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'No pressure on water supplies' from Games - official

By Wu Jiao (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-14 07:24

A senior official Wednesday denied charges that the Beijing Olympics had put pressure on water supplies in and around the Chinese capital.

Critics have claimed that Beijing's plans for a "Green Olympics" had greatly increased the city's demand for water.

Beijing has a stable annual water supply of around 1.1 billion cu m from the nearby Miyun and Guanting reservoirs, as well as 2.4 billion cu m from groundwater, Hu Siyi, vice-minister of water resources, said at a press conference held at Beijing International Media Center.

The capital has consumed an average of 3.4 billion cu m of water annually during the past two years, 650 million cu m down from the figure in 2000 due to measures taken to improve water conservation and efficiency, said Hu.

Beijing has created 25,000 hectares of green belt and planted 12,600 hectares of trees on thousands of lawns dotted around the city.

Earlier, Bi Xiaogang, deputy director of the Beijing municipal bureau of water affairs, said that recycled water accounted for 60 percent of the water consumed by the city's greening project.

"Right now around 20 million sq m of lawns are irrigated with recycled water," Bi said.

A water treatment plant is seen in Beijing in this photo taken on July 23, 2008. Recycled water accounted for 60 percent of the water consumed by the greening project in Beijing, the city's water resources official said.[Xinhua]

Officials also denied claims that Beijing is pumping more and more water from resources that are already over-used, including strategic reserves of deep underground supplies.

"Deep groundwater is strictly protected in China because it is a strategic resource and we do not permit its development," said Gao Erkun, director of the Water Resources Department under the Ministry of Water Resources.

"There has been no development or exploration of deep groundwater by Beijing during the Olympic Games," he said.

Gao added that the government had not diverted water from Hebei province to Beijing for the Games and that it has a sustainable plan for the development of water resources in the city of 15 million.

However, water resources officials said that as a country suffering from water shortage, China is facing increasing pressures in meeting demand due to the accelerating pace of its industrialization and urbanization.

Hu said that China's water conservation projects can hold up to 560 billion cu m, helping to coordinate uneven distribution and basically meeting current demand.

He said that the government is now taking steps to further improve water conservation in China.

The country aims to cut its water consumption per unit of GDP growth by 20 percent in 2010 from 261 cu m in 2005.

Efforts in this regard include setting up agricultural water conservation pilot projects, prohibiting industrial projects that consume huge amounts of water and promoting water conservation among urban residents.

Agencies contributed to the story