opinion

Water is the source of all lives and a precious resource indispensable to the daily and economic life of people. It is used in all places and fields including industrial establishments, cities, hydropower stations, farms, river transport, fish farming and landscaping.

This product of nature brings fortune, if it is well controlled, but unimaginably great disaster, if not.

That is why forest and water conservation has been called the mainstay of everything since ancient times.

Floods have caused catastrophic consequences among many natural disasters on the earth and drought and flood have hit the DPRK one after another in recent years, thereby creating difficulties in economic construction and improvement of the people’s living standards.

The damage from floods is, of course, an inevitable natural disaster, but we have a clear strategy to win the battle against water.

In his work “On Bringing about a Revolutionary Turn in Land Management in Line with the Demands for Building a Thriving Socialist Nation”, General Secretary Kim Jong Un stressed the need to strengthen river improvement and other water control work. He underlined the importance of water conservation, saying that as the country has many big and small rivers and reservoirs and is therefore blessed with water resources, if water is managed properly, the demand for water of the country and its people can be fully met, the damage from flooding and drought can be prevented and the landscape of the country can become more beautiful.

The solid material foundations, including reservoirs, barrages, large-scale gravity-fed waterways and irrigation systems built in different parts of the country, are another precious asset for beating the sky.

It is not easy to control water. But it is the intention of the Workers’ Party of Korea to tame the sky and transform the land for the people.

A new national water management system should be established and professional bodies set up to establish an integrated water management system for enforcing, operating and implementing an integrated water management policy in various fields, ranging from the provision of water for daily use to flood, drought and disaster response.

A medium- and long-term water conservation plan should be worked out correctly and pushed ahead steadily.

It is necessary to draw up a 100-year plan for banks and embankments on the basis of careful understanding of the situation of all rivers and streams across the country and, at the same time, work out scientific long-term, phased and yearly plans for river improvement and afforestation for erosion control.

Bringing about an improvement in ensuring scientific accuracy, precision and promptness of weather forecasting is also an important factor in achieving success in water conservation.

The ever-accelerating global warming has a seriously negative impact on global climate change and consequently the world has witnessed ever-more disastrous climate more frequently.

Due to the consequences of world-sweeping disastrous climate, we cannot predict what disaster will hit our country again.

The Workers’ Party of Korea is unshakable in the determination and will to provide the people and beloved children with the cradle of happiness, free from natural disaster forever, by pushing ahead with the struggle against water to the last.