China’s looming water crisis

 

Children carrying bottled drinking water home is familiar sight in China

Leapfrogging Japan to become the second largest economy in the world is nothing less than astonishing, even for China, perhaps. It is simply incredible how enormous the number of jobs have been created for this populous nation to generate the world’s largest markets for cars, steel, cement, glass, housing, energy, power plants, wind turbines, solar panels, highways, high-speed rail systems, airports, and other basic supplies and civic equipment to support a modern economy.

The question, however, is can China sustain it?

Is China’s military might simply for security reasons or is it for something more sinister in the future?

If China didn’t have myriad of internal problems challenging her central government and its authorities, perhaps they would be an economic force to be reckoned with for a long time, and which condition will also enhance its military capability making them all the more formidable.

Corruption, the gap between the rich and poor, and the rapidly aging population often top the list of answers to the question as to what challenges China is facing today.

One would think that China is devoid of environmental problems, yet it is the conglomeration of the same environmental problems, mainly brought by rapid industrialization, that is starting to bring havoc to the economy and will only exacerbate in the name of sustainability.

Air pollution is everywhere emanating mostly from coal-fired factories and this could only get worse as China’s surging economic growth is prompting the expanding industrial sector, which consumes 70 percent of the nation’s energy, to call on the government to tap new energy supplies, particularly the enormous reserves of coal in the dry north.

But, China’s greatest concern lately is its looming water crisis. The diminishing water supplies are exerting a profound and harmful effect on the Chinese people as well as on the country’s capacity to continue to prosper economically.

“Water shortage is the most important challenge to China right now, the biggest problem for future growth,” said Wang Yahua, deputy director of the Center for China Study at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “It’s a puzzle that the country has to solve.”

Northern China is home to approximately 40 percent of the country’s total population and almost half its agricultural land, and produces more than 50 percent of GDP (gross domestic product). But it receives only 12 percent of total precipitation.

Southern China, in contrast, receives 80 percent of China’s total precipitation, yet skyrocketing levels of water pollution dramatically reduce the south’s natural advantage.

Industry and agriculture are notoriously profligate water consumers.

China’s surging economic growth is prompting the expanding industrial sector, which consumes 70 percent of the nation’s energy, to call on the government to tap new energy supplies, particularly the enormous reserves of coal in the dry north.

The problem, say government officials, is that there is not enough water to mine, process, and consume those reserves, and still develop the modern cities and manufacturing centers that China envisions for the region.

“Water shortage is the most important challenge to China right now, the biggest problem for future growth,” said Wang Yahua, deputy director of the Center for China Study at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “It’s a puzzle that the country has to solve.”

What really concerns China’s leaders, however, are the social, economic and political impacts of this growing scarcity. As China’s Minister for the Environment Zhou Shengxian suggested on his agency’s website, “The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the worsening ecological environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to the nation’s economic and social development.”

For the Chinese people, the failure of local officials and factory managers to enforce environmental regulations translates into serious public health concerns, crop loss, poisoned fish and livestock, and a lack of water to run factories.

For Chinese officials, the failure to protect the environment and provide adequate and safe water to their people is one of the chief causes of social unrest in the country and perhaps their greatest policy concern.

 

BP succeeds in plugging ruptured oil well

A great relief has been felt by the residents in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico when BP finally succeeded to permanently plug their ruptured oil well.

The apparent success came 106 days after the catastrophic explosion of the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 that resulted to death of many workers and the unleashing of what is dubbed as the biggest oil spill in history.

The estimated 4.9 million barrel leak was already seriously threatening the fish and wildlife-rich US Gulf coast with environmental ruin and exposed the residents of coastal communities to a bleak, if not uncertain future.

The plugging procedure involved pumping of mud into the busted well for eight hours pushing the leaking crude oil back into its source rock.

Another course of action, if needed still, is to inject cement into the well via the same route.

The “static kill procedure,” as the remedial measure was called, is having the well pressure controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud.