Going against the flow?

While the world's largest water-diversion project is bringing relief to China's dry northern regions, some residents in the south say they are paying a high price, but reaping few benefits. Wang Yanfei reports from Xichuan county, Henan province.

Nearly a year has passed since China's arid northern regions began receiving water channeled from the south via a network of pipes and aqueducts stretching more than 1,400 kilometers.

The three-phrase South-North Water Diversion Project, the largest water-transfer undertaking in the world, became operational in December last year, and is designed "to mitigate the water crisis and promote economic development in the north", according to the official website. The water, from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which straddles the provinces of Hubei and Henan, is carried to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster, a pivotal area for economic development in the north via the central route.