GUANGDONG Province will put an annual cap on water drawn from the Dongjiang River by cities on its banks — including Shenzhen and Hong Kong — to protect the river, the lifeline of the thirsty Pearl River Delta region.

Water drawn from the river will be capped at 10.664 billion cubic meters each year for the cities of Heyuan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong, an unnamed official with the provincial water resources authorities was quoted by Xinhuanet.com as saying yesterday.

No timetable was given but the official said work on a detailed plan was under way.

While the Dongjiang River can supply a total of 32 billion cubic meters of water a year, more than 33 million people living along the river depend on it for water and the demand exceeds availability because of the substantial economic growth over the past few years which has led to exploitation.

The new move is aimed at reducing pullution, protecting the watershed and improving the water quality of the river, the official said.

The Dongjiang is one of the three rivers in the Pearl River Delta region, which covers and area of 35,340 square kilometers.

About 70 percent of the water supplied to Shenzhen, which experiences chronic water shortages, comes from the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River, delivered by pipeline.

Each year, the Shenzhen Reservoir channels a total of 1.1 billion cubic meters of water from the Dongjiang River to Hong Kong.  (Li Jing)