China expects to have invested a total of Rmb140.5bn in its south-to-north water diversion project between 2006 and 2010, the country’s water diversion authority has announced. Xinhua reported that the investment accounted for 62 per cent of the entire project’s budget of Rmb228.9bn, excluding a pollution control project along the eastern route and a project to protect the water supply source of the central route.
The scheme is designed to take water from the Yangtze River to satisfy demand in parched northern cities, such as Beijing and Tianjin. The eastern, central and western routes will each stretch more than 1,000 km.

Construction of the water diversion system began in 2002. The eastern route will start supplying water in 2013, followed by the central route one year later. A feasibility study of the western route is still being conducted.