Tibet has the most abundant water resources in the whole of China; a whopping 439.4 billion cubic metres, which is 60 times the country’s per capita level.
China has recently announced that it is going to set up a natural drinking water industry in Tibet over the next three to five years, at a cost of more than USD 6 billion, to tap the Himalayan region’s abundant and very high- quality fresh water resources.
Commercialising Tibet’s Natural Drinking Water
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, this clean, uncontaminated natural drinking water is considered among the world’s best.
The water quality has been evaluated at 27 different water sources in the Tibet autonomous region, and 190 million cubic metres of surface drinking water exists, about 22% of which is exploitable, according to Xiang Tongliang, deputy director of Tibet’s water resources bureau.
Production of natural drinking water rose by 60% to 153,000 tons during 2014, and it is hoped that it will grow 30 times that over the next three to five years, with the production value reaching 40 billion yuan.
One of the problems of removing the groundwater and spring water at such a rapid rate is that it is bound to have a serious impact on various ecosystems within Tibet.
While concerns have expressed that glaciers have been shrinking at unprecedented rates in recent decades, and Losang Jamcan, chairman of the regional government, said that the development of the natural drinking water industry in the TAR should not come at the cost of the region’s natural environment, plans are forging ahead.
Jamcan also said that the autonomous region should adhere to a stringent process for extracting water, that improved real-time monitoring of water sources being exploited should take place, and that harsh punishment should be meted out against violations. Unfortunately he is known to have made similar comments before about mining operations in the region, yet pollution and various other kinds of environmental devastation as a result of the mining continues to provoke large scale Tibetan protests which draw brutal Chinese repression.
Major incentives have been announced to attract investors and entrepreneurs and boost sales nationally and overseas, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that it would strongly support the growth of the natural drinking water industry in Tibet. One can only hope that the damage to the environment is not as devastating as is predicted.
Buy water coolers online at Living-Water e-commerce store. Get water cooler rentals in London for home and office. Get office water coolers and accessories for your business.
