Granted, the larger the scale of the project, the greater its negative impacts. The uncertainty of SNWT is directly proportional to its scale. What I finally learned is that in order to minimize the negative impact ecologically and socially, the project should reduce its magnitude as much as possible. Therefore, from an environmental point of view, the reduction of impacts may depend on minimizing the project’s magnitude. Controlling water demands in order to limit water requirements is one way to scale back the project. But on the other hand, the cost analysis of SNWT found that the project does not completely account for environmental costs. Moreover, the water fee in most parts of China is much lower than the actual supply and operational costs, and does not cover drainage and disposal costs at all. Therefore, this cost discrepancy contributes to the increasing local water demand. The continuation of this policy is not favorable for the economic benefit and environmental protection of the water transfer regions. Thus, in order to minimize impact, it is necessary for the government and planners to think from two sides: the project itself and the policy making of water supply and use. I think not only SNWT, each part of water management and supply is interlocked in China.

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In addition, SNWT shouldn’t overlook the impacts of water-exporting regions. According to SNWT schemes, in order to make sure that north China (water-importing regions) has enough water supply, water-exporting regions sacrifice themselves at the expense of water demand. Through investigation of central route project, water has already decreased in the middle and lower reaches of Han River which is the water source of Danjiangkou reservoir. Thus, the agricultural irrigation and other water use must be reduced due to less water supply; compensation costs should also go to water-exporting regions.

 

From what I have discussed, the ultimate goal of SNWT should be creating a sustainable environment of water supply. Uneven distribution of water resources is biophysical and geographical; it is really hard to change the nature in a short period of time. The SNWT uses the artificial methods as external forces to balance the water resources between north and south. But China is the most populous country in the world and ensuring everyone to have access to water is a challenging but primary issue for the central government and decision makers. Honestly speaking, not only SNWT, but also other tasks and projects regarded to create equal access to resources are really hard and complicated to the decision makers and planners from the central government to researchers in China. Usually, the scale of projects has to be large and the costs have to be high because without enough inputs, not all the people can access to resources equally. From the features of lasting international or public opinions, if the project seems to be great, there are always voices against it; if there are many negative impacts of the project environmentally or socially, people will condemn it seriously from different perspectives in terms of not being sustainable and equal. There is nothing wrong about different opinions, but the pressure of decision makers of this project is very big. And for the whole of the project, there are inevitably negative impacts on people and on the environment due to so many external factors. Therefore, SNWT is controversial but it needs to be judged from more perspectives: economic benefits, institutional implications and benefits to the country itself. China is big, big in the scale which needs large inputs for management, big in population which also needs large inputs for reducing disparity.

 

I have to say, there is still a long way for South North Water Transfer Project. I really hope the project could be a saver to China's water distribution.