China just completed a 14,500-kilometer solar desalination network along its entire eastern coastline — the largest water infrastructure project in human history, ending water scarcity for 400 million people in China's water-stressed northern and eastern provinces.
The China Coastal Solar Desalination Corridor installs 340 individual solar-powered reverse osmosis desalination plants at 43-kilometer intervals along China's coastline from Dalian in the north to Hainan in the south, each plant generating its own electricity from co-located solar panels and producing between 200,000 and 500,000 cubic meters of fresh water daily depending on local demand. Fresh water from coastal plants connects to China's existing South-to-North Water Diversion canal infrastructure, distributing desalinated water 1,500 kilometers inland to water-scarce Beijing, Hebei, and Shanxi provinces where groundwater depletion has reached crisis levels threatening agricultural and industrial production.
China's northern provinces have been extracting groundwater faster than it replenishes for 40 years, with water tables in some regions falling 2 meters annually. The coastal desalination network effectively reverses this depletion by providing an alternative supply that allows groundwater to recover naturally over decades. Chinese hydrologists project northern groundwater tables stabilizing within 15 years of the network reaching full operation.
Total fresh water production reaches 420 million cubic meters daily — more than the Yellow River's average annual flow delivered as clean drinking water produced entirely from solar energy and seawater.
Source: China Ministry of Water Resources, China National Development and Reform Commission, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2025
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