Beijing benefits once more from the south-north water diversion project, as the Chinese capital receives 2 billion cubic meters worth of water from the Yangtze River, authorities claimed. The diversion has benefited almost half of the city's population.
The diversion project has supplied said amount of water to Beijing since Dec. 2014, when it first commenced operations, per the office in charge of the diversion project. Water from the Yangtze River has been distributed to water supply companies, reservoirs, groundwater, rivers, and lakes.
Around 68 percent of the diverted water to Beijing went to water supply companies, effectively providing 1.37 billion cubic meters to the capital's residents. Reservoirs filled in 284 million cubic meters of water, with groundwater, rivers, and lakes constituting the remaining amount.
Standards have been thoroughly met in maintaining the quality of the water supply going to Beijing. At the same time, authorities remarked positively on the facility's operations, as well as the smooth running of water diversion towards the Chinese capital.
The diversion project has since helped more than half of Beijing's population--around 11 million people--in terms of their water supply needs. That provides great relief to the capital's heavy demands for water, considering the high concentration of people living within its borders.
Also, the diversion project enabled Beijing to gain access to clean water, having reduced levels of hard mineral sediments in the supply, per Xinhua. Prior to that, the Chinese capital relied mostly on water coming from underground sources, which often contain minerals such as calcium and magnesium.
Beijing's water comes from the diversion project's middle route, which consists of canal and pipe networks from the Danjiangkou reservoir, in Hubei Province. The middle route also supplies water to both the Hebei and Henan Provinces, and all the way to Tianjin before it reaches the Chinese capital.