Relocating Beijing?

It could reasonably be argued that no country has worse water problems than China. Rivers and lakes are disappearing, water tables are falling throughout the country, and remaining water supplies are being polluted by agriculture and industry.

In Beijing, water is in such short supply that government officials fear they might have to relocate the capital, according to UNH professor Changsheng Li. Most of Beijing's shortages are due to nearby agriculture. The city is located in northern China, which has 45 percent of the country's 1.25 billion people, two-thirds of its cropland, but only one-fifth of its water.

Li once served as deputy director of the Chinese equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, he is assisting colleagues in China to develop better ways to monitor the environmental impacts of agriculture.

Water shortages are common in almost all of China's big cities, Li says. At times, no water comes out of the tap. Since 1965, the water table under Beijing has fallen by nearly 60 meters, or 200 feet. Water quality is deteriorating as well, due to industrial pollution and agricultural runoff.

Efforts are under way to introduce more efficient agricultural practices. Factories that produce iron and steel--heavy consumers of water--are being closed, and the government is cracking down on plants that discharge waste into rivers.

Still, Li says, the situation is getting worse, and "the potential is definitely there" for a forced relocation of Beijing. Uprooting the capital of the world's most populous country would hardly be easy, but finding solutions to China's water and pollution problems may be even more difficult. Yet unless solutions are found, Li says, these problems "could undermine all the achievements of the Chinese people in recent years."

See also: How much water do we use?

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