Today (March 8), the second "Minister Channel" of the Third Session of the 14th National People's Congress was held in the Great Hall of the People. Minister of Water Resources Li Guoying accepted an interview with reporters.

Li Guoying said that in order to strive to maintain the healthy life of rivers and lakes and make them a happy river and lake that benefit the people, the Ministry of Water Resources mainly focuses on three things.

First focus on water conservation, adhere to the principle of water conservation priority, strengthen the rigid constraints on water resources, implement the regulations on water conservation, and implement national water-saving actions. Establish and improve systems and policies for agricultural water conservation and efficiency improvement, industrial water conservation and emission reduction, and urban water conservation and loss reduction. Vigorously improve the ability to save and intensively utilize water resources, so that the intensity of water resource development and utilization does not exceed the carrying capacity of rivers and lakes, and achieve water return to rivers. In the past 10 years, my country's GDP has increased by nearly 10 times, and the total national water use has achieved zero growth.

Second focus on allocation, make every effort to implement major national water network projects, integrate the construction of provincial, municipal and county water networks, and systematically promote the optimal allocation network of water resources, so that water can be available in water-scarce areas, improve the water resource carrying capacity of rivers and lakes, and achieve water replenishment in rivers. For example, the first phase of the South-to-North Water Diversion East-central Line project has transferred 78.8 billion cubic meters of water to the north, with a beneficiary population of more than 185 million.

The third focus is on restoration, coordinate the upstream and downstream of the basin, left and right banks, and main and tributary rivers, taking into account the above and below ground, strengthen the river and lake chief system, and promote the ecological protection and restoration of rivers and lakes. Strengthen comprehensive management of groundwater over-exploitation and carry out soil and water conservation ecological construction. In particular, vigorously implement the "Mother River Recovery Action" to ensure the ecological flow of rivers and lakes.

The Grand Canal of Beijing-Hangzhou has been cut off for a hundred years, and now it has been fully connected for three consecutive years;

The Yongding River has been cut off for 26 years, and now it has been fully connected for four consecutive years;

The situation where all rivers in the Haihe River Basin are dry and all water is polluted has been fundamentally reversed.

The maintenance of rivers and lakes and rivers and lakes only in progress and not in completion. The Ministry of Water Resources will persist in doing a good job in ecological protection and management of rivers and lakes, so that more and more rivers and lakes will become happy rivers and lakes that benefit the people.