Last month, southwest China's Yunnan also began work on four big water storage projects with a combined investment of 211.8 billion yuan. China has long relied on large-scale infrastructure projects to control its rivers.
More than 300 new water infrastructure projects were announced between 2014 and 2020. (Image: Alamy) China’s mega water projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam and the South-to-North Water Diversion project (SNWD), are famous.
Whilst there is no doubt that China’s water policy and regulation is becoming more sophisticated, we argue that China’s water infrastructure construction has continued to accelerate, and that ecological improvement plays only a modest part in this growth. Nevertheless, there are important changes in the character of that construction.
The Guiding Opinions on the Implementation of Major National Network Projects released in January 2022 point to the Chinese government’s plans to further expand water investment during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).
There is a sense in some quarters that the country is shifting from an emphasis on “hard” water infrastructure to more “soft” regulatory policy, and perhaps also from a focus on safety (flood prevention) and supply to projects that emphasise ecological improvement such as pollution control and urban greening.
SHANGHAI, Sept 1 (Reuters) - After a record heatwave parched large areas of the Yangtze basin, Chinese provinces are planning to spend billions of dollars on new water infrastructure as they try to fend off the growing impact of extreme weather on agriculture and hydropower.