Boy in SOS Children's Village Yantai

September 14, 2010: China's swift economic growth has brought about a greater demand for water, resulting in crisis-level water shortages across the country.

According to CNN, 30-foot-deep cracks in the farm fields of Chifeng, a city in the southeastern part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, have delayed harvesting due to safety concerns. More than a quarter-million people in that city of 4.6 million lack sufficient amounts of drinking water.

Northern China, which holds more than 40 percent of the country's population but only 8 percent of its water, is especially affected. But cities like Chifeng are hardly alone in needing more water. In August, a network of cracks covered rice fields in Guizhou Province in China’s southwest. Hundreds of other cities in China face varying degrees of water shortages.

The demand for water comes from the growth in water-hungry industries, power plants, and personal consumption. A surge in affluence has increased water use through expanded numbers of bathrooms, washing machines, cars that need to be washed, and golf courses.

China’s government has for years been building a huge network of dams, reservoirs, and deep wells. A giant-scale project that will divert water from rivers in the south to the north is in the works. But water supply cannot keep up with need.

The Implications of Water Scarcity for China’s Vulnerable Children

Girl participating in a calligraphy class being held at SOS Children's Village Yantai

Shrinking water supplies affect everyone in China, but poor children and families in rural areas are most likely to feel the brunt. According to the World Bank, insufficient water pits rich against poor. As is the case in other drought-prone areas of the world, without a decline in water use or a rise in supply, China’s agriculture will be undermined and children will go hungry.

SOS Children’s Villages has provided food, warm homes, loving SOS mothers, education, and medical care to children in China since 1987. Of the ten SOS Children’s Villages in China, several are in the northern part of the country where water shortages are most acute.

The SOS Village in Yantai, Shandong Province, operates the largest SOS school in the world. Open since 1993, the model school holds 3,000 students, most of whom come from needy families outside the SOS-Yantai Children’s Village. SOS also runs Villages in Xinjiang, in China’s northwest; and in Tibet.

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