Society

Water, water, everywhere but ...

By Peng Yining and Li Yingqing in Kunming, and Hu Yongqi in Beijing (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-30 07:32

The waiting game

A farmer sits on the bed of the dried Niujiehe reservoir in Jiulong town, Luoping county, Yunnan province. Since September, the region has been gripped by the worst drought in 100 years. [MAO HONG/XINHUA]

Most other parts of Yunnan are not so lucky. In Xiaoxin, a mountain village in the east, the only water conservation project is a large, 3-meter-deep cement pond that was built in 1997.

The water in the pond was far from enough to support 72 people and 40 hectares of farmland, and has been dry since November. The residents' only drinking supply is now an old well 2 km away that was formerly used to feed cattle and is polluted with leaves and refuse.

"I wish there were at least two ponds in our village, one for watering the cattle and the other to store drinking water. Just one more pond and the water shortage would have been far less severe," said villager Zhang Xiaochun, 26, who has not bathed for months because of the drought.

Dadiliangzi, a village with 18 households 5 km from Xiaoxin, has two reservoirs that are effectively pits dug 60 year ago. There are no wells and no water cellars. As the annual average income here is less than 1,000 yuan, villagers cannot afford the cement to build them. Instead, only a half-meter wall of rubble protects their only drinking sources, and this has failed to prevent the water draining into the ground.

"We asked the local government to reinforce the reservoirs or start new water conservation projects," said Dai Muyuan, the village chief. "The authorities sent engineers to investigate but they quickly left. It will cost 180,000 yuan to repair just one of the old reservoirs. Maybe they thought it was not worth spending so much money on helping just 18 households."

Many people also use natural stone pits to collect rainwater, such as the 123 residents of Sunjiadi, a largely Miao ethnic community in Luoping county. Since the pit dried up, five tons of water has been delivered every two days but villages still need to walk three hours to get river water for their cattle.

"I carry 25 liters of water home twice a day," said a woman in her 30s waiting for the water truck to arrive. "I gave up on my crops - they all dried out - but I have to save my thirsty cattle." Most people waiting with her were women, children or elderly people. All the village's young men have gone to cities to find work to make up for the losses from their ruined crops. "They can go to the brick kiln to earn money carrying bricks. The drought has destroyed our farming," said the woman.

Looking to the future

A villager climbs into a newly constructed water tank in Wufu village in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, which like neighboring Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, has been badly aff ected by drought. [HUANG XIAOBANG/XINHUA]

Since the onset of the drought, authorities in Yunnan have begun digging wells across the province - each costing about 500,000 yuan - in the hope of finding underground drinking sources.

On March 22, Yunnan water resources bureau also unveiled plans for 100 key conservation projects and one million smaller projects to speed up the upgrading of urban and rural water supplies. The plans will cost about 30 billion yuan, said officials.

For some, however, it is too little and too late. "Starting construction on water conservation after a drought begins is too late," said publicity official Zhang. "Delivering drinking water can only solve the current problem. Only the construction of more storage facilities can solve the long-term problems with drought."

In most cases, delivering water to villages authorities has ensured there is enough for residents and their livestock - but the crops have all starved. As of March 18, the estimated economic loss from Yunnan's agricultural disaster could hit 17 billion yuan.

Work in Luoping county started two weeks ago and, although six wells have been dug to more than 130 meters deep, no water has yet been discovered.

"For some regions that have no water resources and are too remote to build water conservation facilities, the government has been considering relocating residents," said conservation chief Wang Shizong. "The government will keep delivering free water but it is not a solution in a long term."

Guo Anfei contributed to this story

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