Historic Changes in Water Supply and Use

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, China ensured the supply of safe drinking water to 280 million rural residents over the past decade, including 17.1 million registered poor people, and expanded the coverage of tap water in rural areas to 84 percent. Effective irrigation has been realized on 69 million hectares of farmland, bolstering China’s food security. During the past 10 years, China has spent RMB 150 billion from the central budget on irrigation facilities and invested RMB 466.7 billion on water supply projects in rural areas, which have benefited 340 million rural residents. The first phase of the project of the central and eastern routes of the South-to-north Water Diversion Project was completed, and has so far supplied 56.5 billion cubic meters of water to 150 million people. The capacity of China’s water conservancy projects has risen from 700 billion cubic meters in 2012 to 890 billion cubic meters in 2021. A safe, efficient, green, smart, and well-regulated national water network is taking shape.

Meanwhile water use has become more efficient. Last year, China’s water consumption per RMB 10,000 GDP and per RMB 10,000 industrial added value had been reduced by 45 percent and 55 percent respectively from 2012 levels, and the effective utilization coefficient of irrigation water rose from 0.516 to 0.568.