Alternative Water Resources

Over the last decade China’s stance on it’s water crisis has been based around throwing money at the problem and hoping it will go away. They seem to think that large problems need large solutions, hence the construction of the gigantic South-to-North Water Diversion Project, huge desalination plants and The Three Gorges Dam, the worlds largest. However they have not completely overlooked other alternative smaller scale water saving technics and practices.

Rainwater Harvesting

This is an extremely cheap way of increasing water resources in arid regions and has been overlooked for some time. With some simple equipment, rainwater can be effectively captured and stored for use in any household or agricultural setting. Rainwater harvesting is now being widely promoted in many of the most arid northern regions of China. It is being used in urban and rural environments and is becoming a crucial asset in China’s struggle for water security. The central government has now made it a top priority in some of its driest regions (Cheng, et al, 2009).

The Loess Plateau of Gansu in northwest China is an area where water is scarce and most of the locals have suffered a lack of water for centuries. Rainwater harvesting has been implemented here to great effect bringing 1.2 million people out of water insecurity (Qiang, Yuanhong). And due to the fact that water shortage is often a root cause of poverty, since the rainwater harvesting system has been implemented there has been significant economic development.

Precipitation Enhancement

This technic is often referred to as ‘cloud seeding’ and it has recently been proposed as a potential solution to the many droughts that China experiences in its northern provinces. China is the number one practitioner of cloud seeding and they have invested a great deal of time and money into the technology. They believe that precipitation enhancement has the potential to create new freshwater resources in its most arid areas and will help them push back the ever-encroaching Gobi desert. However recent studies have suggested that using aerosols to enhance precipitation could have a significant harmful impact on crops, air quality and the hydrological cycle (Zhao, et al, 2006).

Municipal Wastewater Reclamation

This is another practice that has a lot of promise and could significantly improve water resources in urban areas. The idea is to capture water from municipal and industrial sources and then to process this wastewater and make it suitable for household, agricultural and industrial reuse. Treating this wastewater so that it can be suitable for human consumption is an expensive process and advanced treatment such as reverse osmosis is rarely undertaken. This means that any reclaimed water is of a low quality and could pose a potential health risk. However despite this, there is still a lot of potential in reclaiming water and reusing it in agriculture and industry. Such practices will help reduce the pressure on water in urban areas and free up the clean water for more important household uses.

These ideas all hold a great deal of promise and show that huge and expensive infrastructure projects are not the only way to tackle China’s water crisis. I believe that small-scale ideas, like these, implemented on a large-scale hold a great deal of value. Instead of trying to drastically reengineer the geography of the land, the local and national governments must re focus their attention on these more practical solutions.