China, India and Brahmaputra
source:iSikkim
Adapted from Jesper Svensson’s article Diverting Brahmaputra: A Rational Choice?
Yangtze – Asia’s biggest river – is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years and there are genuine fears that the western lifeline of the South-North Water Transfer Project will not be able to transport enough water for feeding the thirsty Northern China Plain.
Chinese scientists have been proposing going beyond diverting the tributaries of the Yangtze and also diverting Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra, along a course that follows the Tibet-Qinghai railway line to Golmud, through the Gansu corridor and, finally, to Xinjiang in north-west China.
Diverting Brahmaputra from its upstream is, however, an old Chinese plan dating back to red nationalist Li Ling, author of Tibet´s Water Will Save China.
From the Indian point of view, it is important to recognize a fundamental element in these proposals that will likely extend for the foreseeable future. At the core of these proposals is the advantage of diverting waters upstream, because it has an altitude of 3,600 metres above sea level, thereby reducing the need for pumping uphill. D
Pure economics
China’s water policy is driven by pure rationalism and not geopolitics. Its logic is that if national interest demands major water diversion projects on the Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river, China will undertake such a project if the price of transferred water is cheaper than conservation or getting water from the sea. The plan, however, so far has failed to secure the backing of the Ministry of Water Resources and many dismiss the proposal as unfeasible.
Moreover, the diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: to drop a pipe into the Bohai sea in China´s east, draw more than 340,000 cubic metres of seawater a day into a complex of coastal desalination plants, and then pump this water 1,400 meters uphill for more than 600 km to Xilinhot, where it will be used for coal mining while conserving the region’s scarce water resources.
If the former proposal were to be selected, the Chinese government will deliberately package the diversion scheme in a scientific light in order to create a “story-line” that justifies exploitation of transboundary rivers. This behaviour can be seen in a newly published article on information extraction of Himalayan rivers, where Chinese scholars argue that surface runoff, population, cultivated area and GDP within the territory of China occupy a very small proportion in three river systems.
According to “Information Extraction and Analysis of the Himalayan International Rivers” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the natural surface runoff of the Indus river, the Ganges river and the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river are 207km3/y, 550km3/y and 828km3/y respectively, and of which only 10km3/y, 14km3/y and 121km3/y are produced in China, accounting for 4.83 per cent, 2.55 per cent and 14.61 per cent separately. For the Ganges Delta drainage system, which includes the Ganges river, Brahmaputra river and Meghna river, water from China makes up only 8.8 per cent of the total natural runoff.
Whether this data is manipulated or not is difficult to prove, but it demonstrates a bitter truth to India: China may argue that activities upstream have no impact on India or Bangladesh because water quantity from the Brahmaputra river within China makes up only a very small part of the total water of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system.
More importantly, it will be difficult for India to make an effort to persuade to the contrary given the scientific adv
source:iSikkim
Adapted from Jesper Svensson’s article Diverting Brahmaputra: A Rational Choice?
Yangtze – Asia’s biggest river – is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years and there are genuine fears that the western lifeline of the South-North Water Transfer Project will not be able to transport enough water for feeding the thirsty Northern China Plain.
Chinese scientists have been proposing going beyond diverting the tributaries of the Yangtze and also diverting Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra, along a course that follows the Tibet-Qinghai railway line to Golmud, through the Gansu corridor and, finally, to Xinjiang in north-west China.
Diverting Brahmaputra from its upstream is, however, an old Chinese plan dating back to red nationalist Li Ling, author of Tibet´s Water Will Save China.
From the Indian point of view, it is important to recognize a fundamental element in these proposals that will likely extend for the foreseeable future. At the core of these proposals is the advantage of diverting waters upstream, because it has an altitude of 3,600 metres above sea level, thereby reducing the need for pumping uphill. D
Pure economics
China’s water policy is driven by pure rationalism and not geopolitics. Its logic is that if national interest demands major water diversion projects on the Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river, China will undertake such a project if the price of transferred water is cheaper than conservation or getting water from the sea. The plan, however, so far has failed to secure the backing of the Ministry of Water Resources and many dismiss the proposal as unfeasible.
Moreover, the diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: to drop a pipe into the Bohai sea in China´s east, draw more than 340,000 cubic metres of seawater a day into a complex of coastal desalination plants, and then pump this water 1,400 meters uphill for more than 600 km to Xilinhot, where it will be used for coal mining while conserving the region’s scarce water resources.
If the former proposal were to be selected, the Chinese government will deliberately package the diversion scheme in a scientific light in order to create a “story-line” that justifies exploitation of transboundary rivers. This behaviour can be seen in a newly published article on information extraction of Himalayan rivers, where Chinese scholars argue that surface runoff, population, cultivated area and GDP within the territory of China occupy a very small proportion in three river systems.
According to “Information Extraction and Analysis of the Himalayan International Rivers” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the natural surface runoff of the Indus river, the Ganges river and the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river are 207km3/y, 550km3/y and 828km3/y respectively, and of which only 10km3/y, 14km3/y and 121km3/y are produced in China, accounting for 4.83 per cent, 2.55 per cent and 14.61 per cent separately. For the Ganges Delta drainage system, which includes the Ganges river, Brahmaputra river and Meghna river, water from China makes up only 8.8 per cent of the total natural runoff.
Whether this data is manipulated or not is difficult to prove, but it demonstrates a bitter truth to India: China may argue that activities upstream have no impact on India or Bangladesh because water quantity from the Brahmaputra river within China makes up only a very small part of the total water of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system.
More importantly, it will be difficult for India to make an effort to persuade to the contrary given the scientific adv
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