The drought, which lasted from summer to autumn, has affected over 80 percent farmland of the whole province, causing temporary drinking difficulties for 3.66 million people and 1.04 million heads of livestock and forcing more than 800,000 people to buy water or carry it from far away. The Jining section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has closed to navigation nearly 60 days, leaving millions of tons coal waiting to be shipped out. A batch of major reservoirs and lakes all dried up and the Binzhou City is facing a crisis of water shortage.

Besides, the drought also caused a series of problems threatening the ecological environment of the province, including worsened pollution, salinization and invasion of seawater.

Now the main rain season has passed and there is little chance for effective, large-scale raining, a provincial government official told. All projects across the province only hold 3.6 billion cubic meters of water, no more than half of that of previous years.

The level of underground water dropped continuously and 210,000 wells didn't yield enough water and, nearly 60,000 motor-pumped wells were simply empty. Water volume can be drawn from the Yellow River was currently reduced to 500 million cubic meters, against the total provincial holding capacity of 2.7 billion cubic meters. While 1.9 billion cubic meters are urgently needed for drought relief along the Yellow River and another 2.7 billion cubic meters are needed for autumn seeding.

(People’s Daily September 19, 2002)