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A new mantra for China’s big thirst: Less is more

Posted by: Maven on March 9, 2009 at 4:23 am

From the Associated Press:

Experts and environmentalists say it’s time China took a different approach to its growth-related challenges, one based on conservation rather than engineering. That may not come easy in a country with a long history of megaprojects. When China wanted to keep out foreign invaders, it built the Great Wall. When it wanted to move rice, it built the 1,100-mile Grand Canal. When it needed electricity, it built the Three Gorges Dam, completed in 2006.

“States that continue to have a monopoly on political power do tend toward these large engineering solutions,” said David Pietz, a Washington State University professor who focuses on the water policies of the 60-year-old communist government.

Alternatives include using water more efficiently, desalinating seawater and recycling wastewater — to water golf courses, for example.

There are signs that government officials, many of them trained engineers, are beginning to heed their critics.

The most expensive and technically difficult leg of the canal project has been postponed for more study after scientists questioned its feasibility. Another leg has been delayed for four years to smooth the resettlement process.

Perhaps most important, a key official concedes that the project won’t slake the north’s thirst for long. “It can only be a supplement to the water shortage in the short term,” Zhang Jiyao, the minister in charge of the water project, told The Associated Press. “More important, we must depend on saving water.”

Read more from the Associated Press by clicking here.

March 9, 2009 · Filed Under International Water Issues

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