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City's Water Supply in Dire Straits
The Standard - China’s Business Newspaper ^ | July 23, 2007 | By Caroline Savello

Posted on 07/22/2007 6:23:58 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL

Hong Kong could begin to feel the pinch of increased water demand in the mainland as early as five years from now, an academic has warned.

Hong Kong University associate professor of geography Frederick Lee Yok-shiu said he estimates mainland authorities may decrease the supply to Hong Kong in favor of Pearl River Delta cities such as Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou within the next five to seven years.

"Five, six, or seven years down the line, increasing competition may lead to a change in the way water (from Guangdong) is going to be distributed among the different cities," Lee told The Standard.

WWF Hong Kong senior conservation officer Alan Leung Sze-lun said: "It would obviously affect daily life."

The Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development released a report last week highlighting the mainland's dire water situation among its myriad other economic woes that have been exacerbated by unbridled economic development. "Among the 600 larger cities, 400 suffer from water shortages," the report said.

China has one of the lowest water resources per capita in the world, and also faces severe pollution of many of its water sources that poses a "major threat to human health."

The report added: "China's water situation is of high concern ... Many water courses, lakes and coastal waters are severely polluted as a result of agricultural, industrial and domestic discharges."

Leung said the water shortage is exacerbated by heavy pollution in Guangdong.

Though the region receives adequate rainfall, the rivers are increasingly polluted, thus further depleting reserves.

The mainland's shortage has yet to affect Hong Kong, and changes would not occur until at least the end of next year because of an agreement signed by Guangdong suppliers in 2006 guaranteeing an unchanging water supply to Hong Kong.

"In the foreseeable future, the next four to five years, there will be no problems," Water Supplies Department senior engineer Suen Kwok-keung said.

Suen would not say whether he expects prices to rise when the agreement lapses and the two regions renegotiate next year, but he said the city is investigating alternatives to mainland supply.

The department is currently studying alternative water resources in its Total Water Management Program, including desalinization of seawater.

But the high cost of desalinization may place it low on the list of immediate options to address an impending water problem.

Suen said desalinized water costs HK$7.80-HK$8.40 per cubic meter compared with the HK$4.50 per cubic meter cost of imported water plus treatment.

Such a price disparity, coupled with significant government subsidies of imported water, may shelve desalinization until the situation becomes dire. "If the cost of water rises dramatically, it makes desalinization financially viable," Lee said.

Other options include a water recycling program on a city and household level. Lee advocates such a water recycling system, whereby "gray" water, or household wastewater, could be processed and reused as nonpotable water.

The program, according to Lee, would need to be legally mandated for all new buildings in order to have any kind of effect.

But once again, the low cost of water usage currently in the city makes a fight against wastage difficult.

"Right now, water's too cheap for this kind of initiative," Lee said.

He suggests the government cut its 50 percent subsidy of water for city consumers, though he admits that politically it would be "an extremely unpopular move."

In the short term, raising public awareness about water scarcity may be the most feasible move.

Lawmaker Choy So-yuk said the "fastest way of partially solving our water consumption problem" is to promote water saving throughout the territory.

Suen said the Water Supplies Department is primarily trying to educate the city's youth before bad habits form.

His department has held public seminars and roving exhibitions at schools, sponsored promotional events with schools and children's magazines, and brought in educational visits to tour water treatment works in Hong Kong.

Choy said the government must also bear some of the burden.

"The government should immediately address this problem of meeting water demand as an issue of self- reliance," she said.

Choy said she would call for the government to conduct a comprehensive study of how to gradually solve the imminent water shortage problem, and to have a target year by which the city would rely on its own water supply.

"This is for Hong Kong's benefit in the long run," Choy said.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; chinapollution; desalinization; environment; water

1 posted on 07/22/2007 6:24:00 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
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To: JACKRUSSELL

Does Mark Knopfler know this?


2 posted on 07/22/2007 6:24:51 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
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To: JACKRUSSELL

"All right, which one of you guys has the water supply?"


3 posted on 07/22/2007 6:27:39 PM PDT by COBOL2Java (The Democrat Party: radical Islam's last hope)
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To: dfwgator

[cue “Industrial Disease”]


4 posted on 07/22/2007 6:32:01 PM PDT by RichInOC ("...ha, ha...")
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To: dfwgator

5 posted on 07/22/2007 7:17:20 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy ("You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!")
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To: JACKRUSSELL

And I am supposed to care about this for exactly what reason? From all information a person is able to find, the chinese don’t care much about clean water or clean anything, so what is the deal here.


6 posted on 07/23/2007 8:07:04 AM PDT by twonie (Keep your guns - and stockpile ammo.)
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