The water resources of China are affected by both severe water shortages and severe growing population and rapid economic development as well as lax environmental oversight have increased in a large scale the water demand and pollution. China has responded by measures such as rapidly building out the water infrastructure and increasing regulation as well as exploring a number of further technological solutions.

The South–North Water Transfer Project, also translated as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project is a multidecade infrastructure mega-project in China that ultimately aims to channel 44.8 cubic kilometers of fresh water each year from the Yangtze River in southern China to the more arid and industrialized north through three canal systems:The Eastern Route through the course of the Grand Canal; The Central Route from the upper reaches of Han River via the Grand Aqueduct to Beijing and Tianjin; The Western Route which goes from three tributaries of Yangtze River near the Bayankala Mountain to provinces like Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia.