Severe water shortages have resulted in water being shut off every other day for residents in Yiwu, a city in east China's Zhejiang Province, an area famous for its small commodities.

People in urban areas have to store water for everyday use and the situation will not change until September, local officials say.

"Although we supply water every other day, we can only provide 110,000 tons of water each time," said Wang Birong, director of the Water Affair Bureau of Yiwu. "Normally, we'd be providing 200,000 tons when water is abundant."

More and more residents say they are heading to rural areas to spend their weekends, since water supplies there are relatively abundant.

Successive drought has caused reservoirs to sink to new lows, said Wang.

Besides drought, pollution is another issue that creates shortages.

Urban water source could provide water for residents' daily use before 1998. But it has become polluted and treatment can not bring it up to standards.

Yiwu has been facing a serious water shortage for a long time.

The city's water availability for each person on average is just one-fourth the national average, according to statistics.

It is estimated that Yiwu will lack 20-30 million cubic meters of water in 2010.

The number will reach 80-150 million cubic meters in 2020.

Meanwhile, the local government has taken many measures to increase water supplies.

The under-construction water diversion project is expected to bring 2.2 million cubic meters of water from rural areas and 200,000-300,000 cubic meters from neighboring reservoirs.

"It will temporarily quench the urban water-supply thirst in September," said Wang.

The project started construction in March of last year and is expected to be put into emergency operation this September.

"Moreover, Yiwu bought the annual right to use about 50 million cubic meters of water from the Hengjin Reservoir in neighboring Dongyang in 2000.

(China Daily July 27, 2004)