An official in charge of water resources in Central China's Henan province vowed on Tuesday to improve water quality in the central route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.

Wang Shushan, director of Henan's department of water resources, said that the project's 731-km trenches will be finished by the end of next year, and water from Henan is scheduled to reach Beijing and Tianjin in 2014, traveling a total distance of 1,423 km.

The water diversion project is designed to take water from China's longest river, the Yangtze, to feed northern China's drought-prone areas, including Beijing.