Water Shortages Threaten China's Food Security

Environment (NOTE: OVERPUMPING OF AQUIRER'S)FORWARD!
Worsening Water Shortages Threaten China's Food Security

By Lester R. Brown

WASHINGTON, DC, October 17, 2001 (ENS) - A little
noticed survey released in Beijing in mid-August
reveals that China's water situation is far more
serious than realized. The water table under the North
China Plain, which produces over half of China's wheat
and a third of its corn, is falling faster than
thought.

Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer,
reducing the amount of water that can be pumped from
it to the amount of recharge from precipitation. This
is forcing well drillers to go down to the region's
deep aquifer, which, unfortunately, is not
replenishable.

Well and channel irrigation in China (Photo courtesy
Agriculture Encyclopaedia China Book Two, Agriculture
Publishing House, Beijing)

The study, conducted by the Geological Environmental
Monitoring Institute (GEMI) in Beijing, reported that
under Heibei Province in the heart of the North China
Plain, the average level of the deep aquifer dropped
2.9 meters (nearly 10 feet) in 2000. Around some
cities in the province, it fell by six meters (19.5
feet).

He Qingcheng, head of the GEMI groundwater monitoring
team, believes the fast deteriorating water situation
should be getting far more official attention. He
notes that with depletion of the deep aquifer under
the North China Plain, the region is losing its last
water reserve - its only safety cushion.
His concerns are mirrored in a new World Bank report
that says, "Anecdotal evidence suggests that deep
wells [drilled] around Beijing now have to reach 1,000
meters (more than half a mile) to tap fresh water,
adding dramatically to the cost of supply." In
unusually strong language for a Bank report, it
forecasts "catastrophic consequences for future
generations" unless water use and supply can quickly
be brought back into balance.

Further evidence of the gravity of the water situation
in the North China Plain can be seen in the frenzy of
well drilling in recent years. At the end of 1996, the
five provinces of the North China Plain - Heibei,
Henan, Shandong, and the city provinces of Beijing and
Tianjin - had 3.6 million wells, the bulk of them for
irrigation. During 1997, 99,900 wells were abandoned
as they ran dry. Some 221,900 new wells were drilled.
The desperate quest for water in China is evident as
well drillers chase the water table downward.

Barren hillsides in China's Yellow River Basin,
northern Shannxi Province (Photo by F. Botts courtesy
UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO))

The northern half of China is drying out. Demands on
the three rivers that flow eastward into the North
China Plain - the Hai, the Yellow, and the Huai - are
excessive, leading them to run dry during the dry
season, sometimes for extended periods of time. The
flow of the Yellow River into Shandong Province - the
last of the eight provinces it flows through en route
to the sea, and China's leading grain-producing
province - has been reduced from 40 billion cubic
meters (1 cu. meter = 1 ton) a year in the early 1980s
to 25 billon cubic meters during the 1990s.
As water tables fall, springs dry up, streams cease to
flow, rivers run dry, and lakes disappear. Hebei
Province once had 1,052 lakes. Only 83 remain. The
water deficit in the North China Plain, the excess of
use over the sustainable supply, may now exceed 40
billion tons per year. At present that deficit is
being filled by groundwater mining, but when aquifers
are depleted and there is nothing more to mine, the
water supply will fall precipitously. In the Hai River
basin-where industry and cities, including Beijing and
Tianjin, now get priority irrigated agriculture could
largely disappear by 2010, forcing a shift back to
less productive rain-fed agriculture.

Between now and 2010, when China's population is
projected to grow by 126 million, the World Bank
projects that the country's urban water demand will
increase from 50 billion cubic meters to 80 billion, a
growth of 60 percent. Industrial water demand,
meanwhile, will increase from 127 billion to 206
billion cubic meters, an expansion of 62 percent.
With water worth easily 70 times as much in industry
as in agriculture, farmers almost always lose in the
competition with cities. As water tables continue to
fall, rising pumping costs will make underground water
too costly for many farmers to use for irrigation.
In addition to spreading water scarcity, numerous
environmental and economic forces are reducing China's
grain production. As farmers attempt to maximize their
income from small plots, for example, they are
shifting from grain to high value fruit and vegetable
crops.

China has been striving valiantly to remain
self-sufficient in grain since 1994. It did so by
raising support prices of grain well above the world
market level, by overplowing land on a scale that
helped create the world's largest dust bowl, and by
overpumping the aquifers under the North China Plain.
The combination of weak prices, falling water tables,
and severe drought dropped the grain harvest in 2001
to 335 million tons, down from the all time high of
392 million tons in 1998. This will fall short of
projected consumption by 46 million tons. The
emergence of this deficit - easily the largest in
China's history - on the heels of last year's deficit
of 34 million tons raises questions about future food
security.

The back-to-back grain shortfalls in the last two
years at a time when China's imports of grain are
negligible have dropped stocks by roughly 81 million
tons. With its accessible stocks of grain now largely
depleted, another sizable crop shortfall in 2002 would
likely force China to import large amounts of grain to
avoid rising food prices.

China's grain imports could climb quickly, as its
recent experience with soybeans shows. When grain
support prices were raised in 1994, resources were
diverted from soybeans - the nation's fourth ranking
crop after wheat, rice, and corn. As a result, the
soybean harvest has fallen six percent since 1994
while demand has doubled. In an abrupt turnaround,
China has gone from being a small net exporter of
soybeans in 1993 to being the world's largest importer
in 2001, bringing in 14 million of the 30 million tons
it consumes.

If China has another sizable grain harvest shortfall
in 2002, it will likely be forced to import grain far
in excess of the seven million tons of wheat and five
million tons of corn that it must promise to import if
it joins the World Trade Organization in late 2001, as
expected.

With its aquifers being depleted, China is now
reconsidering its options for reestablishing a balance
between water use and supply. Three possible
initiatives stand out: water conservation, diversion
of water from the south to the north, and grain
imports.

A south/north diversion to transport water from the
Yangtze River basin will cost tens of billions of
dollars and displace hundreds of thousands of people.
A comparable investment in more water efficient
industrial practices, more water efficient household
appliances, and, above all, the use of more efficient
irrigation practices would likely yield more water.
Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce one ton
of grain, importing grain is the most efficient way to
import water.

Regardless of whether it concentrates solely on
conservation or also does a south/north diversion,
China will almost certainly have to turn to the world
market for grain imports. If it imports even 10
percent of its grain supply, 40 million tons, it will
become overnight the largest grain importer, putting
intense pressure on exportable grain supplies and
driving up world prices. If this happens, we probably
won't need to read about it in the newspapers.

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