Although for the founding of People’s Republic China in 1949 (I should say here PRC because it is the pivotal point of China’s development), it is amazing to have such a great water transfer project, however, Chinese has already began to deal with water transfer since ancient times. In order to combat against uneven distribution of water resource, the idea of reallocating water had been generated since centuries ago. According to “South-to-north Water Transfer Schemes for China”, traced back to 486 BC, ancient Chinese people started Hangou waterway collecting the Yellow River and Huai River as inter-basin water diversion. Water projects also serve the improvement of transportation in order to balance the economic development between north and south. After Hangou waterway project, there were a number of water transfer projects followed to development.

 

One typical and famous example is the Grand Canal in 456 BC. The Grand Canal which is also named as “Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal”, is the longest canal in the world. It starts in Beijing, passes through Tianjing and provinces of Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang to the capital of Zhejiang, the city of Hangzhou. The Grand Canal links the Yellow River and Yangtze River. According to Wikipedia and other information, the total length of the Grand Canal is 1776 km. In ancient times, the Grand Canal served as the main water pathway between northern and southern China and was essential for the transport of commodities to Beijing. It established an important economic belt and broke the obstacles of communication between north and south. And it also provided convenience for the central rulers to manage the whole country more efficiently and enabled cultural exchange. Since the founding of PRC in 1949, the canal has been used mostly to transport bulk industrial goods and resources. It is also being promoted to serve as the Eastern Route of the South North Water Transfer Project. Those ancient water projects have deeply inspired and influenced current water management and decision making.

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