The total volume of water resources in
China leads the worlds. But water per capita is only a quarter of the world average.
China abounds in rivers and lakes. The major ones are Yangtze River, Yellow River,
Pearl River, Yarlung River and Songhua River. The major lakes include Dongting Lake,
Poyang Lake, Hongze Lake, Taihu Lake and Chaohu Lake. In a addition, there is a
large area of glaciers that are an important freshwater source.
Water resources of China are unevenly distributed. Generally speaking, there is
much more water in southeast than in northwest. The level of water resources descend
from southeast to northwest.
There is great disparity between Chinese different rivers runoof volumes. Yangtze
River is the largest in China with a length of 6,300 km. Its average runoff volume
is about 975.5 billion m annually. This amount is more than 1/3 of the country total,
ranking third place in the world, second only to Amazon River in South America and
Congo River in Africa. The second one in China is Pearl River. Its average runoff
volume is 336 billion m for many years. The third one is Yarlung Zangbo River, with
its average runoff amount reaching 139.54 billion m, Yellow River is the second
largest river in China, measuring 5,500 km long. But its runoff volume only rank
eighth in the country.
China also has rich subterranean hot water resources. Ther are more than 2,600 surface
hot spings across the country.
Reference data
In China many major cities, such as Beijing, Shenyang, Taiyuan and Xi'an use under-ground
water as their main water supply. Compared with surface water, underground water
has advantage like stable quantity, good quality, low temperature and convenient
for exploitation, etc.
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