Chinese authorities announced on Friday that the capital city of Beijing will be receiving clean water after the Hebei Province announced that its water desalination project will be finished by 2019.
Hebei's water project has been already approved by its planning body. Once the project is complete and operational, it will have the capability to desalinate about 1 million tonnes of seawater every day, according to Wang Xiaoshui, the director of the seawater desalination department from Beijing Enterprises Water Group Ltd. The desalinated water from Hebei will provide around one-tenth of Beijing's current yearly water consumption.
The water desalination project has two parts: the desalination of seawater itself and the delivery of the processed seawater to Beijing.
According to Wang, the project's feasibility report is already completed, and the research work, including the pipeline distribution of the desalinated water, has been started.
The water project will be situated along Caofeidian District's Bohai Sea at Tangshan City. The seawater in the area has better quality compared to other areas of the Bohai Sea.
Wang said that a chemical site and a salt farm will be processing the generated by-products to make chemical and salt products so as to avoid any negative impact on the environment.
Meanwhile, the central government is also planning to step up its water conservation projects in order to provide clean drinking water for 247 million residents by 2015.