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China Needs Water!

According to the World Health Organization, 700 million Chinese citizens lack healthy running water. Today, over half the population of China consumes drinking water which is contaminated with high levels of industrial pollutants and animal and human excrement.

The water quality of most Chinese rivers, lakes and groundwater is substandard and hazardous to human health, due to industrial and municipal wastewater, agricultural fertilizer run-offs, pesticides and manure. The country faces a critical water shortage, while actions undertaken by the Chinese authorities to deal with this situation are often empty, as most businesses are run by the state.

China is the largest producer and consumer of pesticides in the world. Large amounts of DDT and HCH are used to obtain high yields. Even after the ban on DDT in 1983, production continues due to export demand and dicofol production. "DDT and HCH pollution of the aquatic environment was universal in China" (Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2006). Seafood products are highly contaminated by DDT and "may pose a health threat to local residents and the consumers all over the world" (Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 2007).

Almost all the coastal waters are polluted. In 2004, the State Oceanic Administration recorded 867 main outlets discharging pollutants into the sea. In 2003 alone, 20 of those outlets discharged approximately 880 million tons of sewage water, containing 1.3 million tons of pollutants, including toxic substances such as heavy metals and pesticides, into the water (Nature, 2005).

According to the Xinhua agency about 70% of Chinese rivers as well as 25 of the 27 largest lakes are "extremely polluted" and 80% of the 50,000 kilometers of major rivers are in such an unhealthy condition that fish can no longer live in them (FAO). The water of the Yellow River is largely undrinkable, the Yangtze River is deadly and according to the 2006 China environment report, most of the water in the nation’s major rivers is considered "level 5" or worse, meaning that it is not even suitable for irrigation. Yuan Aiguo, professor of the China University of Geosciences, affirms that the level of pollution of the Yangtze River is serious enough that some experts consider it to be cancer-causing.

Horror stories about water pollution in China abound. In Shanxi province, in the middle of the Yellow River valley, rice has been found to contain excessive levels of chromium and lead, and cabbage is laced with cadmium. Once famous for its floodwaters, the Yellow River is now suffering a dramatic decrease in water flow. For three years during the 1990s, the waters of the river dried up before it reached the sea, due to overuse by industries and cities. In 1997 for an astonishing 230 days there was no flow of water. The Fen River that once ran through Taiyuan, capital city of Shanxi province, no longer exists: it was emptied to fuel the city’s coal industry. Large industrial wells tap Taiyuan’s last remaining groundwater resources (World Watch, 1998).

The depletion of aquifers, the diversion of water from rivers and reservoirs to the cities and the increased pollution has caused a shortage in the irrigation supply, though most of the crops produced in China come from irrigated land.

For the first time, during the spring of 1994, the farmers in the region surrounding Beijing were denied access to reservoirs, their traditional source of irrigation water, because all the water was required to satisfy the needs of the city.

Agriculture cannot compete with the demand from industry, since water used in industry yields about 100 times more profit than water used for irrigation, so farmers are forced to use raw seawage and heavily polluted water. As a result, in large areas of the country crops are contaminated by heavy metals, which pose a grave health threat to consumers all over the world.

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