Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Development Bank has carried out a comprehensive survey limited to the Asian
region
10
.
Reducing Water Irrigation Requirement
Virtually all of the studies on how to make much more efficient use of the limited
resources in water shortage regions, including those in California
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, show that
the single most important inefficiency is in use of water for irrigation. Hence, a
priority in both ICs and DCs is to develop practicable mechanics for resolving
this problem. One approach is that used by Israel, where the severity of the
problem has led to development of a new approach to agriculture called
drip
irrigation
, in which the water is fed directly into the plant roots rather than into
the soil around the plant. In due time, it is expected that many DCs will have to
adapt to use of this approach.
China Studies Sponsored by World Bank
One of the most serious immediate water shortage problems for Asian DCs is
the situation in the northern coastal provinces in China, where about half of the
countries population and industry are located, and which is continuing to grow
despite the fact that most of this region has been desperately short of fresh water
for some 20 years, resulting in very severe impairment of both economics and
public health, including increasing problems for industries to continue to operate
efficiently, very severe water pollution, and massive land subsidence in many
areas.
A comprehensive evaluation of this situation was conducted by the “Water
Agenda Study for North China” sponsored by the World Bank together with
AusAid. It was completed in 2000
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, and included detailed analyses of all water
uses and of their relative efficiencies and importance for contributing to con-
tinuing economic-cum-environmental development, with recommendations for
making marked changes in the existing water use system, in order to achieve
maximum beneficial use of the limited local natural fresh water resources and
hence to minimize the need for expensive importing of the plentiful water avail-
able in the Yangtze River in southern China to resolve the water crisis in the
north. This massive water transfer program is being planned in detail, with its ini-
tial project, the Wanjiazhai Water Transfer Project
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, already constructed. When
completed, the overall importation project will be by far the world's largest mass
water transfer project, dwarfing even the existing mass massive transfer system
in California.
The Water Agenda emphasized that efficient use of the limited local water
can be achieved only by establishing River Basin Control Agencies, which
(unlike existing river basin agencies) will have the needed real power to manage
the limited resource. This means there will be changes in the existing system
where power is divided (and hence not integrated and not effective) between the
