China to build new water channel for Beijing

A new channel will be built to divert water from China's Hebei province to Beijing and will supplement supply from the south-to-north water diversion project.

The new project will bring around 150 million cubic metres of water from Hebei to Beijing's suburban districts of Tongzhou, the capital's planned "subsidiary administrative centre", and Daxing, the location of the city's new airport, Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesperson of the project as saying on Thursday.

Construction of the channel, which will involve 60 km of pipes, is expected to begin next year, according to the spokesperson.

The middle route of the south-to-north water diversion project is designed to provide Beijing with 1 to 1.2 billion cubic metres of water annually.

The allocated "southern water" for Tongzhou and Daxing, however, is far below the demand needs, he said.

The middle route, which begins at Danjiangkou Reservoir in China's Hubei province and runs across Henan and Hebei provinces before reaching Beijing and Tianjin, began channeling water on December 12, 2014, as part of the project's first phase.

So far, 1.6 billion cubic metres of water has been redirected to Beijing, benefiting more than 11 million people.

--IANS

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