At the end of May, officials released plans to build a national "water network" of new canals, reservoirs and storage facilities they say will boost irrigation, and cut the risk of floods and droughts.
"What they have been doing so far is using engineering solutions to try to physically supply water and fix their water problem," said Mark Wang, a geographer at Melbourne University who studies the impact of China's water infrastructure. "If China can reduce water use and increase efficiency, it doesn't need mega-diversion projects.
Some measures to curb demand are in place. Local governments have been pushed to reduce water consumption, improve wastewater recycling and tackle pollution. "The costs of building these enormous projects is likely to continue increasing," said Genevieve Donnellon-May, a researcher at the Oxford Global Society who studies China's water issues.Part of the new plan involves the expansion of the South-North Water Diversion Project , an ambitious engineering project that diverts surplus Yangtze River water to the arid Yellow River basin in the north.
By relying on additional projects of that scale, experts fear that China will merely relocate shortages. They say megaprojects such as the SNWDP and the Three Gorges Dam have triggered a "chain reaction" of unforeseen consequences that require billions of yuan in new infrastructure to fix, Wang of Melbourne University said.
China has also proposed a project to divert water from Tibet to northwest China, which has alarmed India and other countries dependent on rivers such as the Brahmaputra and the Mekong.