ZCZC
BCN-43
ADB-LOAN-CHINA-RIVER
ADB approves loan to protect China’s Yangtze River
MANILA, Sept. 19, 2018 (BSS/Xinhua) – The Asian Development Bank’s (ADB)
said on Tuesday that it has approved a 150-million-U.S. dollar loan to
protect a water basin of the Yangtze River.
The ADB said the loan for a complementary set of initiatives to improve
flood management, clean water supplies, and ecological conservation in the
Longxi River watershed is a key project under ADB’s new Yangtze River
Economic Belt Framework.
The Manila-based bank said the framework will provide around 2 billion
U.S. dollars over 2018 to 2020 to support the twin issues of economic and
environmental development in the upper and middle reaches of the river.
It supports the Chinese government’s focus on development along the
Yangtze River and continues ADB’s longstanding work in the area, the ADB
said.
“This project marks a new coordinated approach to managing the overlapping
issues of floods, water quality, and the ecosystem that could be replicated
throughout (China) and, indeed, elsewhere,” said Senior Water Resources
Specialist in ADB’s East Asia Department Rabindra Osti.
“The Longxi River watershed has suffered from some of the worst floods in
Chongqing municipality and only by addressing the issues together, can we
make the region safer and more prosperous over the long term,” Osti added.
According to the ADB, the Chongqing Longxi River Basin Integrated Flood
and Environmental Risk Management Project will finance flood mitigation and
preparedness measures including building ecological embankments, emergency
shelters and access roads.
“It will also install waste water management and water pollution control
measures, as well as restore wetlands and landscaping alongside rivers and
lakes. Importantly, each measure contributes to all three goals of managing
floods, water quality, and the ecosystem,” the ADB said.
In addition, the ADB said the project incorporates a set of new non-
structural measures so the local authorities are better prepared to
simultaneously tackle the three goals.
Among them, the ADB said the project will help the municipal government to
draw up a Longxi River flood and environmental risk management plan and
develop a flood and environmental risk footprint and accountability
mechanism.
“A river health monitoring system will provide real-time feedback to
municipality staff — a ‘river chief’ — who will be responsible for tracking
the well-being of the river basin. Local communities will also get help to
implement solid waste management and early flood warning systems,” the ADB
said.
The ADB said the measures applied through this project can be replicated
in other similar watersheds along the Yangtze River Basin and in other
countries in the Asia and Pacific region.
ADB’s loan will be supplemented with 228.67 million U.S. dollars in
funding from district and county governments in the project area in
southwestern China.
The project is part of ADB’s support to the Chinese government to help
build inclusive and sustainable growth along the Yangtze River Economic Belt,
an area encompassing nine provinces and two municipalities flanking the
China’s longest river.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/1425