Potential Ecological Benefits of the Middle Route for the South-North Water Diversion Project

This paper presents a study of the middle route of the South-North Water Diversion Project. The middle route runs through the Northern China plain, where the water shortages are the most severe. There is not only a shortage of water for human usage, but also a shortage of ecological water. Although the current plan for the middle route is strictly focused on supplying water for residential and industrial use, the water can also potentially be used for ecological purposes. This paper evaluates the potential ecological benefits that can be brought to the fragile ecology in northern China by the middle route, in addition to the water supplied to residences and industry. The study describes ecological benefits of the middle route project, such as mitigation of groundwater extraction in the region and positive influences on the climate, the ecological uses of the middle route project itself, such as creating artificial niches along the channel and directly using the channel for ecological purposes, and the ecological uses of the water along the middle route, such as diversion of the water into river channels that have suffered from drought conditions for decades.