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China reinforces 7,000 reservoirs within 3 yrs

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-24 20:04

CHANGCHUN - China has met its 2006 target of reinforcing 7,356 reservoirs within three years, China's Minister of Water Resources, Chen Lei, said on Tuesday.

The investment in the reinforcement of the 7,356 reservoirs totaled 62.48 billion yuan ($9.61 billion) by the end of 2010, Sun Jichang, director of the construction and management department of the Ministry of Water resources, said at a national work conference held in Changchun, capital city of Northeast China's Jilin province.

The reservoir consolidation recovered and added 3.62 billion cubic meters of flood control storage capacity, 10.21 billion cubic meters of utilizable storage capacity, protected 155 million people from reservoir breaches, and strengthened the nation's water conservancy capacities in fighting drought and floods, Sun said.

Chen noted that the country seeks to reinforce another 5,400 small-sized reservoirs this year while consolidating all large- to medium-sized reservoirs by 2015.

China plans to quadruple its investment in water conservation projects to 4 trillion yuan between 2011 and 2020 in an attempt to improve its out-of-date water-related infrastructure, Chen said on Monday.