The Yellow River flows through the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo/Ordos Release]

Inner Mongolia autonomous region, serving as an important ecological shield in China's northern area, is taking advantage of its water resources to contribute to local economic development and ecological civilization construction.

There are thousands of rivers and nearly 1,000 lakes in Inner Mongolia. From east to west, Inner Mongolia is home to six outflow water systems including the Yellow River and the Ergune River. The region has 54.60 billion cubic meters of water resources.

Despite its abundance of water, Inner Mongolia has a vast territory and the distribution of water resources is extremely uneven.

To resolve this, in 2014, Inner Mongolia established an indicator system for total water consumption control at the autonomous region, city and county levels, and distributed water from 28 rivers across leagues and cities.

In 2020 and 2021, a total of 114 million special funds were allocated to promoting groundwater for agricultural irrigation throughout the region, and full coverage of agricultural irrigation water metering is expected to be achieved in 2022.

Kerulun River meanders through Inner Mongolia's vast grasslands. [Photo/Ordos Release]

In addition, Inner Mongolia is making strong efforts to improve the efficiency of water resource utilization in various fields.

During the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP and 10,000 yuan of industrial added value decreased by 25 percent and 43.55 percent respectively from 2015, and the effective utilization coefficient of farmland irrigation water increased by 8 percent in the same period.

Additionally, Inner Mongolia continues to carry out ecological restoration.

In 2020, the region discharged 37 million cubic meters of ecological water into the main stream of the Xiliao River for the first time through water regulation.

The effects of water resource overload controls in the basin have begun to appear.

In 2020, the annual water consumption of the Xiliao River basin was reduced by 323 million cubic meters compared with 2018, and the lowering of the basin’s groundwater level has slowed down.

The Sanshenggong water conservancy project on the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia autonomous region [Photo/Ordos Release]