The bone-dry sand dunes of the Gobi desert stretch towards Xinjiang from Duhuang — an oasis along the ancient Silk Road — famous for its beautiful Buddhist cave-art.
From this town, which became well-known for the plunder of Buddhist artefacts by European treasure hunters, a trail heads towards what is romantically called the Jade Gate.
This is the landmark from where the ancient Silk Road bifurcated along two lines. Both the trails eventually re-converged at Kashgar — another important junction along the Silk Road, on the edge of Central Asia. But the romance of this ancient trade route has now given way to a much grimmer reality — of a water crisis that is engulfing northwest China’s three parched provinces, Xinjiang, Gansu and Inner Mongolia. Xinjiang is also a geopolitically sensitive administrative region, which has experienced headline grabbing violence, born out of a separatist militancy.
Declining rainfall in recent years has added to the water vulnerabilities of people living in these provinces. In 2016, Gansu received a paltry 380 mm of rainfall, 5% lower than average in previous years. Near Dunhuang, which is part of the province, rainfall slipped to a minuscule 67.7 mm last year. With the water alarm blaring, researchers in the provincial capital Lanzhou, a picturesque city bifurcated by the famous Yellow river, have proposed a grand project of diverting water from Siberia’s iconic Lake Baikal.
A vision document of the Lanzhou Urban and Rural Planning Design Institute has proposed a water pipeline starting from the southwest point of Lake Baikal. It will stretch for around 1,000 km to bring freshwater from the deepest lake in the world to Lanzhou. The pipeline will pass through the 1,000 km Hexi corridor that weaves its way through the towering Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi desert.
The water diversion project, if shown the green light, will add another dimension to the development of the Hexi corridor. Chinese authorities have already identified the Hexi as an abundant source of renewable energy, evident from the vast arrays of solar and wind farms that abound in this sun-drenched zone. The passage is called the ‘Three Gorges on Land’, in reference to the massive Three Gorges dam project on Yangtze river, which can generate 22,500 MW of hydro-power.
Environmental concerns
The proposal, still on paper, is likely to trigger a major controversy, with eco-conservationists in Russia possibly taking the lead. RT, Russia’s news network, has already reported that water levels of the pristine lake have fallen to a critical low of 456 metres, mainly due to the dwindling inflows. Consequently, residents near the lake have been advised to reduce consumption of water and power.
But the problem is only likely to accentuate on account of the hydro-plans of another neighbouring country — Mongolia. Sections of the Chinese media are reporting that the Mongolian government has been considering the construction of a dam near Orkhon river, which flows into Lake Baikal. A 900 km underground pipeline would then channel the water into the southern Gobi Region, which could run out of groundwater in the next 10 years.
The Russians also cite the eco-fragility of Lake Baikal — home to 1,200 animal species and 600 types of plants — to reinforce their argument against major projects on the lake. In any case, the Baikal diversion plan highlights that in the era of climate change and rising eco-consciousness, negotiations in the future over transnational water sharing are likely to be fractious, if not worse.
