Guiyang/changsha - Local authorities throughout China are intensifying their efforts to conserve water, which experts have seen in the past as a weak point that has damaged the nation's sustainability.

The central government pledged in its No 1 document issued at the beginning of this year that it will invest 4 trillion yuan ($612 billion) in water conservancy during the next 10 years. The No 1 document is a summary of the government's priorities.

In the document, the government urged local authorities to set aside 10 percent of their revenue accrued from land sales for farmland water conservation projects.

Senior officials estimated that up to 90 billion yuan from the proceeds of land sales could be invested in farmland water conservation projects this year.

While experts have applauded the policy, they have also expressed concern about how it might be carried out at the grassroots level.

So far, 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities have formulated their own policies about how they should use the 10 percent from land sales to help farmland water conservation projects.

Some local governments have even decided to divert more money into water conservancy than they are being asked for.

Guizhou, one of the worst-hit provinces during last year's catastrophic drought that ravaged Southwest China, has decided to use 12 percent of its profits from land sales for rural water conservancy, said Li Ping, director of the provincial water bureau.

Based on last year's land sales in Guizhou, the province will spend 600 to 700 million yuan on farmland water conservancy this year.

Despite the massive investment, the provincial government would like to see even more money spent on the effort and has given the go-ahead to a water investment company to carry out fundraising, Li said.

The provincial water bureau is expected to find 30 billion yuan that it will sink into the company as capital stock during the next five years and one-fifth of that investment will soon be injected into the company for initial capital, Lu Hongwei, deputy director of the bureau, confirmed.

This year, investment in Guizhou's water sector from the government's budget will reach a record 15 billion yuan, which is up 50 percent year-on-year, Li said.

As an underdeveloped province, Guizhou does not have any existing major water projects due in part to its widespread highly porous karst topography that makes such projects difficult to build and partly because of a shortage of funds. The province has more than 10,000 small reservoirs, but their total storage capacity is less than 2 billion cubic meters. Many of them are dilapidated due to aging.

Benefiting from the central government's support for water conservancy projects, the province is starting the Qianzhong Water Control Project.

The project is expected to make it possible to store at least 1 billion cubic meters of water, meaning it will be able to supply water for more than 3.6 million people and irrigate 106,000 hectares of farmland in central Guizhou.

The central government has earmarked 7.3 billion yuan for that project.

"Guizhou province only needs to raise a small amount of funding. It's the largest project ever approved for the province," said Zhang Aiping, an official in charge of the construction.

In Central China's Hunan province, a water investment company has been set up in the provincial capital of Changsha into which the city government has allocated land as assets so it can raise funds for water conservancy, said Dai Junyong, director of the Hunan water bureau.

However, the type of fund-raising going on in Hunan, where land is sold to raise money for water conservation, has come under scrutiny because the State authorities have tightened control of the way land can be used and disposed of, water officials admitted.

Local water officials said they hope the central government will allow them to continue to sell land through the company in the interests of water conservancy.

While increasing the government budget for water conservancy, Hunan province has encouraged water authorities to make use of credit funds from financial institutions and attract non-government funds for such efforts.

Dai Junyong hopes that the various types of fundraising will ensure Hunan can double its annual spending on water conservancy this year.

China Daily

(China Daily 07/11/2011 page4)