By Lu Yan

Song Zihan， a mother of two living in Beijings Fengtai District， remembers that years ago she had to clean the kettle on a regular basis because of the thick incrustation hiding inside， formed from boiling water in it. Also， the rice she cooked with tap water always tasted a bit “off.” “After the South-to-North Water Diversion Project went into operation， I have witnessed the changes in water quality. I bought a new kettle when the water from down south came all the way up to Beijing； a year later， it still looked brand new，” Song told Beijing Review.

Beijing is among those northern cities plagued by water shortage. In 2014， the water diversion project started to supply water to the capital. According to the Beijing Water Authority， by mid-May， over 6 billion cubic meters of water had been transferred to Beijing， directly benefiting more than 13 million people.

During an inspection tour of Henan Province in mid-May， President Xi Jinping inspected the water diversion project and convened a symposium on advancing its high-quality follow-up development. He spoke of the importance of the project in allocating water resources， and emphasized strengthening environmental protection， particularly pollution prevention and control in areas along the water transfer routes and in water-receiving regions.

Thirsty for more

The water transfer project was originally conceived by Mao Zedong when he inspected the Yellow River back in 1952. The State Council finally approved the project in December 2002 after nearly half a century of debate.

Under the worlds biggest water transfer project， the water diversion was planned via three routes， the eastern， middle and western ones， each serving separate areas， except for the coastal city of Tianjin near Beijing， which receives water from both the eastern and middle routes. The first phase of the eastern route， from Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province in the east all the way to Tianjin， went into operation in 2013. The western route is still under planning.

Data from the Ministry of Water Resources showed that by this March， the project had transported over 40.8 billion cubic meters of water over the past six years， directly benefiting more than 130 million people.

The Danjiangkou Reservoir in Hubei is the source of water for the middle route that eventually runs all the way into the capital city. It is located on a major tributary of the Yangtze River—the Hanjiang River that enjoys well-conserved water and stable year-round runoff volume.