has had a 40% drop in rainfall.
We have no idea how serious this situation really is, but it sounds pretty bad. You would think with capital investment increasing 25-45% a year in China, the government would have the resources and the desire to address the problem aggressively. Indeed, according to reports, the resources required would just be a drop in the bucket.
May 21st, 2005 at 9:30 am
Just came back from Shanghai, second trip this year. The talk is more about energy and raw materials needs (like steel). Water didn’t figure at all, except to talk about flood control and Three Gorges. One of my contacts did allow that he came from the dry and poor Muslim north, but the convesation never went in the direction of water needs. The flow from the tap is many times assumed for granted, isn’t it? Thanks for the post.