Chinese Official: South-to-north Water Diversion Project Helps Relieve Drought

China's south-to-north water diversion project is playing a significant role in irrigating wheat crops in drought-hit areas and ensuring that people in the northern part of the country have drinking water, said an official from the State Council.

E Jingping, head of the South-to-North Water Diversion Office under the State Council, said that the Jiansu segment of the project had delivered 4.18 billion cubic meters of water to dry areas to the north of the Huai River.

The eastern China province of Shandong, which had been severely hit by the drought, irrigated over 620,000 mu (41,333 hectares) of wheat crops using water from the project.

However, due to a lack of sufficient rainfall, the drought in the country's northern wheat areas is likely to persist, said Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources, during a work conference on Thursday.

Currently, 101 million mu (6.7 million hectares) of farmland across China are suffering from the drought, Chen said.