HAIKOU, August 21. /TASS/. By 2035, the Hainan authorities will have fully ironed out the water shortage dilemma and will have wrapped up the creation of a system for efficient distribution of water resources, the provincial Water Supply Network Plan reads.
As noted in the document, by 2025 difficulties hindering optimal water distribution on the island will be eliminated. Case in point, thanks to improved infrastructure and an advanced warning system, excess water in flood-prone areas will be transferred to the regions of Hainan suffering from drought.
Within another 10 years, the authorities plan to completely modernize the island’s integrated water supply network, where the area of artificial irrigation will exceed 5,300 square meters. As a result, 95% of local agrarian farms will be able to independently provide themselves with uninterrupted supplies of water, without requiring government assistance.
“Thanks to this program, we'll get a unified network of centralized water resources management and boost their eco-friendliness, while also preventing floods,” said Wang Qiang, head of the Hainan water supply department.
As Chinese experts explained, an imbalance of water distribution on the island is due to its specific landscape. In the central region, the terrain is more elevated, and the lowlands are located around the perimeter. Due to the difference in altitude during heavy rains, rivers discharge excess water into the sea, often flooding settlements. At the same time, the western and southern parts of Hainan, as well as the coastal area, where the province’s largest cities are located and where the highest population density is recorded, “are suffering from thirst”.
For many years, a number of Hainan districts have been experiencing water shortages, even though 1,750 mm of precipitation falls on the island per year, with 3,540 cubic meters for the population per capita. Recently, the problem has become dire, because in the first half of 2019, due to the El Nino phenomenon, fluctuations in the temperature of the water surface in the equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean occurred. About 700 mm of precipitation fell in the province, which is almost 60 mm less than the average indicator. Due to climate change and a decrease in precipitation (almost 50%), the resort city of Sanya, which is very popular among Russians, like the all of Hainan's south-west, had to face the threat of a water shortage.