Photo: History of Qingmei Kan
Editor|Ome Kanshi
As everyone knows, since the implementation of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project on the mainland, the rational allocation of water resources has been basically realized, but the scale of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has not fundamentally solved the problem.
As a result, some researchers published a paper on "water transfer" on the Internet, and as soon as the news came out, it immediately caused an uproar. But the strange thing is why water transfer is getting so much attention?
Because what they propose is not to take water from the ground, but to use the "water" in the sky to build the "Tianhe Project". It is understood that once completed, the Tianhe project is likely to be a great miracle in the history of the world.
So, what is so special about the Tianhe project?
One of the biggest challenges is China's vast land and uneven distribution of water resources. This imbalance is manifested not only in rainfall, but also in river runoff.
If we symbolically represent the amount of runoff of rivers in terms of their width, then the rivers in southern China resemble thick tree trunks, while those in the north are as thin as thin lines.
Taking the Yangtze River and the Yellow River as examples, the water volume of the Yangtze River is as high as more than 930 billion cubic meters, accounting for more than 30% of the total number of rivers in the country. In comparison, the Yellow River, known as the "mother river", has only 50 billion cubic meters of water, which is nothing compared to it.
In fact, even the Yangtze River's major tributaries, such as the Yalong, Min, Han and Xiang rivers, have runoff comparable to those of the Yellow River. At the same time, representative rivers such as the Liao River, the Hai River, and the Tarim River are not comparable to the southern rivers in terms of annual runoff and total volume.
In order to solve this problem, Chairman Mao took the lead in proposing a grand idea of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project after inspecting the Yellow River and the Han River in 1952. The project was finally put on the agenda in 1958, with the aim of maximizing the interests of both the North and the South and making the most of every drop of water.
After thousands of field visits, the researchers finally determined the water diversion route with "four vertical and three horizontal" as the main layout. Through these routes, it is planned to transfer the abundant water resources from the south to the north in order to meet the water needs of the north and promote its economic development.
The three major trunk routes of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project are independent and can cooperate with each other according to the actual situation to flexibly provide the water resources needed by the north. You know, this hugely expensive project could bring benefits to 438 million people.
Although the South-to-North Water Transfer Project has largely alleviated the problem of water scarcity in the north, many people believe that this plan will not fundamentally solve the water dilemma in the north.
Therefore, since 2016, Chinese researchers have begun to explore a new idea called the "Tianhe Project". So what exactly is the "Tianhe Project"?
In fact, the Tianhe Project is a technology that aims to increase precipitation by changing the humidity distribution on the Earth's surface and in the nearby atmosphere. This is because there is a layer of aqueous gases above the earth's surface called the "atmospheric hydrosphere", in which some water molecules are converted into liquid or solid states and fall to the ground, forming precipitation.
However, it is usually only in certain areas where the air humidity is high enough for rainfall to occur. The purpose of the "Tianhe Project" is to break through this limitation and create a new precipitation environment for mankind.
Traditionally, large-scale cross-regional water transport has often relied on complex underground pipeline systems, which are not only costly, but also time-consuming and risky.
In contrast, the idea of the "Tianhe Project" is to use air circulation to transport water, which not only reduces the cost and difficulty of construction, but also avoids many geographical barriers and environmental constraints.
However, this is a highly innovative concept, which has aroused a lot of doubts in the international academic community and is considered an unrealizable project, but it still provides new ideas and directions for water control in China and even in the world.
In fact, many parts of the planet are facing severe water scarcity. Under such circumstances, if the "Tianhe Project" can succeed in practice, it will undoubtedly bring tangible benefits to these places.
However, the implementation of the "Tianhe Project" will also face various challenges, such as determining the most suitable location and timing for intervention, ensuring the safety and effectiveness of operations, and overcoming technical and economic difficulties.
In the past few years, the mainland has made important progress on many fronts. For example, the successful development of a new satellite can achieve real-time monitoring of atmospheric water vapor content and cloud distribution, and the development of a hypersonic rocket specially designed for artificial rain enhancement has also been put into use.
This shows that the mainland has reached the world's leading level in meteorological control technology, and has laid the foundation for the eventual realization of the "Tianhe Project."
But then again, we also need to establish a complete set of control systems, including weather prediction systems, automated transmission pipelines, new catalysts and other aspects. Only in this way can we deeply study the various mechanisms of the atmospheric-water cycle, so as to better understand its operating rules and formulate more scientific operation plans accordingly.
In fact, the concept of the "Tianhe Project" is not new, as early as the 60s of the last century, the United States began to study similar projects. Research projects funded by the U.S. government at the time aimed to change rainfall in certain areas by simulating and intervening in the weather through direct human manipulation.
Although the large-scale ground-level artificial rainfall experiment has been partially successful, due to the limitations of scientific and technological conditions, the final scale and effect of the project cannot achieve the desired effect.
In any case, the "Tianhe Project" and the "Sky Canal" represent people's yearning for a better life in the future, and are also one of the important driving forces of scientific and technological innovation. Despite the many unknowns and risks, we should not let that give up on our efforts.
For us, the "Tianhe Project" will be a rare opportunity to learn Xi and accumulate experience. As long as we continue to learn and Xi explore, we will be able to create more amazing scientific and technological achievements in the near future. We have reason to believe that with the continuous progress of scientific and technological means, human beings will eventually master the technology to change and control the weather.
When that day does come, the problems of drought and water scarcity will be solved. We also hope that our scientific research team can achieve better results in continuous practice and make greater contributions to the better future of mankind.
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