China’s Frightening Dry Future
Contributing Monkie G Living Staff Monkies
Topics of Interest China, Water Crisis
On the surface, things are looking good in Shijiazhuang, China: the population of this northern city is increasing, economic growth is up 11 percent from last year, and upscale waterfront housing developments are rapidly popping up in this provincial haven of more than two million people.
Underneath it all, however, is a different story. There is no prosperity for northern China’s water supply. Local groundwater has been two-thirds drained by municipal wells, while the underground water table sinks about four feet per year.
For the past thirty years, as China’s massive economic expansion led them to world power status, water has served a vital function. The usage of this resource has quintupled since late 1940s, but poor planning has led to a major water crisis, causing the New York Times to speculate that “leaders will increasingly face tough political choices as cities, industry and farming compete for a finite and unbalanced water supply.”
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