AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Netherlands, the world leader in flood prevention, will share its experience in water management and droughts warnings with China, which is suffering water shortages over vast areas, officials said on Tuesday.
A general view of the dried-up river bed of Jialing River in southwest China's Chongqing municipality August 16, 2006. The Netherlands, the world leader in flood prevention, will share its experience in water management and droughts warnings with China, which is suffering water shortages over vast areas, officials said on Tuesday. REUTERS/China Daily
Visiting Chinese government officials, led by Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, signed agreements with Dutch institutes on introducing an early warning system for droughts and cooperation in water management and flood defense research.
Liangyu is also touring flood control systems in the low-lying Netherlands, famed for clawing back land from an encroaching sea and building some of the world’s most formidable flood defenses.
“China is interested in our water management experience, while Dutch companies are interested in investing in China and exporting our know-how,” said a spokeswoman for the Dutch ministry of transport, public works and water.
A prolonged drought over a wide swathe of China is threatening drinking water supplies for 13.4 million people and 12 million cattle, the official Xinhua news agency has said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned last month that abnormal weather conditions, a warm winter and drought, could reduce the country’s grain production this year after three years of bumper harvests.
China as well as other Asian countries are facing less rainfall, water scarcity, heatwaves, floods and migration of millions of people as a result of climate change, the United Nations climate panel warned in a report last week.
The Dutch institute for sustainable use of rural areas, Alterra, will help China introduce an early warning system for droughts so that the country can take measures ahead of dry periods, the Dutch ministry spokeswoman said.
The Chinese delegation also signed an agreement with environment group WWF to protect fish stocks during various water works, such as the construction of dams and dikes.
The Netherlands -- two-thirds of whose territory is below sea level -- embarked on a major overhaul of its flood defense, after a storm in 1953 breached the famed Dutch dikes and killed more than 1,800 people.
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