China is facing an extreme water shortage as the Yongding River and 27,000 other rivers across the country have dried up, prompting an environmentalist to warn that some cities could run out of water.

To address the impending severe water shortage crisis, China plans to spend almost $80 billion that would build 2,700 miles of waterways. The length is similar to the distance between New York and Los Angeles, reports CBS News.

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The project aims to connect existing bodies of water to allow the southern part of the country, where four-fifths of China's fresh water could be found, to provide water to the north. The South-North Water Diversion Project, when operational, would move 44.8 billion cubic meters of water yearly from three canals from the south to the north.

However, it would mean about 350,000 people would have to be relocated.

The Eastern and Central Canals are functioning now, but the Central Canal, which has been completed recently, would not fill the shortfall in water supply of capital city Beijing where demand keeps on increasing.

Environmentalist Ma Jun said the project is a short-term emergency measure since it would only help buy some time. He said the current volume of water transfer would not be sufficient to fill the gap since water consumption is expected to peak at 670 billion cubic meters annually by early 2020 but water resources have been declining by 13 percent since 2000.

China's renewable internal freshwater resources is placed by the World Bank at 2,071 cubic meters per capita, which is below the UN definition of water scarcity of 1,000 cubic meters per capita. But the problem is the country's water resources are inequitably distributed. However, in the north, the water supply is only 200 cubic meters per person.

Almost 70 percent of the country's water is used by agricultural sector and 20 percent by the coal industry.

TagsChina drought