Ji Yajun is driving his truck along the bumpy, winding road tucked in the mountains of Guizhou province, wearing his standard safety helmet and on his way to the source of the Qianzhong water diversion project as he routinely does to check the equipment there because the project will take care of 7 million people in the province.
One provincial report said that the Qianzhong area, which has 3.62 million people, could be facing a water shortage of as much as 550 million cubic meters by 2020 and 610 million cubic meters, by 2030, even though Guizhou has an abundance of water resource and a large drainage from the tall, steep mountains, but water shortages have become a bottleneck in the regional development. But, when the project is completed, the amount of water available from the area should meet the demand, with at least 856 million cubic meters diverted.
Work on this first large cross-regional hydraulic engineering project began in September 2009, affecting 49 townships and diverting 741 million cubic meters of water annually to almost 44,000 hectares of farm land.
In 2011, Ji, who is now 41, was given a key role in the project when he was entrusted with the important job of monitoring the water source. He has been a hydrologist for 18 years after graduating from college and says that his father was also a hydrologist and had a great influence on him, then explains, "Our mission is to build an automated water forecasting system with 16 monitoring stations and a control center on the Sancha River," then adds, "Sometimes the work really bores me, but I have also developed an attachment to it."
The provincial water resource department first discussed the project of diverting water from the Wujiang and Sancha rivers for urban water supply, irrigation and electricity back in the 1950s, and the vice-GM of the Guizhou Water Investment Group, in commenting on the idea, says, "Now, 50 years later, work on the first stage of the project is commencing and it is vital for the sustainable development of the mid-Guzihou region."
A dam with a capacity of 1.09 cubic meters was built for the Qianzhong water conservation project to generate 360 million kw/hr of electricity for the cities of Guiyang, the provincial capital, Anshun, and Liupanshui, from two power stations, and Ji has provided hundreds of water forecasts and a massive amount of data from the monitoring stations over a four-year period.
He notes, "During those four long years of work, the most impressive thing that happened was just last year," then goes on to describe the extraordinary flood of July 15, which endangered millions of dollars and how he provided crucial data for a flood disaster team under that condition that the automatic water regime monitoring destroyed by the flood.
He continues, "I have spent four Spring Festivals here on the site because I need to make my reports on a daily basis," while gulping down the ever-present instant noodles, then , "The dam was checked and ready for water storage, April 12 - 13, and is more than 80-percent complete." Ji says with a guilty look on his face that he feels bad that he cannot make time for his family and that his son was in second grade when he left home, and is now already in sixth grade. But, the project is nearing its end, and he will go back home soon.
