Opinion

Water our future

(China Daily)
Updated: 2011-01-31 16:21

The prolonged drought, which has been hitting northern China harder than expected since last autumn, surely justifies greater efforts to accelerate the development of water conservancy projects and promote the sustainable use of water resources in this country.

The latest campaign launched by the Chinese government to improve underdeveloped water conservancy works must aim to achieve more than such an urgent policy response usually does.

To quench the current thirst is indeed a pressing task. But it is of far greater significance for policymakers to ensure that the upcoming massive investment on water conservancy will effectively boost long-term food security and environmental sustainability if the country is to survive the dire consequences of climate change and win the future.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Chinese government has focused its first central document of the year on rural development issues.

After spending 200 billion yuan ($30.3 billion) on water conservancy projects last year, the authorities plan to double average annual spending on water conservancy over the next 10 years compared with that of 2010.

Such a huge investment on water conservancy is long overdue for the country's agricultural sector, which beat all the odds last year to reap a record bumper harvest, the seventh consecutive rich harvest.

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Those hard-won harvests are testament to the importance that the government attaches to agricultural production and the diligence of numerous farmers. It is not easy to feed one-fifth of the world's population with less than 10 percent of its arable land.

Yet, they also show the challenge the country will face to secure adequate grain output in the future with such an increasingly outdated water conservancy system.

As a matter of fact, severe floods and drought in recent years have exposed weaknesses in the water conservancy infrastructure. The country's plan to build effective flood control and drought relief systems by the end of 2020 is badly needed.

It is encouraging that the world's most populous country still has the wherewithal to considerably upgrade its water conservancy system for sustained agricultural development.

But Chinese policymakers must be aware that funds alone will not guarantee the country's success in promoting sustainable use of limited water resources.

It is one thing for local officials to make mass construction of water conservancy projects a new investment engine for economic growth. It is another to build them as a long-term commitment to the country's environmental sustainability and food security.

As a country with a very long history of harnessing rivers, China boasts some world-class water control projects.

Policymakers should make sure that the latest efforts to improve the water conservancy infrastructure not only ease the immediate problems but also deliver in the long run.