A well covered topic on CGC, China is running out of water.

It is an issue that we are quite concerned with, particularly in the north of the country, and the Xinhua article Droughts put north China on red alert has only added to the sense of urgency:

Henan, China’s major grain producer, issued a red alert for drought Thursday. The provincial meteorological bureau said the drought is the worst since 1951. The drought have affected about 63 percent of the province’s 78.9 million mu (5.26 million hectares) of wheat.

But Henan Province is not the only victim in thirsty northern China.

Anhui Province issued a red drought alert Sunday, forecasting a major drought that will plague more than 60 percent of the crops north of the Huaihe River is no rain is reported by next week.

Shanxi Province was put on orange drought alert on Jan. 21, as nearly one million people and 160,000 heads of livestock are facing water shortage.

It is clearly a dire situation for many, and what I find interesting is that no mention of Hebei or Beijing provinces are being mentioned given the close proximity to these areas (Beijing and Hebei are north of Shandong, and both were recently reported to be at historic lows as well).

For me, there are fewer issues more important than this one.

Action really needs to be taken at a system level to ensure that the human factors behind this drought are overcome

Water is a basic necessisty for life, and the problems of drought are related to human activity vis-a-vis deforestation, poor agricultural techniques, and overusage of water.