Beijing has more than enough water to meet demand over the next month's Olympic Games, despite suffering years of drought, a senior official of the Beijing Water Bureau said.

Guanting and Miyun, the two largest of Beijing's 85 reservoirs, were holding more than 1 billion cubic meters of water.

"Beijing has combined all water resources, including reservoirs, underground water and rainfall, to ensure the supply for the Olympics," said Yu Yaping, head of publicity of the bureau.

"Normally, one person would only use 3 cubic meters of water a month," Yu said.

"Even if 2 million people come in August for the Olympic Games, they wouldn't consume more than 6 million cubic meters of water. It wouldn't cause a water shortage when we have more than 1 billion cubic meters of reserves," Yu added.

Last year, Beijing's daily tap water supply stood at 2.48 million cubic meters, or 74 million a month, and it had increased to 2.93 million.

After nine years of drought, the capital had made water saving a primary task.

In 2000, the city used 4 billion cubic meters of water; But last year, it used 3.4 billion cubic meters, a saving of almost 100 million cubic meters a year, officilas said.

In 2007, it used 480 million cubic meters of recycled water, or 14 percent of the total, to supplement watercourses, wash cars and irrigate crops.

The government had diverted 156 million cubic meters of water from the Yellow River to refill the northern area's largest freshwater lake, Baiyangdian, this year.

(Shanghai Daily July 14, 2008)