To dispatch and sluice the 3 billion cubic water resource in the province and prevent land sinkage, water conservancy experts in Hebei Province are proposing plans for building an underground reservoir.

Liu Keyan, a chief engineer of Hebei Water Resource Survey Bureau, says that compared with using land surface reservoirs, it is cheaper to use underground reservoirs to dispatch river water. Liu says due to a long-term exploration of underground water, there have been a lot of underground funnels in Hebei and this has provided a great advantage for building underground reservoirs.

Liu says that in addition to lower costs, underground reservoirs can also help increase water supply as evaporation is much smaller than that of on-ground reservoirs. Shijiangzhuang, the capital city of Hebei Province, is planning to use Hutuohe riverway to build an underground reservoir.

The constant exploration of underground water has caused a lot of land sinkage in Hebei. Statistics from local media show that there are 482 cracks in the Hebei Plain, which has affected up to 70 counties and cities.