Water shortage may cast doubt on shale extraction

Country has large reserves but location makes exploration difficult

Water shortages pose a huge hurdle to China's development of its shale gas reserves, a report warned on Tuesday.

The Washington-based World Resources Institute found that 38 percent of global shale resources face high to extremely high water stress or arid conditions. Water is critical in hydraulic fracturing (also called fracking), a technique used to extract shale gas.