The main structure of the Datengxia water resources management facility in Southwest China has been completed four months ahead of schedule, the Ministry of Water Resources said on Saturday.

The project, which is located in the Xijiang River, a tributary of the Pearl River, has eight power generation units, each with an installed capacity of 200,000 kilowatts. It can annually generate more than 6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

The ministry said the project is also expected to contribute to flood control, navigation, water resources allocation, and irrigation in the Pearl River Basin.

In cooperation with other reservoirs in the basin, the project can help Wuzhou, a city with a population of over 2.8 million in Guangxi, cope with once-in-a-hundred-year floods. Previously, the city was only able to withstand floods that occur once every 50 years.

The project also enables some cities in the Pearl River Delta to resist floods that happen once every two centuries.

Thanks to the project, vessels of up to 3,000 metric tons can now navigate in the Qianjiang River, a section of the Xijiang River, up from only 300 tons.

The ministry said the Datengxia facility will also provide strong support to rural vitalization, offering irrigation water to 80,000 hectares of farmland and addressing drinking water shortage for almost 1.4 million people in Guangxi.

The project has already played significant roles in the past three years when it was put into trial operation. For example, in June last year, it helped prevent and store about 700 million cubic meters of floodwater when the Xijiang River was hit by a flood. In the peak, it reduced water flow by 3,500 cubic meters per second.

To date, the power generators with the project have generated 11.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.

With a total investment of over 35.7 billion yuan, the Datengxia water resources management facility is a landmark project that will benefit millions of people in Southwest China.

By Hou Liqiang