China has built the world's largest and most comprehensive water infrastructure system, with a water network covering 80.3% of the country's land area, weaving across the vast territory, an official from the Ministry of Water Resources said at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on Sunday to mark World Water Day. 

China has long faced a fundamental imbalance in water distribution. While areas north of the Yangtze River Basin account for 64% of the land, 46% of the population and 60% of farmland, they possess only 19% of the country's water resources, Wang Hao, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told China Media Group.

"The core mission of the national water network is to address this mismatch," Wang said. "It aims to optimize water allocation across time and space, ensuring better alignment between water resources and population, economic activity, farmland and energy distribution."

Wang noted that the South-to-North Water Diversion project has played a key role in supporting economic growth and ecological restoration in water-scarce northern regions.

At the same time, China's approach to water management is undergoing a technological transformation. Traditional reliance on experience is being replaced by "digital twin" system, which replicate entire river basins and water networks in digital environments. These systems enable integrated forecasting, early warning, simulation and contingency planning.

China has also shifted from isolated engineering solutions to holistic ecosystem governance, incorporating the protection of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts.

Looking ahead, to ensure the national water network better benefits the public, Wang said the key lies in deeply integrating the physical water network with the digital water network to achieve precise allocation and dynamic balance of water resources.