Children take part in soccer training at a kindergarten in a relocated village in Henan province in 2016. [Photo/Xinhua]
Beating poverty
Statistics from the Shiyan relocation service center show that before 2014, when the middle route of the water diversion project began operating, 22,000 of those relocated lived below the national poverty line of 3,000 yuan per year. Now, they have all been lifted out of poverty.
As the project brings better lives to relocated families, more than 120 million people in northern China are tasting "sweet" changes.
The diversion project was first proposed by Chairman Mao Zedong more than 60 years ago because South China had abundant water resources, while the north had too few. The dream became reality when the first phase of the eastern route opened in late 2013, with the middle route becoming operational in December the following year.
To date, the two routes have transferred nearly 30 billion cubic meters of water to more than 40 cities and 260 counties in the north; enough to fill West Lake — a well-known attraction in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province — about 2,140 times, the ministry said.
Now, more than 73 percent of Beijing's tap water comes via the project, benefiting over 12 million residents, nearly half the population. Meanwhile, the project also supplies water to 14 districts in the northern port city of Tianjin, it added.
Liu Guangming, deputy head of the Beijing Water Authority, said that in the past five years, the capital has received more than 5.2 billion cubic meters of water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir. About 70 percent is supplied to waterworks, while the remainder is stored in large-and medium-sized reservoirs and used to replenish urban rivers and lakes. Liu noted that the city's underground water reserves have risen by 1.62 billion cubic meters as a result.
Zhou Jinxing, professor of soil and water conservation at Beijing Forestry University, said, "With such a huge amount of water feeding North China's dried-up rivers and shrunken lakes, the numbers of bird and aquatic species have seen marked growth and the ecological function of the water has been rehabilitated effectively."
The environmental benefits resulting from the project have brought real changes to many families who experienced the effects of Beijing's hard water, whose high mineral content furred kettles and other implements.
Weng Huayu, a Guangdong native who has worked in Beijing since 2012, is delighted with the improvement in water quality.
"The biggest concern before I came to Beijing was the dry, cold weather, but I didn't expect the water to be a nightmare," she said, adding that she was shocked when she first saw the thick mineral deposits in her kettle.
After that, she refused to drink tap water, using only purified or bottled water until the problem was solved in early 2015 by the low calcium and magnesium content of the diverted water.
Rise in quality
The quality of the water transferred through the middle route — home to many bottled water factories — is constantly at or above grade two in China's five-tier quality scale for surface water, with 80 percent of sites providing grade one water, according to the authority.
Weng said, "The better-quality water means I don't have to always rinse out the shower nozzle, which used to be constantly clogged with mineral deposits."
Though China is on the right path, experts said the country should step up efforts to resolve the water supply-demand mismatch resulting from the growing population and increased urbanization.
Zhou, from Beijing Forestry University, said China is home to about 20 percent of the global population, but only has 6 percent of the world's freshwater resources, while per capita water availability is just one-fourth the global average.
"China's economy is still forging ahead, which will lead to surging demand for water," he said. "We have to appreciate the sacrifice of the people in Danjiangkou and cherish every drop."
When he was relocated, Zhang Hongan brought several orange trees from his old village to replant outside his new home. He didn't have high hopes that the trees would survive the abrupt change, but they flourished.
Now, the village is committed to developing rural tourism, as more tourists will arrive with the opening of a high-speed railway linking Wuhan, Hubei's capital, with the dam area.
With the help of the village committee, Zhang is considering turning his house into a homestay.
"The trees are thriving, why shouldn't we?" he asked.