China News Service, Guangzhou, October 30. Title: A river with pearls and water connected to the Hao River, ten years of joint governance to nourish people's hearts
China News Service reporter Wang Jian
Where the Pearl River enters the sea, there is a sea of salty water that connects the daily lives of nearly 690,000 people in Macau. In 2016, the "Cooperation Arrangement on the Management of Water Conservancy Affairs in the Waters Near Macao" (referred to as the "Cooperation Arrangement") was signed between the Ministry of Water Resources and the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region. Water control in Guangdong and Macao has moved from "each managing one section" to coordinating river basins. Recently, the 12th meeting of the Joint Working Group on Water Conservancy Affairs Management in Water Areas near Macao was held in Guangzhou, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the signing of this cooperation arrangement.
Ten years ago, Macau's anxiety was very specific: it was surrounded by sea on three sides and lacked fresh water. When the salty tide came up during the dry season, the water flowing out of the tap could "make soup directly." Change begins with a boundary river. The Yayong River between Zhuhai and Macao used to be worse than Category V all year round, with black and smelly water and silted river channels. The two places have signed a collaborative management approach to discuss issues, share resources, and share responsibilities. Now the water quality has reached a stable level of Category III, and in some months it has been raised to Category II. The riverbank has become a waterfront promenade for residents to walk.
The confidence in the safety of water supply lies in the mountains further upstream. After the rare salty tide occurred on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2005, the "thousands of miles of water diversion to control the salty tide" changed from an emergency measure to a normal mechanism. Backbone reservoirs such as Longtan, Baise, and Dadengxia were rolled out step by step, building "three lines of defense" in the local area, near the ground, and far away. The Dadengxia Water Conservancy Project, which was constructed with a free assistance of NT$800 million from the Macao SAR government, passed the completion acceptance in June this year. This important node project of the national water network has compressed the response time for emergency water replenishment in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 10 days to the fastest three days. It has been dispatched for 22 consecutive years to "suppress salt water and replenish fresh water" to keep the salt tide out of Mo Dao Gate.
A network of water runs underground. The Pinggang-Guangchang raw water transmission project, the fourth water supply pipeline to Macao, and the second phase of the Pinggang Pumping Station have been put into operation one after another. The "multi-point linkage and mutual backup" pattern means that the water transmission from the Macao Peninsula to Cotai is no longer under pressure on a single line. At the same time, flood control plans for the Inner Harbor waterfront area and the west side of Coloane have been implemented one after another. Flood control standards in most areas of Macao have been improved, making up for the city's most vulnerable shortcomings.
The hands of water management also extend from engineering to data and standards. The Pearl River Commission and Macao share remote sensing, drones and buoy monitoring to carry out simultaneous hydrological tests covering the Pearl River Delta and estuaries; the mutual recognition of Bay Area standards has allowed for a common discourse on seawall ecology, microplastic monitoring, and high-quality drinking water quality. Dadeng Gorge has become a "drinking water and thinking about its source" classroom for young people from both places. More than a hundred batches of students and civil servants from Macau walked into the dam area and watched the clear water flowing into the Haojiang River.
Ten years of cooperation have managed the water and stabilized the city. Now that the new dry season is approaching, Guangdong and Macao are once again sitting at the same table—scheduling plans, water intake rhythms, and water conservation goals are all aligned one by one. The Pearl River flows forever, and the Haojiang River is not salty. Behind it is a set of cross-system, cross-basin, and cross-department co-governance logic.
