Water resource project begins in Pearl River Delta

Construction of the 35.4 billion yuan ($5.22 billion) water resource allocation project in the Pearl River Delta started in Guangzhou on Monday.

The project is designed to divert water from the Xijiang River to the densely populated eastern part of the PRD, an area currently mainly supplied by the Dongjiang River.

It extends from a section of Xijiang River in Foshan to a newly built reservoir in Guangzhou, and then to reservoirs in Dongguan and Shenzhen.

It is the largest water resource project in Guangdong province in terms of pipeline length — 113.2 kilometers — and the geographical area receiving water, according to the provincial water resources department.

It is also the world's largest water resources project in terms of water pressure and tunnel shield length. To protect the ecological environment, the pipelines will be installed 40 to 60 meters underground.

The project, expected to take 60 months to build, is designed to pump an average of 1.708 billion cubic meters of water annually, benefiting an area with a population of 30 million.

Technologies like internet of things, big data and cloud computing are employed in the design of the project to build it into a "smart system".