South China's
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region will appropriate around 200
million yuan (US$24.7 million) in small irrigation projects in an
effort to counteract drought.
The region will also seek financial support from the Chinese
central government to improve its big and medium-sized irrigation
facilities.
The measures will help to irrigate more arid cultivated land and
to improve water utilization efficiency in the coming five years,
said an official at the regional water resources working meeting
last Friday.
Following three consecutive years of drought, the region
continues to be hit by a massive spring dry spells as rainfall
decreases.
The reservoirs in Guangxi hold 2.8 billion cubic meters of
water, 28.2 percent of their storage capacity, by late January, far
from its minimum demand of 4 billion cubic meters, said Wei Lixing,
director of the Regional Meteorology Bureau.
Statistics from the Guangxi regional water resources bureau
indicate that 1.04 million hectares of cultivated land, or 41
percent of the total, lack irrigation, and among them, about
953,330 hectares are without any irrigation facilities.
Two thirds of the 1.52 million hectares with water conservancy
projects are irrigated in old, traditional ways, with the average
utilization rate as low as 42 percent.
Guangxi also pledges to provide 5 million farmers with access to
safe drinking water in the next five years, thus cutting one third
of the population's drinking unsafe water.
(Xinhua News Agency February 14, 2006)