Not enough water

...The 1.3 billion people of the world's most populous country have at their disposal only a quarter of the water per person that is available on average around the world.
But China's water woes go far beyond the scarcity of water resources. Pollution has left nearly half of the water in the country's rivers suitable only for agricultural and industrial use, making fresh drinking water a luxury for many of China's 800 million peasants…

Nearly three decades of breakneck economic growth, with little attention paid to ecological degradation, has taken its toll on the country's meager water resources - already strained by rapid urbanization and population growth.

Currently, 312 million Chinese villagers are facing water shortages and unsafe water supplies that have been contaminated with fluorine, arsenic, high levels of salt or other industrial pollutants, Minister of Water Resources Wang Shucheng told the state news agency Xinhua.

China's urban water environment is worsening too. About 400 of China's 600-odd cities are short of water, according to the Water Ministry. In Beijing and some 100 other cities, the shortages are deemed "extreme"…

Water scarcity threatens China's food security as well. A persistent drought this summer has affected the lives of 17 million people in central and southwestern China and has caused crops to dry up in the fields.

"Overall, some 10% of China's grain harvest is being produced by overpumping of water, which means it is not sustainable," said environmentalist Lester Brown, director of the US-based Earth Policy Institute.

Despite the seriousness of the crisis, Chinese leaders have shied away from raising water prices to promote water conservation. Experts say current prices are not high enough to make farmers conserve water.

"Raising water prices is not the right option for China because rural incomes are not high," Qiu asserted.

As rural areas have fallen behind the cities in their development, public resentment and social unrest have become some of the main worries for the government in the countryside.

Protests against polluting industries and lack of water have become a common sight in villages across China, as the environment has all too often been sacrificed in the pursuit of profit.

Rather than risk social unrest by raising water prices significantly, Beijing has announced that it will spend about 1 trillion yuan ($125 billion) over the next five years to improve urban water security and build sewage-treatment systems. Another $5 billion is allocated to improve the water supply in rural areas.