China's water woes
China is home to 20 percent of the world's population but it only has seven percent of the globe's freshwater reserves. Securing adequate water is one of the biggest issues the country faces.
Short of water
More than 300 million people live in China's arid and pollution-ridden north, a region that suffers from extremely high water stress. A mega water transfer project transporting water supplies from the south is underway to ease scarcity up north.
Note: Baseline water stress measures total annual water withdrawals (municipal, industrial, and agricultural) expressed as a percentage of the total annual available blue water. Higher values indicate more competition among users.
Water poor
Northern China is one of the driest regions in the world, it experiences frequent droughts and water scarcity has been made even worse by widespread pollution of rivers, lakes and groundwater.
RUNNING DRY: Dead trees line the parched Shiyang River in Gansu province. Residents say the river is drying up because a vast upstream reservoir built two decades ago to irrigate a large farm cut off its supply. Reuters/Carlos Barria
According to the U.N., an area experiences water stress when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic metres per capita. When it drops below 1,000 cubic metres per person, the population faces water scarcity, and below 500 cubic metres "absolute scarcity". According to WRI Aqueduct, drought severity measures the average length of drought multiplied by the dryness of the droughts from 1901 to 2008.
Big drinkers
Despite water shortages, northern China's economy relies primarily on water-intensive manufacturing industries and coal-fired power, and it produces around a third of China's food.
Thirsty for more
The 2030 Water Resources Group expects China's total water usage to reach 818 billion cubic metres in 2030. The Chinese government, on the other hand, is aiming to cap the country's annual water consumption at 700 billion cubic meters in 2030.
Fetching water from the south
China's $62 billion South–North Water Diversion Project is the largest of its kind in the world. When completed, three separate canal systems totalling more than 4,300km in length will collectively divert 44.8 billion cubic metres of water per year to the north.
Damming the rivers
China is home to some of the most engineered rivers in the world. Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project, is one of more than 370 dams that sit on the mighty Yangtze River.
Sources: World Resources Institute Aqueduct; FAO Aquastat; International Rivers; China's Ministry of Water Resources; China National Bureau of Statistics; Global Water System Project (GWSP); GRanD Dams Database; Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University; Natural Resources Defense Council; China Water Risk; 2030 Water Resources Group; Reuters.
Graphic by Christine Chan