China's Ningxia plans to double water conservancy investment in five years

Aerial photo taken on Aug. 5, 2021 shows the scene of Yellow River in Yesheng Town of Qingtongxia City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Wang Peng)

YINCHUAN, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region planned to pour 80.27 billion yuan (about 12.65 billion U.S. dollars) into water conservancy projects from 2021 to 2025, about 2.4 times that of the last five years, local authorities said.

Ningxia planned to invest in 37 major projects belonging to seven categories, including water resource allocation, flood control, disaster reduction and modernization of irrigation areas.

Ningxia aimed to increase the water-saving irrigation rate of farmland to 55 percent by 2025. To this end, the region planned to build 366,666.85 hectares of water-saving irrigation areas in the next five years.

Due to low precipitation and high evaporation, Ningxia faces severe water shortage, which is estimated to reach 1.42 billion cubic meters by 2030.