China Completes the Largest Water Conservancy Project

• Hanjiang-to-Weihe River water diversion project is the largest water conservancy project with cost of $7.2 billion, benefiting 14.11 million people

Beijing: China completed a massive water project enabling supply of water from a tributary of the country’s longest river, the Yangtze, to quench the droughty norther city of Xi’an, the capital city of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

Passing through a Qinling mountain range , water will flow from the Hanjiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze, to the Weihe River, a tributary of the Yellow River.

The famous, Xi’an city is home to 10 million residents, and is an important Chinese cultural hub and tourist destination since Silk Road times.

Constructing this water diversion project was a daunting challenging for Chinese engineers, as it required constructing 98.3-kilometer tunnels underneath the Qinling Mountains, a natural boundary between China’s north and south.

“Tunnels beneath the Qinling Mountains started sending water from the Hanjiang River, the largest tributary of the Yangtze, to the Weihe River, a tributary of the Yellow River”, said the water resources department of Shaanxi Province.

The Hanjiang-to-Weihe River water diversion project is the largest water conservancy project in Shaanxi, with an investment of 51.6 billion yuan (about $7.2 billion).

The construction began in 2011, bringing water from Hanjiang in water-rich southern Shaanxi northward to Weihe, which traverses the thirstier central parts of the province.

So far, the project has completed the first phase and entered the second phase. Upon completion, its second and third phases will transport water from the Hanjiang River all the way to Xi’an, Xianyang, Weinan and Yangling in central Shaanxi for both residential and industrial use, local Chinese media reported.

The Hanjiang-to-Weihe River water diversion project will ultimately cover an area of 14,000 square meters and benefit 14.11 million people, allowing optimal allocation of water resources in Shaanxi and playing an important role in the economic and social development of the province.

By: M.A

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