My Volunteer Photo Back in Beijing in 2000

International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) 68th Annual Meeting  (14~18 September 2000)  20th Congress (19~22 September 2000), Beijing, China. 

http://www.chincold.org.cn/chincold/lib/zt/icold2000/

Tunnel under Yellow River: South to North Water Diversion Project

The central, or middle, route is from Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Han river, a tributary of the Yangtze River, to Beijing. The project involves raising the height of the Danjiangkou dam (increasing the dam crest elevation from 162 m to 176.6 m above the sea level), in order to raise the water level in the reservoir from 157 to 170 m above the sea level.

The middle route is built on the North China Plain. The canal is to be constructed so that water can flow all the way from the Danjiangkou Reservoir to Beijing by gravity, without the need for pumping stations.The main engineering challenge is to build a tunnel under the Yellow River. Construction on the central route began in 2004. In 2008 the 307 km-long northern stretch of the central route was completed at a cost of US$2 billion. Water in that stretch of the canal does not come from the Han River but from reservoirs in Hebei Province, south of Beijing. Farmers and industries in Hebei had to cut back water consumption to allow for water to be transferred to Beijing.

The whole project was just completed earlier this year. This has recently been set back to allow for more environmental protections to be built. A problem is the influence on the Han River (below the Danjiangkou Dam), from which approximately 1/3 of the water is diverted. One long-term consideration is to build another canal to divert water from the Three Gorges Dam to Danjiangkou Reservoir.

Analysis of Channel Scouring and Deposition of the Lower Yellow River (Part III)

 

 

 

 

Analysis of Channel Scouring and Deposition of the Lower Yellow River (Part II)

Analysis of Channel Scouring and Deposition of the Lower Yellow River (Part I)

First Descent of the Yellow River in 1987

In the year of 1987 from April 30 to September 25, there was a first successful source-to-sea descent without power of the whole 5,464 km long yellow river by three domestic teams from Beijing, Ma'anshan and Luoyang. The total vertical drop of this descent has reached 4,831 meters. Seven team members drowned in the steep upper reaches of the river. The Beijing team lost one member, the Ma'anshan team lost two members, and the Luoyang team lost 4 members. An descent was even made of the Hukou Waterfalls, the largest fall with approximately 50 meters drop on the yellow river, with the brave Chinese rafters dying in the attempt.

South-to-North Water Diversion Middle Route Completed

(Asahi, Japan) A massive construction project to alleviate water shortages in northern China is closer to becoming a reality. Construction work on the 1,432-kilometer central canal of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, which will route water resources from the Yangtze River basin to Beijing and surrounding areas in the north was completed on Dec. 25, state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

The canal will be filled next year following supplementary work. The project, decades in the making, will eventually comprise three canals. "This infrastructure work is part of the nation's strategy to promote sustainable economic development," Premier Li Keqiang said. The eastern canal, which will link Jiangsu province to Tianjin and elsewhere, has been partially completed, whereas the western canal remains in the planning stage.

The just-completed central route starts from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which straddles Henan and Hubei provinces, and crosses the Yellow River before reaching Beijing. It cost 201.3 billion yuan (3.4 trillion yen, or $33 billion) to build, Xinhua reported. More than 300,000 people who lived near the Danjiangkou Reservoir have been evicted since construction began in December 2003.

Still, critics have raised questions over the potential effectiveness of the water transfer project. Some experts expressed concern over the negative impact the project will have on ecosystems along the Yangtze River, whereas others have pointed out the increased risk of drought it could have on southern China.

Relate Posts: Giant Dual Tunnels Completed Under Yellow River for South-to-North Water Transfer Project

Yellow River - RIVER OF CONSTANT SORROW (Excerpts from News China, Part II)

Shortage and Conflict

Despite the apparent achievements of the water allocation policies, overexploitation of water resources has made the Yellow River lose its momentum and a significant proportion of its water capacity. China's initiative to develop its western regions propelled the exploration of the untouched abundant energy and mineral resources along the upper and middle sections of the river, and demand for water to sustain these industries has kept increasing. According to YRCC, “most of the nine provinces have reached the ceilings of their respective water allocation quotas, thus water shortages are the major bottleneck for social sustainable development for the whole river basin.”

The Yellow River’s water shortage problems indeed exist at its very source on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau – the decline of water caused by global warming and the melting of Tibetan glaciers could make the situation worse. Wang Yongchen, founder of environmental NGO Green Earth Volunteer, has personally visited the source of the Yellow River in Qinghai. According to Wang, the river’s source has been constantly receding since 2009. “This year the source has receded to over 3.5 meters away from its original geographical landmark,” Wang, recently having returned from her fourth visit to the region in late August, told NewsChina.

Cui Sheng, an environmentalist from Henan Province told NewsChina that desertification caused by permafrost destruction on the Qinghai Plateau is spreading, a significant threat to the existence of a number of great rivers, including the Yellow River. More importantly, the outdated allocation plan, which was originally based on the provincial water consumption requirements of the late 1980s, is no longer applicable to contemporary economic conditions. For example, the status of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as agriculture-focused regions meant that the plan set forth in 1999 focused on irrigation water consumption for these two regions. Nowadays, aside from agriculture, the two regions, which contain 800 kilometers of the Yellow River, are currently the two fastest developing regions in the high water-consuming coal-to-chemicals industry. Thus, for the past few years, the two provinces have had to resort to trading water use rights between the mining industry and agriculture in order to meet their needs.

“The plan is outdated,” said Qi Pu, senior engineer from YRCC told NewsChina during a recent phone interview. “The conflicts of interests among different provinces are getting more severe, and it is difficult to resolve them at the moment.”

Pollution

Over the past two decades, numerous fast-developing cities have emerged along the Yellow River, like Wuhai, a resourceful industrial city that developed fast in the middle section of the river. And like most rivers in China, the Yellow River suffers from the scourge of water pollution.

In 2007, YRCC released a water quality survey that graded 33.8 percent of the river system at “level 5” (according to China’s “Environmental Quality Standards for Surface Water”, levels 4 and 5 are classified as having medium or heavy pollution), deeming it unfit for drinking, aquaculture, agriculture or industrial use.

Zhang Qing from Water Resource Protection Bureau of YRCC told NewsChina that in 2006, the central authorities had begun to place more emphasis on pollution control, and that this, together with the water allocation project, had helped to improve the situation. Since 2009, the total length of the river with water quality level 4 and 5 has reduced to 29.4 percent. Despite the effects of pollution control measures, Zhang also admitted that it was difficult for YRCC to monitor individual enterprises and prevent them from releasing pollution into the river.

The most recently reported industrial water pollution issue along the Yellow River concerns a large petrochemical complex in Baotou, Inner Mongolia. The plant, owned by the State-owned Shenhua Group and initially scheduled to begin commercial production in late 2011, is part of a high-profile project to produce polyethylene and polypropylene from coal. Without obtaining the requisite permits to release waste water into the Yellow River from YRCC, the plant has been doing so for the past two years, causing sizeable financial losses for many local fishermen. Following an inspection in June, YRCC issued a notice to the company requiring it to stop operation and make arrangements for the treatment of its waste water.

“We only have the right to manage enterprises that release waste water directly into the mainstream of the Yellow River,” said Zhang Qing, adding that even this limited power, granted by China’s Water Law, is rarely respected by enterprises. “People regard the monitoring of and punishment for river pollution as the responsibility of the environmental department.” Indeed, YRCC only acts as a water quality monitor, once individual pollution is spotted, it is authorized only to raise suggestions to local government or environment departments but has no executive right.

The responsibility of monitoring individual waste water release lies with the department of water resources, while the environmental department deals with management of water pollution – a complicated bureaucratic situation that appears to have posed obstacles for water pollution control along the entire length of the river.

"Similar cases have been identified, and our responsibility is to stop the enterprise from releasing pollution into the Yellow River ‘directly,’” said Zhang. “We are not responsible for its internal management of polluted water treatment.”

To read the whole article: http://www.newschinamag.com/magazine/river-of-constant-sorrow