Data recently released by the Ministry of Water Resources shows that in the first three quarters, 24,900 new water conservancy projects of various types were started nationwide, a year-on-year increase of 12.9%; total investment reached 1.15 trillion yuan, up 8.9% year on year; and water conservancy projects employed 2.212 million people, up 5.7% year on year. In the first three quarters, the number of newly started water conservancy projects, the investment secured and completed, and the number of people employed all achieved significant growth on top of the high base of the same period last year, playing an important role in promoting sustained improvement of people's livelihoods, continuously improving social expectations, and sustained economic recovery.

Project construction continues its sound momentum
On September 8, the construction mobilization meeting for the Beibu Gulf Rim Guangxi Water Resources Allocation Project was held simultaneously in four locations: Hepu County of Beihai City, Binyang County of Nanning City, Lingshan County of Qinzhou City, and Fumian District of Yulin City in Guangxi. As machinery sounded at the four construction start points, this major inter-regional, inter-basin water diversion project officially entered the construction and implementation stage.
According to reports, the construction task of the Beibu Gulf Rim Guangxi Water Resources Allocation Project is to supply water for urban and rural domestic and industrial use to key cities such as Nanning, Beihai, Qinzhou, and Yulin, improve water supply security capacity, and create conditions for improving agricultural irrigation and the water ecological environment.
Deng Changqiu, director of the Water Resources Department of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said that once the project is completed, it will resolve water supply problems for regional cities and important industrial parks, and effectively guarantee the water demand of 34 industrial parks and key enterprises, including the Nanning Airport Economic Demonstration Zone.
In the third quarter, major water conservancy projects began construction, including the Beibu Gulf Rim Guangxi Water Resources Allocation Project, the Wenchaojian River Project in Beijing, and the safety construction project for the Zhuhu-Huanghu-Fangzhou Xietang Flood Storage and Detention Area in Jiangxi Province. Since the beginning of this year, a total of 35 major water conservancy projects have started construction, covering various project types such as water diversion, flood control, irrigation, and ecology, with the number remaining at a high level.
Newly started and under-construction projects have achieved notable results, and the benefits of completed projects are beginning to emerge. The Pingtan and Minjiang Estuary Water Resources Allocation Project in Fujian and the Huaqiao Reservoir in Jiangxi have been completed one after another; the construction of the eastern lake area of Nansi Lake in Shandong and the flood control and safety construction of the Yueliangpao Flood Storage and Detention Area have passed completion acceptance and transitioned to the operation and management stage, and will deliver project benefits in safeguarding flood control security and water supply security.
Wang Shengwan, director of the Water Conservancy Project Construction Department of the Ministry of Water Resources, said that since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Water Resources has earnestly implemented the Outline of the National Water Network Construction Plan and accelerated the promotion of major water conservancy project construction, and the third quarter has continued the sound momentum of major water conservancy infrastructure construction seen since the start of the year. Entering the fourth quarter, the Ministry of Water Resources will, together with relevant departments and local governments, carefully organize implementation, strengthen scheduling and consultation, enhance quality control, and ensure safe production, so as to ensure the completion of all annual targets and tasks for water conservancy construction.

Irrigation water is guaranteed
Water conservancy is the lifeblood of agriculture. China's climate characteristics and basic water conditions determine that a bumper and abundant agricultural harvest cannot be achieved without irrigation guarantees.
At present, the autumn harvest is nearing its end. Chen Mingzhong, director of the Rural Water Conservancy and Hydropower Department of the Ministry of Water Resources, told reporters that, centering on safeguarding national food security, the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs have established a coordinated working mechanism, taking large and medium-sized irrigation districts as units and, in accordance with the requirements of precise scope, precise targets, precise timing, and precise measures, making every effort to guarantee irrigation water, thereby providing solid water conservancy support for bumper grain harvests.
According to statistics, this year's spring, summer, and autumn irrigation has supplied more than 290 billion cubic meters of water in total. To accelerate the progress of irrigation district project construction, the Ministry of Water Resources has allocated 38.8 billion yuan in investment, including 21.3 billion yuan of central funds, to support the construction and renovation of 598 large and medium-sized irrigation districts, with the investment scale increasing by 7 percentage points over last year.
At present, the modernization and renovation of irrigation districts is being advanced in an orderly manner. As an important component of smart water conservancy construction, digital twin irrigation districts are not only an important measure for improving the level of water conservation and intensive use and enhancing grain production capacity, but also an important path for advancing the modernization of irrigation districts.
Deepening the comprehensive reform of agricultural water pricing and promoting the transformation of agricultural water use from extensive to conservation-intensive is an important part of building modern irrigation districts. In May this year, the first batch of pilot projects for deepening the comprehensive reform of agricultural water pricing and advancing modern irrigation district construction was officially launched, including 11 pilot irrigation districts and 10 pilot counties and districts. Under the "one-on-one" tracking and guidance mechanism, agricultural water prices in all cases have been subjected to cost calculation according to new requirements; 14 pilot locations have secured 3.4 billion yuan in financial and social capital; and 18 provinces have organized provincial-level pilot construction. The relevant pilot experiences will all provide replicable and scalable models for optimizing the water resources allocation pattern and improving water resources carrying capacity.
"After entering September, irrigation district projects have ushered in a 'golden period' for construction, and investment completed in irrigation districts in the third quarter was significantly faster than in the first two quarters," Chen Mingzhong said. The national farmland irrigation development plan is currently being accelerated, and has been fully aligned with the high-standard farmland construction and the new round of the action plan to boost grain production capacity by 100 billion jin; moreover, in conjunction with water network project construction, the development scale, quantity, and regional layout of irrigation area have been studied and proposed, and a batch of large, medium, and small irrigation district projects has been reserved. Next, project implementation will be actively advanced and construction will begin as soon as possible.

Investment scale hits a new high
Funding guarantees are the foundation for carrying out large-scale water conservancy facility construction. In the first three quarters, both the water conservancy construction investment secured and the water conservancy construction investment completed nationwide set record highs for the same period in history, among which 102.6 billion yuan of social capital investment was secured, up 25.6% over the same period last year.
"Starting from March, monthly completed investment in water conservancy infrastructure construction has basically remained above 100 billion yuan, laying a solid foundation for completing the annual targets and tasks," said Zhang Xiangwei, director of the Planning and Programming Department of the Ministry of Water Resources. He stated that water conservancy departments have proceeded from three aspects—securing funds, starting projects, and removing bottlenecks—to ensure the smooth progress of water conservancy infrastructure construction.
A series of funding guarantee measures have been introduced one after another. On the one hand, water conservancy departments at all levels have actively sought increased public financial input for water conservancy construction. In the first three quarters, financial departments at all levels secured 607.8 billion yuan for water conservancy construction, an increase of 10.5 billion yuan over the same period last year. On the other hand, they have deepened water conservancy investment and financing reform, guided local water conservancy departments and project legal persons to do a good job in project reserves, improve project repayment mechanisms, strive to apply for local government special bonds, actively make good use of policies for financial support of water conservancy, and increase financial input. In addition, through franchising, government purchase of services, and other methods, they have actively attracted social capital to participate in water conservancy construction.
Advancing project preliminary work ahead of schedule is an important measure for guaranteeing construction scale and progress. Zhang Xiangwei introduced that since the end of last year, water conservancy departments began planning new projects to start this year in advance, implemented list-based management, tracked and scheduled them monthly, and tracked and reported major projects weekly. For major water conservancy projects, they have proactively communicated and coordinated with departments including development and reform, natural resources, ecology and environment, and forestry and grassland, and conducted joint consultations to resolve difficult issues such as land use, environmental impact assessment, and project approval link by link.
To ensure the smooth progress of projects, key links such as project implementation progress and investment completion cannot be ignored. Since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Water Resources has organized 19 scheduling consultations, strengthened guidance for areas with slow progress, put forward clear requirements, and consolidated work responsibilities, so as to accelerate construction progress and generate more physical work volume on the premise of ensuring quality and safety.
Chen Min, vice minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, said that next, the Ministry of Water Resources will make every effort to advance water conservancy infrastructure construction in the fourth quarter, strive to start another batch of major water conservancy projects, accelerate the repair of water-damaged water conservancy facilities and post-disaster reconstruction, and ensure that completed investment in water conservancy construction for the whole year exceeds last year's level. At the same time, it will plan next year's water conservancy infrastructure construction work in advance, and contribute greater strength to promoting effective qualitative improvement and reasonable quantitative growth of the economy.