IRRIGATION

SYSTEMS
OF CHINA
BSCE-5B
Presented by: Ma. Ann-Giecel Torres
Researchers: Mary Roxanne V. Nebrija
Kristine C. Santos
Jennilyn C. Victorio

CHAIN PUMP
One of the inventions of greatest utility, which
has spread from China throughout the world,
so that its origins are no longer realized, is the
square-pallet chain pump.
it consists of an endless circulating chain
bearing square pallets which hold water,
earth, or sand.
The pump can haul enormous quantities of
water from lower to higher levels. Depending
on how well the pallets were fitted to avoid
leakage and on the sturdiness of the machine
as a whole, the height that water can be
raised by single pump is about fifteen feet.
The chain pumps spread throughout China
rapidly.
according to some historical articles, it could
have been invented around the first century
BC.
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WATER WHEEL
used in irrigation often times
originates from sources miles away
and sometimes uses tunnels,
aqueducts and canals that were
built over a 1000 years ago.
The water flowing in and out is
regulated by a complex process
that has been fine tuned over the
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DUJIANGYAN IRRIGATION SYSTEM

Is located on the middle reaches of Minjiang River
in the western part of Chengdu Plain and to the
west of Dujiangyan City
It is the oldest and most famous water
conservancy project in China, and the only oldest
extant grand water conservancy project featuring
the method of drawing water without a dam in
the world
It dates back to 256 B.C. during the Warring
States period, when the local governor Li Bing set
up an irrigation scheme to harness the
devastating floods caused by the Minjiang River.
The principal part of the irrigation system lies in
its head, mainly consisting of three main parts:
- Fish Mouth Levee (Yuzui)
-Flying Sand Weir (Feishayan)
-Bottle-Neck Channel (Baopingkou)
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DUJIANGYAN IRRIGATION SYSTEM

o Feishayan or Flying Sand Weir
It has a 200 m-wide opening that
connects the inner and outer
streams.This ensures against
flooding by allowing the natural
swirling flow of the water to drain
out excess water from the inner to
the outer stream. The swirl also
drains out silt and sediment that
failed to go into the outer stream. A
modern
reinforcedconcreteweirhas
replaced Li Bings original weighted
bamboo baskets.
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DUJIANGYAN IRRIGATION SYSTEM

o Yuzui or Fish Mouth Levee
It is named for its conical head that is said
to resemble the mouth of a fish, is the key
part of Li Bings construction. It is an
artificialleveethat divides the water into
inner and outer streams.The inner stream
is deep and narrow, while the outer
stream is relatively shallow but wide. This
special structure ensures that the inner
stream carries approximately 60% of the
rivers flow into the irrigation system
during dry season. While during flood, this
amount decreases to 40% to protect the
people from flooding. The outer stream
drains away the rest, flushing out much of
the silt and sediment.
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DUJIANGYAN IRRIGATION SYSTEM

o Baopingkou or Bottle-Neck Channel
Bottle-Neck Channel, which Li Bing
gouged through the mountain, is the
final part of the system. The channel
distributes the water to the farmlands
to the west, the narrow entrance that
gives it its name, works as a check
gate, creating the whirlpool flow that
carries away the excess water over
Flying Sand Fence, to ensure against
flooding.

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IRRIGATION SYSTEMS OF CHINA BY GRP. 6

GRAND CANAL SYSTEM

represents a remarkable achievement of
imperial Chinese hydraulic engineering
the system totaled about 2,500 kilometers
with Beijing at its northernmost extension,
Hangzhou at its southernmost point and
Luoyang at its easternmost point
This was mainly achieved by linking two of
China's most important river basins, the
Yellow River (Huang He) and the Yangtze
River (Chang Jiang)
To insure safe circulation, a system of locks
(the Chinese are attributed to the first lock
ever built in 983), feeder lakes and lateral
canals was constructed.
It is however south of the Yangtze Delta
that the density of the canal system was
the highest
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GRAND CANAL SYSTEM

. A major change in the course of
the Yellow River in 1855 cut the
Grand Canal in two sections. By
the first half of the 20th century,
the canal was no longer
functioning in a coherent manner.
Today, the canal is about 1,700
kilometers in length and is still
heavily used in the Yangtze delta
The canal thus offers an
alternative to move ponderous
goods which otherwise could not
be handled effectively by China's
transport system.
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HONGQI CANAL
It is also known as Red Flag Canal.
It serves as a canal and irrigation
system in northern Henan and in
Shanxi provinces, eastern China
It is constructed in 196069, to irrigate
the poor and infertile area of Linxian
county (now Linzhou municipality) in
the foothills of the Taihang Mountains
west of Anyang.
The system irrigates some 100,000
acres or 40,000 hectares
It supports 14 hydroelectric stations
that supply power to local coal-fueled
industries, producing cement, fertilizer,
iron, and steel for local consumption.
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LING CANAL
It is located at the northern part of
the Zhuang Autonomous Region of
Guangxi, southeastern China
It was constructed to connect the
headwaters of the Xiang River,
flowing north into Hunan province,
with the Li River, one of the
headwater tributaries of the Gui
River, which is a tributary of the Xi
River leading eventually to
Guangzhou (Canton). Near the city
of Xingan in northern Guangxi,
these two rivers are separated by
a low divide broken by a saddle.
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TURPAN WATER SYSTEM

It is located in the Turpan Depression,
Xinjiang, China
karez - well
Turpan's karez water system is made up of
a horizontal series of vertically dug wells
that are then linked by underground water
canals to collect water from the watershed
surface runoff from the base of the Tian
Shan Mountains and the nearby Flaming
Mountains.
The canals were built to store the water
and control the amount of water flow
In Xinjiang, the greatest number of karez
are in the Turpan Depression, where today
there remain over 1100 karez and
channels having a total length of over
5,000 kilometers or 3,100 mi.
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LONGJI TERRACES
It is located in Longsheng, China
It was formed gradually since the
Yuan Dynasty and ended during
the midperiod of Qing Dynasty.
It is called "The champion of the
terrace world".
The highest tier is 880m (2900 ft.)
above the river while the lowest is
380m (1250 ft.) in elevation

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GREAT JINJIANG LEVEE

Some experts believe that one of
the places most vulnerable to a
catastrophic flood is the Jinjiang
Levee, which runs along the
Yangtze in its middle reaches. The
levee protects some seven million
people, and one estimate has it
that 500,000 could be killed if the
levee were breached in the
daytime and that one million could
die if it occurred at night, when
people were sleeping.

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QUEPI IRRIGATION PROJECT

Located in southern Shouxian County in
present-day Anhui Province
It is the earliest recorded irrigation
channel project in China as well as the
most famous irrigation project in the
Huaihe River Basin in ancient times.
According to legend, the construction of
the project was headed by Sunshu Ao, a
court minister serving the Administration
of King Zhuang of Chu (598 - 591 BC) in
the Spring and Autumn Period.
The project was renamed Anfeng
Reservoir after the Sui and Tang
Dynasties. It still plays a significant role
today.
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HAN CONDUIT
Otherwise known as "the Han Canal",
China's first-ever artificial canal
connecting the Yangtze River and the
Huaihe River.
Dug in 486 BC by the Wu State,
The Han Conduit initially channeled
the Yangtze River at the south of
Yangzhou City into Sheyang Lake in
the northeast via Gaoyou in the
north, and then ran northwestward
into the Huaihe River in Huai'an. The
conduit changed its course in the Sui
Dynasty, continuing to play a vital
role in the water system.
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ZHENGGUO CANAL
It was built as a large-scale irrigation
canal in 246 BC, the first year of
Emperor Qinshihuang's reign.
The construction was commissioned
by Emperor Qinshihuang after he
adopted the suggestion of the State
of Han.
The canal was named after its
builder Zheng Guo, a hydraulic
engineer from the Han State. It's
over 150 kilometers long,
channeling the Jingshui River from
the west into the Luoshui River in
the east.
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QIN CANAL
Located in the Ningxia Plain to the
east of the Yellow River,
Qin Canal was named after the Qin
Dynasty, when it was dug.
With an outfall at northern
Qingtong Gorge, Qin Canal
channeled the Yellow River
northeastward to Lingwu City via
Wuzhong City.

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LONGSHOU CANAL
the first underground canal in
Chinese history.
Built during the reign of Emperor
Wu of Han,
the canal channeled the Luoshui
River at Zhuangtou Village of
present-day Chengcheng County in
Shaanxi to present-day Pucheng,
Dali Counties and the vicinity for
farmland irrigation.

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LINGQU CANAL
Locatedin Xingan County, north of Guilin,
is a great ancient water conservancy
project in Chinese history.
It was built over 2,000 years ago during
the reign of the First Emperor of the Qin
Dynasty (B.C.221- 206).
The canal enjoys equal fame with Sichuan
Dujiang Weir, and Shanxi Zhengguo Canal
It is the oldest contour canal in the world.
It is said that this unique landscape is
described as there is theGreat Wall in
the north and the Lingqu Canal in the
south. The canal has been listed on the
UNESCO World Heritage Sites Tentative
List.
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JIANHU LAKE
Located in the southwest of today's
Shaoxing in Zhejiang,
the Jianhu Lake is commonly known as "a
lake covering 800 li", which gives you a
sense of how broad it was in the early
times.
In 140 AD, the fifth year of Yonghe Period in
the Eastern Han Dynasty, Ma Zhen, the
prefecture chief of Kuaiji (present-day
Shaoxing) mobilized workers to build a
dyke to accumulate water from 36 sources
in Shanyin and Kuaiji Counties.
The lake was named Jianhu Lake. Because
of this, areas like Shaoxing were free from
floods for over 800 years and more than
9,000 hectares of farmland were properly
irrigated.
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JIANGHAN DYKE
Located in Xiangfan of Hubei
Province,
first built in the Han Dynasty and
rebuilt during the Three Kingdoms
Period.
According to historical documents,
renovations were made to the
dyke in the Eastern Jin and
Southern Liang Dynasties. Today,
Jianghan Dyke is a key protection
for keeping floods away from the
Jianghan Plain.

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THE KANER WELL

an extremely old form of horizontal water
collection construction developed to exploit
the underground water.
Applicable at foothills and alluvial cones,
it is used mainly to draw underground water
for the irrigation and drinking.
There are nearly 1000 Kan'er wells in Turpan,
stretching a distance of about 5000 km.
In Uygur, kan'er is pronounced as
"kan'ermei".
The Kan'er wells currently existing in Turpan
were mostly built in the Qing Dynasty. Today
they are still irrigating vast stretches of
fertile oases. Wudaolin Kan'er well and Five
Star Township Khanat in the suburbs of
Turphan are accessible to tourists.
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XIMEN CANAL
After punishing the corrupt
officials, Ximen Bao mobilized
people to dig 12 canals, drawing
water from the Zhanghe River to
irrigate farmland. The completion
of the canals not only thoroughly
tackled the flood problem, but also
brought bumper harvest to
farmers every year. Local people
then led a wealthy life with ample
food and clothing.
These canals were called Ximen
Canals by later generations.
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YINDARUQIN IRRIGATION PROJECT

The Yindaruqin Irrigation Project is the largest self-flowing
irrigation control system in China. The project is made up
of 33 tunnels that are 75 km (46.6 mi) in length and
divert water from the Datong River to dry regions of
Chinas northern Gansu Province.

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South - North Water Transfer Project

This government-backed, grandiose
undertaking aims to move billions of cubic
meters of fresh water from the south of China,
where water is relatively plentiful, to the north
where theres a shortage.
The plan includes an East, Central and
Western corridor.
Since the supposed announcement of the
project by Mao Zedong in the early 1950s, a
national water supply system has only been
on the books until recently when the dream
has become a reality in the form of the largest
and most expensive water supply system in
the world
. While China is able to afford these projects
now, in terms of money and political power,
its questionable if it will be able to finish by
2050, its slated final date of completion.
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South - North Water Transfer Project

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TRACE IRRIGATION
Invented by the businessman Zhu
Jun
This system uses PV pipes, buried
a foot or even deeper in soil. The
pipes get narrower, and narrower,
until theyre like thin straws, with
something that looks like a tiny
showerhead at the end, with little
white threads coming out of it.
These pipes are buried in the soil
and the plant sucks the moisture it
needs from these threads.
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DRY WATER
Invented by the
businessman Zhu Jun
encasing water droplets
in silicon. A couple of
pounds of the stuff is
enough to grow a tree in
a desert for 100 days

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THE
END
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