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Irrigation is expected to dominate water use in China at least through the year 2030, by which time Chen sees industrial uses pulling nearly even. Others, however, see agriculture maintaining its dominance in perpetuity, holding at 500 billion cu.m. from 2030 onward while industry stabilizes at 200 billion cu.m. about the same time. Total water use is seen as peaking at about 800 billion cu.m. in the 2070s, using roughly a quarter of the total water resource (see Figure 1). There are two important elements in these admittedly rough calculations: that water use efficiencies continue to improve considerably in both agriculture and industry, and that population stabilizes about the year 2050.7

With these optimistic but realistic assumptions, it would seem that, at least in quantity terms, China as a whole will not find water to be a significant constraint to development. The situation may look different for those parts of the country that are already facing widening gaps between demand and locally available supplies of water of adequate quality. It is to some of these critical sectors that we now turn.

 

3. The Sick River

 

The Huang He is a long river with relatively little water and a lot of silt. It is estimated that in 1990 nearly half its annual runoff was used consumptively (without being returned).8 Flow to the sea stopped during the dry season in 20 of the 26 years between 1972 and 1997, including every year from 1991 on. The trend has been towards increasing severity of cutoff, leading some Chinese to term the Huang He a "sick river".

In 1997, there were 11 stoppages for an unprecedented total of 222 days, with the first occurring on 7 February. Even during the wet season (June through September), the river flowed to the sea for only 14 days.9 The severity of the stoppage in 1997, which reached 703 km inland to the outskirts of Kaifeng, was magnified by extremely low precipitation, in some cases the driest year since 1951.

 

 

 

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