The over-exploitation of water resources in the Haihe River Basin (HRB) has now become a serious problem. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that many local rivers and lakes are drying up and the total amount of over-exploited groundwater has reached over 1000×108m3. It is important to note that the exploitation of water resources in HRB was reasonable before 1979. After 1980, however, over-exploitation happened with an annual average amount of 40×108m3. Both the dry season and rapid economic growth in HRB took place at the same time. Therefore, the over-exploitation of water in HRB was actually the negative result of the conjunction of a continuous dry season and rapid economic growth. So the over-exploitation would not be as serious as it is today if either of the above two stopped. After the first stage of south-to-north water transfer project, the water shortage problem in HRB could be eased for the following reasons: fi rstly, water transfer project will bring to the Basin 60×108m3 water resources; secondly, a wet season will come back eventually according to natural law of climate variability; finally, its agricultural and industrial use and total water consumption all have decreased from the peak value, so that the groundwater table will raise certainly and ecological water in rivers and lakes that were dried-up will be partly restored. In the future, the main problem of water resources security in HRB will include water pollution, operation risk of the south-to-north water transfer project, groundwater pollution and engineering geological hazards that may be brought by groundwater rise. The proposed countermeasures are as follows: keeping strengthening water demand management, raising water price as well as subsidies for the low-income family and improving other water related policies, preventing and dealing with water pollution seriously and getting fully prepared for the operation of south-to-north water transfer project.
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