*By Dechen Palmo
Actual date February 14, 2018
Fan Xiao 17.01.2018
The 2017 revival: Plans to divert a major river from
Tibet to Xinjiang
The latest version of the plan is particularly
mind-boggling.
It includes a 750-kilometre tunnel traversing the
Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, from the river’s Great Bend to Golmud; and a number of
tributary tunnels to bring in water from the Parlung Tsangpo; the Nu and the
Tongtian Rivers. It claims water will flow naturally towards Golmud, but the
altitude at the start of the tunnel is less than 2,000 metres – and Golmud is
at 2,700 metres. It is unclear how water will flow uphill.
The mountain valleys of south-western Tibet are prone to
earthquakes and rock and mudslides. This is particularly the case at the Great
Bend, where history records numerous strong earthquakes and landslides damning
the river and causing flooding. The environmental and economic costs of such a
huge project here are hard to imagine.
Rivers need a certain amount of water to supply their
ecosystems and the needs of sustainable development for local societies – it is
generally thought that no more than 30-40% of a river’s natural flow should be
exploited. These schemes would see unreasonable quantities of water diverted
from the rivers – 83.3% to 91.5% in the Shuotian Canal proposal. The more
recent proposal does not give a specific figure, but says “most” or “all” water
from the Source Rivers will be taken.
The rivers involved all flow across international borders.
In 1972 the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment stated that: “States have, in accordance with the Charter of the
United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to
exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and
the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or
control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas
beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.”
The 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development reaffirmed that principle and stressed that development,
particularly joint development, is important. The architects of these plans
show nothing but ignorance and arrogance regarding the concept of international
rivers.
Both plans repeatedly use water shortages in northern China
as a justification, but this is a mistake.
Some parts of the north are semi-humid, and even in some
arid and semi-arid areas glacier melt creates fertile zones, such as the Hexi
corridor and Xinjiang. Many water shortages are due to environmental damage,
often arising from inappropriate human activity or misuse of water resources.
It is also the case that ecosystems form according to the
resources available; demand arises according to supply. To increase supply to
meet demand is a mistake. We cannot steal from one place to make up a shortage
elsewhere, nor can we reallocate natural resources and change the natural
environment at will. We will fail to achieve our goals and ultimately pay a
huge price.
These schemes claim they will remake China and turn deserts
into farmland. But the scientific foundation and the authors’ understanding of
nature show they are using imagination in place of facts and fantasy in place
of science. We must ask ourselves: Why do so many people seem to regard these
schemes as feasible?
EDD analysis:
A detailed proposal to divert the Brahmaputra from
Tibet into Xinjiang was posted online by Dr. Liu Yuanyuan. This proposal of
water diversion is different from the earlier proposal of 1,000 km tunnel which
was published in South China Morning Post last year.
But Fan Xia, chief engineer of the Sichuan geology and
mineral bureau, has said that even if environmental and social costs are
ignored, the construction and maintenance costs alone mean that this scheme is
not feasible.
A planned diversion map of the Brahmaputra River toward
Xinjiang
The proposal suggest the construction of 750 km tunnel to
take water from the great bend of Yarlung Tsangpo (the Brahmaputra River) to
Glomud in Amdo and from Golmud to Lop Nor of Xinjiang. This large tunnel will
be subdivided and inclined shafts are inserted in the middle to build a side
slope tunnel that vertically reaches long tunnel. This long tunnel has a total
of seven entry points with an average gap of 90 kilometers per entry section.
This seven tunnel will bring water from the Parlung Tsangpo (tributary of
Brahmaputra River), Gyalmo Ngulchu (Salween River), Tongtian River (Dri chu),
thereby channeling the water flow directly into the main tunnel.
To support this project, a series of big dams and big
tunnels need to be built on the Tibetan Plateau, which is geologically
unstable. There were a record number of earthquakes and landslide are common in
the great bend and diverting the water from great bend, expert says, is not
feasible.
Water shortages as the justification for this plans to
divert the water from Brahmaputra to Xinjiang, and turning the Xinjiang into
California, expert says, is not feasible. As we can see the impact of already
completed eastern and central route of the South-North Water Transfer Project
has led to mass relocation of hundreds of thousands of people and exacerbate
water pollution problem. Therefore, this proposal of diverting Tibet’s river
water to Xinjiang could lead to the social, economic and environmental
catastrophic. Instead of diverting the water, Chinese government should
encourage scientist and engineer to come up with more viable solution such as
rainwater harvesting and recycle more waste water than water diversion.
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