100 Chinese Cities Face Water Crisis, Says Minister

Pollution and consumption of water in China are growing so fast that more than 100 of the country's biggest cities could soon be unable to quench the thirst of their populations, a cabinet minister warned yesterday.

Qiu Baoxing, deputy minister of construction, said urgent action was needed to halt the deterioration of water supplies, which is increasingly cited as an economic risk and a cause of public protests.

Home to the world's biggest population - 1.3bn people - and some of the driest regions on the globe, China has always had a water problem, but the strains have steadily worsened in the past 25 years as industrialisation and urbanisation have surged ahead almost regardless of the environment.

While international attention has focused on economic growth rates of more than 9% a year, local concerns have increasingly centred on the decline in water and air quality.

"Limited water resources are threatened by pollution, and water safety in cities is facing severe challenges," said Mr Qiu. In more than 100 of China's 660 cities, he said, the shortages were extreme.

His assessment came after a government report last week admitted China failed to improve its environment last year despite a series of policy announcements and speeches on the subject by leaders.

According to the report industrial toxins, human waste and agricultural fertiliser have polluted all seven of the country's major rivers and 25 out of the 27 major lakes.

"China has taken many steps to control the water contamination, but its speed across the country has not been arrested," Liu Hongzhi, the official responsible for pollution control in the state environment protection agency, was quoted by the Xinhua agency as saying. "China has failed to list water conservation in its social and economic plan in the past several years."

The agency's deputy director, Pan Yue, has said the problem is so bad that China's economic growth is unsustainable.

In the north the Yellow river has been so over-exploited that it fails to reach the ocean for most of the year. Further south the Huaihe, considered the country's most polluted river, is frequently linked to the declining health of local residents.

Even the Yangtze, which supplies water to a 12th of the world's population, is showing the growing pressure of dams, river traffic and effluent from supercities such as Chongqing, which has a municipal population of 30 million. Less than a third of the waste from China's cities is treated.

Water is by no means the only environmental problem. Acid rain falls on a third of the country's territory. According to a ranking of air quality, 15 of the planet's 20 most polluted cities are in China. The smog is so bad that respiratory diseases have recently become the leading cause of death.

But water carries the greatest political risk. Officials from the World Bank warned last year that the contest for scarce resources would lead to "a fight between rural interests, urban interests and industrial interests on who gets water in China".

There are already signs of strife. In April' dozens of police and villagers were injured in Huankantou, Zhejiang province, in clashes over a local chemical factory that was thought to be the source of water pollution that ruined crops and left babies deformed.

A quarter of the population lack access to clean drinking water, which has highlighted the growing gap between China's rich and poor. The prime minister, Wen Jiabao, promised to make this problem a priority during his annual government report to the legislature in February.

But government attempts to tighten factory emissions, reduce logging and increase waste treatment are often bypassed by local authorities, which are still under orders to focus on economic growth.

Mr Qiu predicted yesterday that China will face growing water shortages until 2030, when its population is projected to peak at 1.6 billion people.