Yongding River to flourish thanks to huge project

A project launched yesterday to rebuild the ecology of the Yongding River is likely to flow an additional 100 million cu m of water a year into Beijing's underground storage system, greatly easing the city's thirst.

The government is investing 17 billion yuan on improving the river's shattered ecology and hopes the area in southwest Beijing will become a green haven as a result.

According to the plan, the ecological development zone will extend for 170 km and cover 1,500 sq km by 2014. It will add 1,000 hectares of water surface space and 9,000 hectares of vegetation to the city.

Yongding River, referred to as Beijing's mother river, was once the biggest reservoir in the city. However, due to the city's rapid development and droughts, it has been drying up since the 1970s.

Bi Xiaogang, vice-director of the Beijing Water Authority, said the project will also remove any possibility of future flooding.

"We have a lot of experience in flood control and we are confident that the project will eliminate safety concerns about floods in the near future," Bi told METRO. "But it will be very difficult to build it into a green and ecological river, which means we must at least have water flows in the river."

The river will need about 130 million cu m of water to "recharge" it. It will be 80 percent reclaimed water and 20 percent drawn from rain and floodwater, according to the Beijing Water Authority.

"We are busying building the pipes between reclaimed water factories and the river and also improving the quality of the water. With the purification of wetlands, we believe the reclaimed water will reach the standard necessary to be part of an ecological system," Bi said.

Yongding River is one of the main tributaries in the Haihe River system and was known, before it effectively dried up, as the largest river to flow through the capital. Its course takes it through Mentougou, Shijingshan, Fengtai, Fangshang and Daxing districts.

Wang Jian, a water specialist with Green SOS, an NGO based in Beijing, welcomed the project.

According to Wang, the city used 3.5 billion cu m of water in 2009. He said underground and surface water sources only amounted to 3.7 billion cu m.

"The 100 million cu m of water that will be contributed to the city's underground water system is huge for Beijing," he said, adding that sand storms that troubled residents every spring due to the dry riverbed should be a thing of the past.