asiaa.nikkei.com PAK YIU JULY 24, 2023

Enormous water diversion projects spark concern across region

Water is released from the Xiaolangdi Reservoir Dam on the Yellow River in a sand-discharging operation. July 2022, Luoyang, China. (Footage via Getty Images)

Drought in China dried up parts of the Yangtze river last year – but the largest water transfer apparatus ever built still drew from it to supply Beijing’s needs. 

More than a billion cubic meters flowed through the colossal South-to-North Water Diversion Project in 2022. It traveled from a reservoir in central China to millions of households in the capital 1,200 kilometers away. The journey, via underground tunnels and canals that cross the Yellow River, roughly equaled the distance between Amsterdam and Rome.

The movement highlights the scale of China’s measures to shore up water security – and the profound potential effects these have on neighboring countries.

Many of Asia’s transboundary rivers originate in the Indo-Tibetan plateau in China. They flow into 18 downstream nations such as India, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh and Vietnam, delivering water to a quarter of the world’s population.

That alone makes the world’s second most populous nation an upstream superpower with enormous influence over irrigation of much of the continent. Projects such as building dams and hydropower plants potentially fuel existing regional political tensions – and create new ones.

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