Rearranging nature
One point of universal agreement is that northern China’s water resources are growing perilously scarce. Aquifers in the north—an area covering 428,000 square kilometers with a population of 437 million—are being sucked dry. In the Beijing region, for instance, the groundwater table has steadily receded from an average of 10 meters below the surface in 1975 to 35 meters in 2005. In the Haihe River Basin, in which 95% of available water is exploited, the 305 cubic meters of water resources per capita is less than 5% of the global average, says Xia. The Yellow River is so heavily siphoned that in dry months it often peters out before reaching the East China Sea. In 1997, the river stopped short a record 226 days, its dry bed extending as far as 700 kilometers inland. The simple fact, Xia says, is that “North China has become more arid.”