By Brendan John Worrell (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-03-21 13:30

March 22 is World Water Day and after Beijing welcomed its first dust storm for the year earlier this week, it seems an appropriate time as ever to look at aqua affairs. The city has always been a dry landscape; however, it has never had to cope with around 17 million people. When I tell my colleagues that this is comparable to the total of Australia's entire population and that even Down Under we have water woes -- well then the fact that Beijingers even have water in the tap is a miracle in itself.

Here civic officials have a "to do" list that stretches further than the ancient Silk Road. Among the multitude of tasks it includes attending to demands for clean air, improving traffic flows, constructing underground subways, bettering air transportation and implementing waste water management systems. At the same time the reinvigoration of higher learning institutions that are bursting at the seams with student numbers is necessary, while also attracting qualified personnel to assist in development efforts. Among these priorities (and there is a whole lot more that haven't been mentioned) water supply has secured its place firmly on the list.

The leader of the country, President Hu Jintao graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department of Tsinghua University - one of the nation's most prestigious campuses. So let's have some faith that the situation is being tackled with the right person in the right position. Complicating matters, the last 9 years has seen rainfall below average levels. Local Miyun reservoir is down to one third the volume it was a decade ago. The surrounding local rivers and reservoirs are also exhausted so the city has turned to nearby Hebei Province for its supply.

50 years ago modern toileting facilities and waste water management was still in its infancy for a city and a nation recovering from decades of war. Once peace was achieved and the nation set about rebuilding itself groundwater likewise dipped. As the city went up, the groundwater went down -- a whopping 76 feet in the last half-century! More recently increasing development in the form of parks, lakes, golf courses and modern high-rise apartment buildings and their conveniences such as showers, flushing toilets, washing machines etc are all adding to the consumption woes.

For the short term construction is underway to build a canal that brings water from the Yangtze, and its tributaries. For the mid- to long-term plans to channel water from the more saturated south appear problematic, recalling the record droughts that took place late last year in Henan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Jiangxi. Making matters grimmer is the revelation heard earlier this week from the World Glacier Monitoring Service citing evidence of climate change and forecasting extreme concern for the future of major rivers flowing out of global mountain ranges, including Tibet and the three major rivers running down into southern China and beyond.

Yet the challenges Beijing faces are not unique. Hong Kong, which drains most of its supply from nearby Dongjiang in Guangdong, may also soon feel the pinch. As they say, 'a problem shared is a problem halved' and the more water management becomes a national and global priority the more headway that gets made towards creating a sustainable environment with secure supply. On Monday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon mentioned that the international community needed to start conceiving strategies for using water more efficiently and sharing it more equitably. He said population growth and climate change would only worsen.

Appreciating this necessity for urban regions to become more water self-reliant the example of Singapore offers some hope. This week the Lion State's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Dr Yaacob Ibrahim opened the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute, while speaking about the twin constraints of climate change and long-term sustainability. Like a true Singaporean he recognized the economic opportunities such issues present, and how his government had identified the environment and water technology as areas particularly deserving of strategic research and development dollars. The vision - to position Singapore as the 'Global Hydrohub' -- providing expertise and capacity to solve world water woes like those now and soon to be faced in China.

Looking beyond traditional water diversion schemes that has seen them dependent on Malaysian resources, Singapore over the years has developed renewable sources in the form of "Newwater" a product arising from public utilities which can now meet 15 % of the nation's water needs; desalination plants -- SingSpring one of the world's largest which meets 10 percent; in addition to vigorous water conservation supported by public campaigning coupled with more effective water catchment construction.

In the middle of next month, the eighth Bo'ao Forum for Asia gets under way down in Hainan with this year's event: 'Green Asia, Moving towards Win-Win through Changes' the theme. The conference will question how to secure Asia's future through renewable energy sources, and how the private sector can contribute towards this. Looking at Singapore, locations like Beijing have an example to work towards and for those willing to take a risk and invest in developing markets, like France's water giant Veolia, the return in investment may prove lucrative in the times ahead.

E-mail: brendanjohnworrell@hotmail.com