The Middle Route of China’s South-North Water Transfer Just Finished Its Year

November 2 — According to the China South-to-North Water Diversion Group, as of 31 October the middle route of the project has completed its 2025–2026 water supply task, delivering 7.264 billion cubic metres for the year to Henan, Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin. The project serves 27 large and medium-sized cities along the route, benefiting nearly 118 million people.

This year, while guaranteeing supply at the canal outlets, the middle route used surplus water before and during the flood season to carry out ecological replenishment of 15 rivers and areas along the line — including the Qinghe, Jiayu, Fuyang, Qili and Zhi rivers — exceeding the summer concentrated replenishment plan set by the Ministry of Water Resources.

During the 2025–2026 ice period, the route supplied 1.648 billion cubic metres, 158 million more than planned, strengthening its ice-season delivery capacity and meeting the higher supply target.

With the 2025–2026 task complete, the group will move on to the 2026–2027 diversion task as planned.

The middle route draws water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir and flows entirely by gravity. Its main canal runs 1,432 kilometres; construction began in 2003 and water started flowing on 12 December 2014, with a designed annual diversion of 9.5 billion cubic metres. The project crosses the Yangtze, Huai, Yellow and Hai river basins, passing through Henan and Hebei before reaching Beijing and Tianjin.

The China South-to-North Water Diversion Group was established in 2020 — officially unveiled on 23 October 2020 — under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and is responsible for preliminary work, financing, construction and operation of the project.

On 13 October 2025, Engineering, a journal of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, published its “Top Ten Engineering Achievements 2025”, on which the middle route appeared alongside the Perseverance Mars rover, the Euclid space telescope and the DeepSeek open-source large language model.

As of May 2026, the first phases of the eastern and middle routes had diverted more than 88 billion cubic metres, benefiting about 195 million people in 48 large and medium-sized cities across seven provinces and municipalities; the middle route alone accounts for more than 78.2 billion cubic metres. Groundwater levels in receiving areas have generally recovered, with shallow and deep groundwater rising 3.76 and 7.65 metres respectively.

The improved ice-season capacity relies on digital twin technology: version 2.0 of the middle route’s digital twin can simulate the entire delivery process, cutting emergency drought-relief scheduling from seven days to two, and over the past three ice periods it has supplied more than 500 million cubic metres above plan.

Since water began flowing, the middle route’s quality has consistently met or exceeded Class II standards. Thanks to it, tap water hardness in Beijing has fallen from 380 to 120 milligrams per litre. Rivers that had run dry for years — the Yongding, Hutuo and Daqing — have reappeared through ecological replenishment, and Baiyangdian lake’s water quality has improved from worse than Class V to Class III.