Chronic droughts plague important agricultural regions like
Shandong province, which produces most of China's grain. For Guo
Peiyuan, general manager at SynTao, a Beijing-based corporate
sustainability consulting firm, the problem is close and
personal. "I was born in a farmer's family in southern China,
and there are a lot of rivers there," he recalled. "When I was a
child we could swim in the river. But as I grew up in the 1990s,
a lot of factories came in. One summer vacation I went to my
hometown, and my mother told me that the local farmers would not
use the water for the crops because water was polluted, and the
vegetables would die." Stories like Guo's are common. Citizens
lodge not-in-my-background public protests amid fears of
industrial pollution. In October, for instance, thousands of
residents protested in Ningbo, a thriving coastal city, and
forced local officials to shelve plans to expand a chemical
plant. Such successes are still rare, and experts worry the
water crisis is going to worsen in ye