Chinese officials have vowed to ramp-up efforts to control the weather, announcing on Thursday that they intend to try to use technology to reduce natural disasters and combat droughts.
According to the Xinhua news agency, Zheng Guoguang, the director of the China Meteorological Administration (CMA), said that the weather-manipulation program will be used to aid the country's agricultural and rural development, provide additional airborne water resources, improve the ecology, and help prevent environmental calamities from occurring.
"By the mid 21st century, China will be a country short of water, with a per capita water source of 1,700 cubic meters," Zheng told Xinhua reporters on Friday, "thus we need to control the weather."