LANZHOU, May 25 (Xinhuanet) -- According to an ancient Chinese myth, once there were ten suns in the sky and the heat scorched the earth and dried up people's blood. An hero named Houyi rose bravely and shot down nine of them with his magic arrows.

    Today, in face of the severe droughts, people in northwest China once again raise their heads toward the heaven, trying to find answers like their legendary ancestor. But their target is no longer the sun and the arrows which have been changed to the artificial precipitation shells.

    "People exert their influences to the climate and harvest the rainfalls from the juicy clouds on the heaven," said China Meteorological Bureau expert Zhang Qiang on Wednesday at the ongoing International Symposium on Arid Climate Change in Lanzhou,capital of northwest China's arid Gansu Province.

    "It is a very effective way to solve the enduring droughts in west China's vast unwatered areas," he said.

    Zhang and his Lanzhou Arid Climate Research Institute are now engaging themselves into an ambitious "heaven water seeking program," a part of the Ministry of Science and Technologies' WestDevelopment Scientific and Technological Program Package.

    Started at the end of 2004, the program is to research the cloud resources in the air above the Qilianshan Mountain in the province and provide solutions on exploiting the air water resources.

    The experts said the very aim of the program is to increase themountainous area precipitation by 10 to 15 percent.

    The maximum precipitation in the province's mountainous area is600 mm, according to the statistics of Zhang's institute.

    "If the program goes smoothly, it will bring 370 million cubic meters more water to the Qilianshan Mountain and the continental rivers of the nearby Hexi Corridor in Gansu," Zhang said. "This will greatly improve the environment of the areas and create a profit of 600 million yuan (about 72.6 million US dollars)."

    "China defines the water conservancy holding more than 100 million cubic meters of water to be large-scale reservoirs and the program will bring nearly four large-scale reservoirs to the province," said Senior Engineer Qi Xinhui from the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters, which is believed to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the program.

    As a matter of fact, the "heaven water seeking program" is not only carried out in Gansu, but also in the neighboring Shaanxi Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

    In these regions, the per capita water resources is below 1,000tons per person, less than half of the water-needy China's average.China's per captia water resource possession is 2,200 tons, only one quarter of the world's average.

    Liu Chunzhen from the Ministry of Water Resources' informationcenter said the continuing drought and unplanned water use worsensthe water shortage in China's northwest.

    To ease the situation, local governments have already started to apply the artificial precipitation.

    The statistics from Gansu artificial precipitation office said the province has established more than 300 operation sites for artificial rainfall and snowfall and will perform more than 1000 operations every year with the help of rockets, cannons and airplanes.

    Gansu has benefited about one billion cubic meters of precipitation from 2004 to now thanks to the artificial operations.

    Zhang said the development of the cloud water resources will bring the provinces "some invisible and long-term benefits."

    It will not only reduce the overuse of the underground water resources but is also conducive to preserve the "feeble" ecological environment in the arid areas.

    A Lanzhou citizen Zhao Weibing said, "Gansu is a dry place and the air was severely polluted in the winter, however, we feel it has changed much better when artificial precipitation is frequently performed here."

    "If the measure proves to be effective in northwest China, artificial precipitation can be popularized to more places so as to ease China's contradictions between water shortage and environmental deterioration in the over-exploitation of water resources," said Zhang. Enditem