CHINA: The Chinese government authorised one of the world's biggest engineering projects yesterday to pump water from the flood-prone south of the country to the drought-stricken north.
Three man-made rivers will transfer water from the Yangtze - the world's third largest river - across 800 miles to the crowded northern provinces, where more than 400 cities now face water shortages.
The first such imported water could reach Shandong province by 2005. By 2010, water from the south could be flowing into washbasins, kettles and fountains in Beijing.
Eventually, the three channels will pump 48 billion tonnes, or 48 trillion litres, of water a year - enough to keep New York going for 25 years.
The decision comes as the climax of 50 years of debate. The late Mao Zedong, who led the communist revolution in China, is credited with first suggesting the project. But changes in climate patterns and an explosive growth in demand for water have forced a decision which ecological experts warn could have catastrophic consequences.
The first two of the three canals and aqueducts will cost more than $18 billion. The completed project could exceed $24 billion.
The project was trailed tentatively last year. It was confirmed, somewhat enigmatically, yesterday.
Water resources vice-minister Mr Zhang Jiyao said construction was ready to begin on one segment. "The south-to-north water diversion project is a megaproject that is strategically aimed at realising the optimal allocation of water resources," he said, according to the English-language China Daily.
The project will involve epic feats of engineering and could take 50 years to complete. One route involves shifting water through the mountains near the Tibetan plateau. Another requires engineers to carry water either over or under the Yellow river, once known as "China's sorrow" - 900,000 perished in just one of its floods. Since 1985, it has run dry every year, and in 1997 it failed to reach the sea at all for 226 days.
But the Yellow river, protected by dykes, remains a disaster waiting to happen: its bed is on average now 15 feet above the surrounding land, and in some places it towers 40 feet above the farms beside it. Engineers will have to decide whether to build an even higher aqueduct to leap over it, or to endanger the dykes as they tunnel below the river to get water to the north.