Water-scarce Beijing to become a 'sponge city'

Beijing, one of the world's cities facing the greatest water scarcity, aims to transform into a "sponge city" to effectively collect and use rainfall, the Beijing Times reported.

Beijing has built 25 new reservoirs this year to collect 90,000 cubic meters of rainfall for reuse.

The city will build another 26 reservoirs next year to collect rainfall for irrigation, dust reduction, and car washing.

To fight scarcity, diverse engineering projects have been launched to conserve water. These include adding layers under bricks to save water for greenbelt irrigation and building ponds to store water in parks.

The city has already collected over 27.81 million cubic meters of water this year.