Returning to the issue of water, an issue that concerns us more than any other in China, the article Province prepares for prolonged drought fight provides a lot of information about the conditions found in Shanxi:
Shanxi had only received 20.4 millimeters of rain since October 2008, the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters said.
In the corresponding four month period in 2007, the province received 49.7 millimeters of rain, 59 percent more.
A total of 2.07 million hectares of farmland across the mountainous province have been affected by the drought.
Not one of China’s most populated provinces, the issues that are faced by Shanxi are not only faced in other locations, but are issues that will reverberate through the wider economy (as the article Drought hurts vast wheat farmland in Chinasuggests).
Sadly, in reading the above article, it is striking to see just how little long this problem has existed:
An official survey indicates that as many as 72 counties have fallen victim to the drought, with 45 of them suffering enormous losses.