High temperatures, low precipitation affecting water supply in Yangtze River Basin

The lingering heat wave and low precipitation in the Yangtze River Basin has resulted in widespread drought that has affected the water supply for more than 830,000 people, said Liu Weiping, vice-minister of water resources, on Wednesday.

Though it's still the rainy season, the region has seen the amount of precipitation decline 45 percent since July from its average levels during the same period in recent years, he said at a news conference.

The water levels in the trunk of the Yangtze, Asia's longest river, and two major lakes in its basin, Dongting and Poyang, have reached their lowest recorded levels, the vice-minister said.

He said the drought has also affected irrigation in over 820,000 hectares of farmland and the water supply for 160,000 large livestock in eight provincial regions in the basin, including Sichuan and Hubei provinces and Chongqing municipality.

Despite the grim situation, he stressed that the water supply for large and medium-sized irrigation areas and urban areas is guaranteed.

Most of the affected farmland is located on the edges of irrigation areas or in areas with no irrigation facilities, Liu said. The majority of people who are seeing their water supply interrupted depend on small reservoirs, mountain springs and creeks as water sources.

The ministry vowed to make full, consistent use of the water stored in medium and large-sized reservoirs in the basin to relieve the situation.

Compared with the same period last year, the amount of water stored in those reservoirs is only 10 percent less than usual. In general, there have been no big changes in the amount of water stored in the affected provincial regions, Liu said.

So far this month, the ministry has discharged 5.3 billion cubic meters of water from major reservoirs in the basin to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, he said. At noon on Tuesday, it started discharging another almost 1.5 billion cu m of water to the lower reaches.