Town/City: 

Beijing

State/Province: 

Hubei

Country: 

China

Latitude/Longitude: 

39 50 N 116 20 E

Information supplied by

Lily Fung

96fungli@scar.utoronto.ca

12 Pettibone Square Scarborough Ont M1W 2J2

 

Dated Wed Dec 2 05:27:23 1998 

Information Topics:

City Description:

Beijing is the capital of the People's Republic of China, situated in the north-east of the country. It is the centre of cultural, political, business and financial activity of this rapid growing developing country. Beijing is an independent municipal district with a population of 12 million. The area of the city is 16808 square kilometres, stretching 160 km from east to west and over 180 km from north to south. There are 18 districts and counties in Beijing City, Dongcheng, Xicheung, Xuanwu and Chongwen are near the city, Chaoyang, Haidian, Fengtai and Shijingshan in the suburbs and Fungshan, Mengtongon, Changping, Tongxian, Shunyi , Daxing, Huairou, Miyun, Pinggu and Yianging in the outer suburbs. To the north-west, east and west, Beijing is surrounded by mountains, while the centre and southern part of Beijing is flat land.

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Climate:

Beijing has a continental temperate climate, with a cold, dry winter, and wet and warm summer. An air mass from Siberia passes Mongolia during winter bringing dry and cold air to the northern part of China. In the summer, warm and moist air from the ocean brings energy to the continent, causing precipitation. Precipitation averages 567. 2 mm, 574.4 mm falling on the mountainous region and 553.3mm falling on the flat land. In January, the temperature is as low as -4 °C, while July is the warmest, about 26° C. Average temperature in Beijing is 7° C.

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Basic Hydrogeology:

Beijing lies near the ocean with rivers discharging into the Yellow Sea. There are 5 river drainage systems running from east to west in the city, these are the Xau Canal with Sun River; the Chaubai System with Chau River, Bai River and Huai River; North Canal System and Daiching River System. Beijing is the meeting point of the zone of anticline of the Yinshang Folding system, NNE faulting zone of Taihang Mt., and the depressional area of the North China Plain. The folded area hosts various types of granite; the North China plain is a basin with Quaternary aged surficial deposits.

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Water Use:

Groundwater in Beijing is drawn both from the granite and the layer of Quaternary deposits of the North China Plain. The potable water is mostly supplied by 84 reservoirs of various sizes. The two most important ones are Gwanting and Mewan, which provide 6% of Beijing City's water use. Beijing began to mine groundwater in the 1960's, relatively earlier than the other cities. In 1961 - 1984, the extraction of groundwater was 1.9*10^9 cubic meters per year. 60% of water usage in China is supplied by groundwater.

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Groundwater Issues:

After the 1970s, rapid growth in industrial development and increase in population greatly increased the demand of water. Alongside with development, there is decreasing precipitation and increasing waste water from domestic and industrial sources. As surface water gets contaminated by improper wastewater disposal, water supply in Beijing depends more on groundwater as a water source.

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Groundwater Problems:

Because of the extensive use of groundwater, the water table has declined. This has resulted a total of 618 mm of subsidence in the north-east part of the city. Among the 5 river systems, there are 87 rivers contaminated at various levels.

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Solutions:

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References and Other Author(s):

"The World Atlas", Genuine Books and Stationary Co., Hong Kong, 1973.

Wang, Zhaoxin, Groundwater Resources Development and Utilisation in China, Neimenggu People
 Publishing House, China, 1992. (In Chinese)
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Contacts:

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