Recently, most of 57 large and medium reservoirs in Hebei Province are operating under the flood precaution line, with stored water less than normal water volume. It is suggested that local government should take measures against possible drought while preventing the flood.
After the reinforcement, Huangbizhuang Reservoir can store water 50 million cubic meters more than past years, with the precaution line rising to 115 meters from 114 meters. Since no large runoffs pass through the upper reaches of the river course, the reservoir has not enough supplements. Now the water level only keeps at 114.5 meters. The 50 million cubic meters of water is very precious, since it accounts for a relatively large proportion of the annual water supply of Shijiazhuang.
Until now, all the large and medium reservoirs have stored only 1,900 million cubic meters of water. Of them, large-sized reservoirs store less than 1,500 million cubic meters of water. Along with the falling water level of many large reservoirs, Gangnan reservoir has store just 300 million cubic meters of water, with the water level being 5 meters less than the precaution line. It is known that billions of cubic meters of storage capacity still can be exploited in Hebei provincial reservoirs. Each year, the rainfall in flood season represents 80 percent of that in the whole year. Therefore, it is necessary to take measures against drought, since the flood season in this year is ending.
(Hebei.com .cn August 25, 2004)
