According to “South-to-north Water Transfer Schemes for China”, the plan was first proposed by Chairman Mao Zedong in the early 1950s, when he inspected the Yellow River basin and suggested “borrowing some water from the Yangtze River to the Yellow River”. In the late 1950s, the Ministry of Water Resources began to carry out integrated survey work in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and the southwestern rivers for examining the possibility and feasibility of transferring water to Upper Yellow River areas. However, in 1972, a big and serious drought covered north China. In order to combat the drought, Premier Zhou Enlai suggested working out a scheme to divert lower Yangtze River water to the North China Plain. The planning zone of the project comes down to 438 million people and water transfer scale is about 44.8 billion cubic meters. The complete project was expected to cost $62 billion. However, by 2014, more than $79 billion had been spent; South North Water Transfer Project becomes one of the most expansive engineering projects in the world (Wikipedia). In 2003, South North Water Transfer Project Construction Commission of the State Council was officially established and take charge of the planning, construction and management of the project (Baidu).