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Compiled by the Government Communication and Information System Date: 12 Aug 2008 Title: Beijing well prepared for water demand during Olympics -------------------- Beijing - Beijing has more than enough water to meet demand during the Olympics, despite suffering years of drought, a senior official of the Beijing Water Bureau said. "Beijing has combined all water resources, including reservoirs, underground water and rainfall, to ensure the supply for the Olympics," said the bureau's head of publicity, Yu Yaping. Guanting and Miyun, the two largest of Beijing's 85 reservoirs, were holding more than one billion cubic meters of water. "Normally, one person would only use three cubic meters of water a month. "Even if two million people come in August for the Olympics, they wouldn't consume more than six million cubic meters of water. "It wouldn't cause a water shortage when we have more than one billion cubic meters of reserves," Mr Yaping said. Last year, Beijing's daily tap water supply stood at 2.48 million cubic meters, or 74 million a month, and it had increased to 2.93 million. After nine years of drought, Beijing had made water saving a primary task. In 2000, the city used four billion cubic meters of water, but last year, it used 3.4 billion cubic meters, a saving of almost 100 million cubic meters a year. In 2007, it used 480 million cubic meters of recycled water, or 14 percent of the total water supply, to supplement watercourses, wash cars and irrigate crops. The government had diverted 156 million cubic meters of water from the Yellow River, the country's second longest, to refill the northern area's largest freshwater lake, Baiyangdian, this year, as the lake's headwaters were used for emergency reservoirs. Three of the lake's upstream reservoirs in Baoding City of Hebei, Wangkuai, Xidayang and Angezhuang, provided 300 million cubic meters in contingency supplies for Beijing. "Beijing has no plans to divert water from neighbouring cities during the Games. We are confident of ensuring the supply with our own capacity," Mr Yaping said. In addition to surface and underground water, Beijing has built 600 rainwater collection pools. "These pools can hold 60 million cubic meters of rainwater. There has been a lot of rain this year, which will ease the situation," he said. - BuaNews-Xinhua |
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