On the banks of the Yellow River, the Guxian Water Conservancy Project has finally turned from a blueprint into reality after 70 years of planning and design, adding another "trump card" to safeguard the long-term stability of the Yellow River.

Deep in the Lingnan region, the water conveyance tunnel of the Beibu Gulf Rim Water Resources Allocation Project cuts through mountains and valleys, channeling "source water" to high-quality development in the beneficiary areas.

Across the land of Yanzhao, the 100-day sprint to advance water conservancy projects funded by additional government bonds is in full swing, with weak links being rapidly shored up and disaster prevention and mitigation capacity continuously improved.

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Major water conservancy projects are a concentrated reflection of economic strength and comprehensive national power, and a key to understanding the broader trends of China's economic development. The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in the first three quarters, China's infrastructure investment (excluding electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply) grew 4.1% year on year, of which investment in water management rose 37.1%.

At present, China's water conservancy construction is comprehensively accelerating, fully unleashing benefits such as stabilizing investment, promoting employment and benefiting people's livelihoods. In the first three quarters of this year, national water conservancy construction completed investment of 928.98 billion yuan, setting a new record. Water conservancy construction is increasingly becoming an "accelerator" driving China's sustained economic growth and providing strong support for high-quality economic and social development.

Expanding domestic demand, stabilizing growth

Water conservancy construction powerfully drives economic development

In recent days, at the construction site of the water conveyance tunnel of the Yangtze-to-Han River Water Diversion Project in Baokang County, Hubei Province, the project's first TBM (hard rock tunnel boring machine), the "Jianghan Pioneer," is being assembled at full speed.

With a total weight of about 2,800 tons, this TBM is equipped with multiple innovative technologies such as advanced geological forecasting, cutter monitoring systems, jamming warnings and intelligent tunneling, bringing together the fruits of numerous research efforts and providing valuable practical experience for the subsequent iterative upgrading of TBM equipment.

"The remaining nine TBMs for the project are being manufactured at an accelerated pace, and five of them are expected to roll off the production line one after another before the end of the year, which will greatly speed up project construction," said Shanghai Feng, deputy general manager of Jianghan Water Network Construction and Development Co., Ltd. of China South-to-North Water Diversion Group.

Since the beginning of this year, a batch of major water conservancy projects such as the Yangtze-to-Han River Water Diversion Project have been accelerated, and a number of major water conservancy projects vital to long-term development have also broken ground, further speeding up the construction of the national water network. In the first three quarters of this year, China started construction on 37 major water conservancy projects, covering flood control projects, water supply projects, irrigation district projects and ecological protection and restoration projects, distributed across 18 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), with an investment scale of more than 220 billion yuan.

The comprehensive acceleration of water conservancy construction means more physical work volume has been generated and greater investment returns have been driven, injecting surging momentum into China's economic development. It is estimated that every 100 billion yuan invested in major water conservancy projects can boost GDP growth by 0.15 percentage points and powerfully drive the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains such as cement, steel and electromechanical equipment, playing a strong traction role in economic development.

On October 25, at the construction site of the Anhua Reservoir Capacity Expansion and Upgrade Project in Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, more than 20 construction vehicles were busy carrying out reservoir bottom excavation and dredging work. "We plan to purchase more than 500 tons of steel rebar and 60,000 cubic meters of concrete in the near future, and put in more machinery and manpower to fully speed up construction progress," said Yang Fuxiang, on-site construction manager of the Zhuji section (Bid Section 1) of the project.

This batch of raw material purchases is expected to bring more than 40 million yuan in growth points to upstream industries. Qi Xinlong, director of the Survey and Design Institute of the Zhuji Municipal Water Resources Bureau, introduced that the Zhuji section of the Anhua Reservoir Capacity Expansion and Upgrade Project started construction in June this year and is expected to complete investment of more than 600 million yuan by the end of the year.

"Through the implementation of the capacity expansion and upgrade project, the storage capacity of Anhua Reservoir will increase by 18.18 million cubic meters, which can effectively enhance the reservoir's flood control and flood detention capacity and safeguard high-quality economic and social development in Zhuji and Pujiang," Qi Xinlong said.

Stabilizing employment, promoting income growth

Harnessing and developing water resources to improve people's well-being

In late autumn, at the construction site of the Honghai Reservoir Risk Elimination and Reinforcement Project in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, more than 980 construction workers are deployed at various points of the project, racing against time to carry out construction.

"My home is nearby. I used to herd sheep here. I started working on the site in May and can earn more than 6,000 yuan a month; those who perform well can earn more than 8,000 yuan a month," said construction worker Yusup Mamat. Since construction began in March this year, the Honghai Reservoir Risk Elimination and Reinforcement Project has provided employment for 2,000 migrant workers in total.

Water conservancy projects, especially major ones, have the advantages of absorbing large investment, having long industrial chains and creating many jobs. Since the beginning of this year, the construction of the national water network has comprehensively accelerated, and the scale and progress of water conservancy infrastructure construction have exceeded the same period last year. Large-scale water conservancy infrastructure construction has created numerous jobs, especially absorbing as much rural labor as possible.

As of the end of September, water conservancy projects nationwide had absorbed 2.392 million people in employment this year, up 8.6% year on year. Among them, 1.948 million rural laborers were employed, up 11.5% year on year, and more workers have earned labor remuneration in water conservancy construction.

While fully playing the role of ballast and stabilizer in stabilizing growth and promoting employment, water conservancy construction is also continuously benefiting the people and injecting strong "water momentum" into high-quality economic and social development.

In June this year, sustained high temperatures caused the water storage of the Heihe Jinpen Reservoir, the main water source for Xi'an's water supply, to continuously decrease, but water use by Xi'an residents was not affected.

"During peak periods, the daily water supply of the Han-to-Wei River Water Diversion Project to Xi'an's main urban area exceeded 1.1 million tons, accounting for nearly half of the city's total water consumption," said Zhang Rongbin, deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Shaanxi Han-to-Wei River Water Diversion Project Construction Co., Ltd.

The continuous flow of Han River water passes through nearly 100 kilometers of the Qinling water conveyance tunnel and flows into thousands of households in Xi'an. After the Han-to-Wei River Water Diversion Project is fully completed and put into operation, the average annual water diversion volume can reach 1.5 billion cubic meters, benefiting 14.11 million people.

In safeguarding national water security, major water conservancy projects play an irreplaceable foundational role. "At present, the Yangtze-to-Huai River Water Diversion Project, the Han-to-Wei River Water Diversion Project and the Pearl River Delta Water Resources Allocation Project have been put into operation. A number of backbone water conveyance and drainage channels of the national water network, such as the Beibu Gulf Rim Water Resources Allocation Project and Phase II of the Huai River Sea-Entry Channel, as well as important node projects of the national water network such as the Yaojiaping Reservoir on the Qingjiang River, the Linhai Reservoir on the Mudanjiang River and the Fenghuangshan Reservoir on the Shuiyang River, are being accelerated," introduced Zhang Xiangwei, director of the Planning and Program Department of the Ministry of Water Resources. The construction of these projects will powerfully safeguard water supply security and flood control security in China's important economic zones, major urban agglomerations, energy bases, major grain-producing areas and key ecological function zones.

Shoring up weak links, benefiting the long term

Substantially raising the level of water conservancy infrastructure

On the Daqing River embankment in Jinghai District, Tianjin, the site of the Dongdian Flood Storage and Detention Area Flood Control Project and Safety Construction Project is bustling, with more than 100 construction workers and dozens of engineering vehicles carrying out embankment reinforcement work in an orderly manner.

Project manager Ma Yinhui introduced that since construction resumed after the flood season, the municipal water affairs department has strengthened scheduling, urged construction units to fulfill their duties, and at the same time anticipated adverse factors affecting autumn construction, increasing supervision, construction personnel and on-site machinery and equipment in advance to race against time on the schedule.

In the "23·7" basin-wide catastrophic flood of the Haihe River, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region was severely affected. During his inspection of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction work in Beijing and Hebei, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that after major floods and disasters, major construction and major governance must be carried out to substantially raise the level of water conservancy facilities and flood control facilities.

"The Ministry of Water Resources and the National Development and Reform Commission organized the compilation of the Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Improvement of the Haihe River Basin Flood Control System, and on August 30, the State Council executive meeting deliberated and approved the implementation plan," Wang Baoen introduced. The Ministry of Water Resources, together with the National Development and Reform Commission and relevant localities, follows the flood control governance principle of "storage upstream, diversion in the middle, drainage downstream, and effective flood management" to systematically advance the construction of the Haihe River Basin flood control system.

In improving the basin flood control engineering system, the Ministry of Water Resources takes the eight major river systems of the Yongding River, North Three Rivers, Daqing River, Ziya River and Zhangwei River as units, scientifically lays out the functional construction of reservoirs, river channels, embankments and flood storage and detention areas, and vigorously advances the construction of mountain flood control projects, river regulation and embankment compliance, and flood storage and detention area projects. Since the beginning of this year, water conservancy construction in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region has comprehensively accelerated, with Hebei completing more than 78.1 billion yuan in water conservancy construction investment in the first three quarters, up 53% year on year.

While "hard power" continues to improve, "soft power" is also continuously strengthening. Before this year's flood season, Beijing, benchmarking against first-class international standards, went all out to advance the construction of the "three lines of defense" for modern rainfall and water regime monitoring and forecasting in the Guanting-Shanxia section of the Yongding River. After practical testing over a flood season, Beijing successfully monitored and forecast 24 precipitation processes, assessing flood, mountain torrent disaster and waterlogging risk every one to three hours, and the construction of the "three lines of defense" initially achieved the dual goals of extending the flood forecast lead time and improving flood forecast accuracy.

"We will also accelerate the improvement of the flood disaster defense work system, and promptly build a responsibility implementation system that is smallest in unit, fully covering and rigorously effective; a decision support system that is scientific and professional, strongly supportive and quick to respond; and a scheduling and command system that is authoritative and unified, efficiently operated and tiered in responsibility," Wang Baoen said.

On November 6, during his inspection in Hubei, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that with less than two months left this year, all work, especially economic work, must be further tightened and implemented to strive to achieve the annual economic and social development goals. Water conservancy departments will firm up confidence, grasp the key points, continuously strengthen organization and promotion, ensure safe production, strengthen quality control, and vigorously advance water conservancy infrastructure construction, making water conservancy contributions to promoting the sustained recovery and improvement of the economy.