Project to alleviate pressure on pumping underground water

The water transferred more than 1,400 kilometers by the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is expected to ease the pressure on pumping underground water, which has gone deeper due to overexploitation in recent years.

Beijing is also capping 4,216 dry wells to prevent pollution, the municipal water authority said. These wells can no longer provide water due to the fall in the level of the water table.

More than 3,000 of them have been filled with concrete or covered with iron plates and all of them will be finished in 2015, said Wang Wei, deputy director of the water resources bureau of the Beijing Water Authority.