To many residents of urban Beijing, it is a natural thing and a long-time habit to leisurely turn on the water faucet and see fresh water flow out anytime they want.  

"I'm not as optimistic as those urban dwellers," said Yin Zongmin, a farmer who lives near the Miyun Reservoir in Miyun County, more than 100 km away from downtown Beijing.

"The water level in the Miyun Reservoir has dropped by over 20 meters since 1998," Yin said. "I've seen with my own eyes the water level dropping year after year."

By the side of Yin on the dry lakeside of the reservoir is his fishing boat which has turned rusty as a result of having been not used for a long period of time.

Built in 1958 and a major drinking water source, the Miyun Reservoir is regarded as a weatherglass for Beijing's water resources situation. Covering an area of 188 sq km, the reservoir is designed to store 4.375 billion cubic meters of water at maximum, but now it only holds 710 million cubic meters of water and 600 million cubic meters is the minimum capacity of the reservoir that can not be discharged.

Statistics show that the per capita fresh water resources in Beijing is only 300 cubic meters, or one-eighth of the national average and one-30th of the world's average.

Continuous droughts have hit Beijing for five consecutive years since 1999, with the annual rainfall standing at 428 mm on average, only equal to 70 percent of the annual rainfall in normal years.

Beijing's rainfall so far this year was only 71 percent of the amount for the same period of last year, according to statistics available. Experts predicted that Beijing would encounter the sixth dry year this year and faces a more serious water shortage.

Some experts warn that serious water shortage might pose a threat to sustained economic and social development in the national capital.

Beijing has reported fast economic and social growth and urban construction since China adopted the reform and opening up policies more than two decades ago. Compared with the 1970s, the city's population has grown to 14 million from former 8 million, the urban area has expanded to 520 sq km from former 100 sq km and, local GDP has amounted to nearly 300 billion yuan (US$36.14 billion) from the former 30 billion yuan (US$3.63 billion).

Beijing is one of the over 420, out of 600 total cities, Chinese cities which are short of water resources. Statistics show that China's cities are short of 7 billion cubic meters of water annually.

To ease the water shortage, Beijing has diverted a total of 130 million cubic meters of water from the Baihebao Reservoir in suburban Yanqing into the Miyun Reservoir since March, 2003.

On Sept. 26, 2003, 50 million cubic meters of water were diverted into the Guanting Reservoir, another drinking water source of Beijing, from Shantian Reservoir in Datong of northern Shanxi Province.

Meanwhile, more measures have been planned or put into practice to encourage rational use of water resources and for the purpose of water-saving.

These measures cover adjustment of water prices, encouraging local residents to use water-saving devices, upgrading of technologies which serve agricultural and industrial production, strict management of water use in certain special sectors such as car washing, bathrooms, mineral water production and terrestrial heat exploration.

The city government also encourages use of recycled water in gardening, road-washing, farmland irrigation and feed lakes in urban gardens, in a bid to save tap water and underground water resources.

Jiao Zhizhong, head of the city water resources administration, said the purpose of Beijing's water-saving efforts is to build a water-saving society with balanced supply and demand of water resources that can sustain local economic and social development.

The current task is to encourage local people to recognize the importance of water-saving and put into effect all water-saving measures, Jiao said.

Facing an acute water shortage, many Chinese cities have raised or planned to increase water prices and charges on sewage water discharge in a fresh move to save water resources.

Shanghai, an economic center in east China, and Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, have adopted new water prices to help ease water shortage and promote local residents awareness of water saving and water recycling.

In the national capital Beijing, though the new water price charging system was not put into effect on July 1 as scheduled, an official with the Beijing Water Affairs Administration said the reform is just a question of time.

"The price increase has been decided already," said Zhang Ping, deputy director of the administration.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2004)