Landmark water project completes ahead of schedule

The project also enables some cities in the Pearl River Delta to resist floods that happen once every two centuries.

Thanks to the project, vessels of up to 3,000 metric tons can now navigate in the Qianjiang River, a section of the Xijiang River, up from only 300 tons.

The ministry said the Datengxia facility will also provide strong support to rural vitalization, offering irrigation water to 80,000 hectares of farmland and addressing drinking water shortage for almost 1.4 million people in Guangxi.

The project has already played significant roles in the past three years when it was put into trial operation. For example, in June last year, it helped prevent and store about 700 million cubic meters of floodwater when the Xijiang River was hit by a flood. In the peak, it reduced water flow by 3,500 cubic meters per second.

To date, the power generators with the project have generated 11.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

With a total investment of over 35.7 billion yuan, the Datengxia water resources management facility is a landmark project that will benefit millions of people in Southwest China.