Society

56 more water parks listed

By Liang Chao (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-03-22 06:34

Up to 56 new scenic spots featuring unique natural beauty or artificial landscapes surrounding China's major water conservancy projects have been listed as the national water parks this week, bringing the total up to 370 throughout the country, a leading water official announced this week.

Chen Lei, minister of water resources, said, most of the water parks or water recreation areas have taken shape with the help of the country's water projects including water supply or flood-control reservoirs along rivers, lakes and the State key irrigation canals or the well rehabilitated water and soil eroded hills.

"Besides the national ones, more than 1,000 other province-level water recreation areas of the like have also been opened to the public all over the country for residents to enjoy the natural beauty and share the achievements of our well developed water projects," he said.

Addressing a meeting on the administration of the water scenic zones, the minister was confident that, today, quit a few of the water parks have become the most popular holiday resorts for local sightseeing or regional tourism.

In this way, he said he hops that the scenic areas based on a large number of various water resources facilities including over 80,000 reservoirs scattered all over the country the authorities have built can play a much better role in improving people's livelihood, promoting local ecotourism and stimulating other related industries for local economy with more job opportunities offered for residents.

While making the best of the country's water scenic spots, he urged water authorities to turn such water parks into ecologic parks with their water resources and quality well protected to prevent random exploration from being caused to threat the safe operation of the water projects or the rehabilitation of rivers and lakes they depend on for survival.