Nary a Drop to Drink

She gave birth to one of the world’s most glorious ancient civilizations. For more than 4000 years, she has nurtured millions of fields and farmers spread alongside her. Millions still rely on her bounty today. But like so many working mothers, the Yellow River is exhausted, her resources dwindling, her energy flagging. The 3600-mile-long waterway known throughout history as “China’s sorrow” because of a penchant for spilling over is now causing despair for precisely the opposite reason: It is drying up.

—Los Angeles Times

Much of China’s fresh water in its rivers, lakes, streams, and wells is just too polluted to use in irrigation, much less for drinking. This horrific water pollution is thus exacerbating a water-scarcity problem that is already the worst among any of the larger economies of the world. In fact, China supports more than 20% of the world’s population with just 7% of the world’s water supplies.

China’s most severe water-scarcity problems are being felt in its heavily populated North China Plain. This extremely fertile breadbasket possesses a little more than 20% of China’s arable land but less than 4% of its water resources. It is through this fertile Northern Plain that China’s “Mother River”—the Yellow River—runs.

Fifty years ago, the Yellow River ran bountifully to the sea. Today, however, as stark testimony to China’s growing water-scarcity problems, the Yellow River can run dry for more than 200 days a year. For much of the year, the easternmost portions of the river turn into a highway, with cars and trucks traversing the dusty riverbed.

It is not just Chinese farmers suffering from an extreme lack of water. Almost half of China’s 660 cities face water shortages, more than a hundred of which face extreme water shortages. Water is scarcest in some of China’s most heavily populated and industrialized cities. Besides bone-dry Beijing and Shanghai, water-scarce areas include the key industrial provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong, Tianjin, Henan, and Ningxia. These cities and provinces provide a lion’s share of China’s GDP; and in these areas, reduced flows of many of China’s rivers are already significantly reducing the amount of hydroelectric power necessary to keep China’s smelters, paper mills, petrochemical plants, and other factories humming.