China's Monumental Water Projects Adding to Asia's Water Crisis. By Pongphon Sarnamak, Bangkok Nation, August 25, 2008."Billions of people in Asia are suffering from the acute water crisis caused by the adverse impact of climate change and China's ambitious hydroengineering projects that divert river water cascading from the Tibetan highland, the source of almost all the major rivers of Asia. Brahma Chellaney, [of] the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research... speaking at [a] seminar... [held] by... Media Programme Asia... cited [a survey conducted by the Remote Sensing Department of the China Aero Geophysical Survey which] had warned that the Himalayan glaciers could be reduced by nearly a third by 2050 and up to half by 2090 at the current rate... further [depleting] Tibet's water resources, which are the lifeline... to... China and India, as well as to Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam... [He also blamed] the [$62 billion] Chinese SouthNorth Water Diversion Project... The... plan is to create three new waterways to run along the east centre and southwest of China. Just the first phase [would cost] some $15 billion. The project's eastern route transports water to the north from the Yangtze through a tunnel burrowed beneath the Yellow River... The 1,200 km-long central route, also intended to relieve pressure on the Yellow River, will pass beneath the Yellow River too, channelling water towards Beijing. The most ambitious part of [the] project [will divert river waters cascading from the Tibetan highlands... [via] a series of canals and tunnels along a 1,215 km route dissecting the eastern Tibetan Plateau to connect the upper reaches of the Yangtze with the upper reaches of the Yellow. The tunnels would have to be cut through the earthquake-prone Bayankala Mountains."
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