South China's Guangdong province will earmark 4.4 billion yuan to reinforce 76 large- and medium-sized reservoirs and 1,218 small reservoirs in the coming three years.

The investment is meant for all the vulnerable reservoirs in the province by 2010.

"Many of the reservoirs in the province have been aging and a growing number of risks would crop up if those are not dealt with properly," noted Huang Baiqing, director of the provincial water resources department. "Our efforts aim at minimizing the risk of reservoir operation in time."

Huang said that most of the reservoirs in the province were built in the 1950s and 1960s and are not up to the quality standard compared to those built recently; and the extreme climate condition in Guangdong characterized by frequent typhoons and rainstorms has posed challenge to the safety of the reservoirs.

Guangdong began the reservoir reinforcement work in 2003. Ever since, the province has poured hefty capital input of 9.2 billion yuan for reinforcing 100 key large- and medium-sized reservoirs and 5,808 small ones.

Official statistics indicate that the province has 33 large reservoirs, 300 medium-sized ones and another 6,922 ones, with their cumulative storage capacity reaching 40.8 billion cubic meters.

He also added that the province will also continue efforts to deal with the illegal small hydropower plants while improving the mechanism for flooding prevention.

A total of 369 small hydropower plants found to have operated illegally have been rectified and given the go-ahead to resume operation. The figure accounts for 95.8 percent of all the 385 such power plants which would otherwise threaten the safety of 240,000 people in the province.

And 96 percent of the towns have set up flooding prevention institutions in the province.

Praising the efforts of the province's endeavors to guarantee the safety of reservoirs, E Jingping, vice minister of water resources said: "The provincial authorities' emphasis and great efforts on reservoir safety and the generous investment in the sector are what other regions can learn from.".

The vice minister urged related government departments nationwide to pay equal attention to the safety of aging reservoirs, newly constructed hydropower plants and related projects under construction and to improve the forecast and response mechanism as early as possible.

Editor: Yan