Replumbing the planet

摘要

In a small ceremony in April this year, a bottle of water filled at Danjiangkou reservoir in central China was presented to the vice-mayor of Beijing. The water had come more than 1200 kilometres. Its arrival signified the start of what China claims is the biggest engineering project of all time. It will divert part of the flow of the world's fourth-biggest river, the Yangtze in southern China, to replenish the Yellow river in the north, which is being drained dry. The first water from the $60 billion scheme should be flowing by the time Beijing hosts the Olympic games in 2008. And around 20 years from now, when the project is complete, it will be siphoning north around 50 cubic kilometres of water a year, which is three times as much water as England and Wales consume in the same time.