(Ecns.cn)--Nine more automatic monitoring stations for water quality will be built during the 12th Five-year Plan period (2011-2015) in Nanyang, a city in Central China's Henan Province that serves the middle route of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project, according to reports Monday.
All nine monitoring stations, together with the other three that have been set up already, will be used to assess the water quality of the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, the water source of the middle-route of South-to-North Water Transfer Project in China.
After 2014's flood season, the middle route of the water diversion project will come into service and drinkable water refined from the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region will be transferred to Beijing, according to Chu Dongfang, chief engineer of the environmental monitoring center in Nanyang.
"Water quality protection in the reservoir region will be the key objective for the following period," said a senior official from Xichuan County, Nanyang, where many monitoring stations will be built. And according to Wang, he is considering the introduction of the ability to protect the environment and water quality to the qualification assessment for officials.
The massive South-to-North Water Transfer Project is designed to take water from China's largest river, the Yangtze, to the country's arid northern regions. Water will flow northward via three routes—an eastern route, a middle route, and a western route.
