China will start backing up its shrinking glaciers with 59 meltwater reservoirs this year as the cost of climate change hits home in the world’s most populous nation.
The far west region of Xinjiang, home to many of the planet’s highest peaks and widest ice fields, will carry out the 10-year engineering project, which aims to catch and store glacier run-off that might otherwise trickle away into the desert.
Behind the measure is a concern that city residents in the region will run out of water supplies once the glaciers in the Tian, Kunlun and Altai mountains disappear.
Anxiety has risen along with alpine temperatures, which are rapidly diminishing the ice fields. The 3,800m Urumqi No. 1 Glacier, the first to be measured in China, has lost more than 20 percent of its volume since 1962, the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute said. Others in the Tian range have lost similar amounts of ice.
To deal with the consequences, Xinjiang will set aside 200 million yuan (US$28 million) for each of the next three years. In this first phase, 29 reservoirs will be built, mostly in the southern Tian, with a combined capacity of 21.8 billion cubic meters of water, Xinhua news agency reported.
Wang Shijiang, director of the Xinjiang Water Resource Department, told the agency that the mountain reservoir system was designed to “intercept” meltwater, which has increased in volume over the past 20 years as a result of global warming.
Xinjiang, and its capital of Urumqi, is particularly dependent on a steady supply of meltwater from glaciers that act as solid reservoirs storing precipitation in the winter and releasing it in the summer.
The natural alpine water tanks have begun leaking more than usual in recent years as temperatures rise, prompting the search for an artificial alternative. In some areas they have broken altogether, causing mountain floods that destroy homes and crops.
Few of Urumqi’s 2 million residents are aware of the problem because, in recent years, water supplies have surged thanks to the extra meltwater and increased rainfall.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS