China News Service, Guangzhou, May 10th: The Pearl River Basin takes multiple measures to fight drought and win the "hard battle" of drought resistance and water supply
China News Service reporter Wang Jian
"The drought relief work in the Pearl River Basin has achieved an overall victory, ensuring the safety of water supply in Hong Kong and Macau, and ensuring the safety of water for urban and rural residents in the Pearl River Basin." Wang Baoen, director of the Pearl River Water Conservancy Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources (hereinafter referred to as the "Pearl River Commission"), was interviewed by a reporter from China News Agency. Shi said that during this drought, by constructing the "three lines of defense" for water supply security, and implementing unified water regulation in the watershed during the dry season, the accumulative water transfer exceeded 1.6 billion cubic meters, winning the "hard battle" of drought resistance and water supply.
Located in the Pearl River Basin in southern China, it is one of the three major river basins in China and the main artery of water resources in Guangdong, China's "first economic province".
Since 2020, rainfall in the basin has continued to be low, the inflow of water from the Dongjiang and Hanjiang rivers has continued to dry up, and the water storage of the backbone reservoirs has been seriously insufficient, and it has suffered the worst drought in 60 years.
In the face of the severe situation, the government took multiple measures to build a strong "three lines of defense" to ensure the water supply in local, near-ground and far-field cascades, and strengthened the unified scheduling of the river basin. Water safety for people in the basin.
Affected by the "La Niña" event in the autumn and winter of 2020 and the autumn and winter of 2021, the rainfall in the Pearl River Basin has been low year after year. The long-term high temperature and low rainfall have caused the river to continue to dry up, and some key reservoirs are seriously insufficient in water storage.
Different degrees of drought occurred in Guangdong, Fujian, Guangxi and other places in the basin. In particular, the Dongjiang and Hanjiang basins have experienced the most severe drought in 60 years. In addition, the impact of the upward salt tide in the Pearl River Estuary has intensified. " of the unfavorable situation.
"Based on the analysis of the regional scope and impact of the drought in the basin, the Ministry of Water Resources proposed to ensure the safety of water supply in Hong Kong, Macau and Kinmen, as well as ensure the safety of water for urban and rural residents in the Pearl River Delta, eastern Guangdong, southern Fujian and other places, and make every effort to ensure the urban and rural areas in arid areas. Residents’ domestic water supply will not be affected, so that urban and rural residents can drink clean water and feel at ease.” Wang Baoen said that the drought mainly occurred in eastern Guangdong and southern Fujian, affecting the safety of water supply for urban and rural residents in the Pearl River Delta, eastern Guangdong, southern Fujian and other places; Fujian, Guangxi and other provinces (autonomous regions) governments have taken a series of measures to make every effort to combat drought.
"We started the emergency response to drought level IV, carried out drought-resistance scheduling rehearsal, and rolled out optimized scheduling plans to ensure that the drought-resistance measures outperformed the development speed of drought and salty conditions." Wang Baoen said that in June 2021, the Pearl River Commission accurately judged "the flood season in the Pearl River Basin should be Due to the unfavorable situation that there is no flood, and the dry season continues to dry up”, timely warning was issued to power grids and power generation companies, and water storage scheduling was implemented in the basin. The main reservoir of the Xijiang River increased the water storage volume by about 12.9 billion cubic meters, and reserved precious freshwater resources for the follow-up drought relief and water supply. .
According to the development of the drought situation, the Pearl River Commission also issued a blue drought warning for the Xijiang and Beijiang rivers and a yellow drought warning for the Dongjiang and Hanjiang rivers in a timely manner to accurately determine the "window period" and optimal flow of emergency water supply pressure; The platform implements dynamic rehearsal for different dispatching schemes, realizes real-time monitoring, early warning and precise dispatching of river basins and reservoirs, and provides decision-making basis for scientifically implementing the water dispatching of the Pearl River in dry seasons, so as to formulate the implementation plans for water dispatching in the dry seasons of the Pearl River and Hanjiang in advance.
At the same time, in accordance with the deployment of the Ministry of Water Resources, the Pearl River Committee and the Guangdong Provincial Department of Water Resources have sorted out rivers and regions by region, and constructed the "three lines of defense" for water supply guarantees for the Xijiang, Dongjiang and Hanjiang.
The reporter learned that the local reservoir group of the first line of defense realizes "filling the water tank in front of the door" through water storage and replenishment scheduling; the second line of defense near-ground reservoirs implement emergency water replenishment scheduling by increasing the water level; The remote reservoirs of the third line of defense continue to replenish water downstream, and make good use of each side of the water.
The establishment of the "Three Lines of Defense" has become a solid barrier for drought resistance and water supply in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and eastern Guangdong.
"Pearl River Committee also scientifically implements the unified water flow regulation of the Pearl River and Han River, scientifically and precisely dispatches the backbone projects of Longtan, Baise, Datangxia and other basins to replenish water for the downstream, effectively suppressing the salt tide in the Pearl River Estuary, ensuring the safety of water supply, and taking into account the safety of shipping as a whole. and power grid security, achieving a win-win situation for all parties." Wang Baoen said that through the implementation of unified water regulation in the dry season of the basin, a total of 140 million cubic meters of water was supplied to Macau in the Northwest River Delta and the main urban area of Zhuhai, of which 38.91 million cubic meters were supplied to Macau; 920 million cubic meters of water have been supplied to Dongguan, eastern Guangzhou and other places in the Dongjiang Delta; 580 million cubic meters of water have been supplied to Shantou, Chaozhou, Jieyang and other places in the Hanjiang Delta, ensuring the safety of water supply.
"We should also be soberly aware that the Pearl River Basin still has some shortcomings in the prevention of flood and drought disasters." Wang Baoen pointed out that there are still problems such as the imperfect water resources allocation engineering system in the basin, and the intelligent water conservancy in the basin has not been fully completed. .
In this regard, Wang Baoen believes that it is necessary to speed up the construction of the national water network, strengthen the unified dispatch of river basins, improve the system and mechanism of the rule of law, and accelerate the construction of digital twin river basins, make up for the shortcomings of disaster early warning monitoring and disaster prevention infrastructure, and comprehensively improve water safety. Guarantee ability.
(Finish)