In the past decade, China has made significant gains in water supply to rural areas.
Improvements range from basic water source protection to piped water supply to households.
In China, as in other countries, the poor are most likely to suffer from the lack of safe water and the diseases that come with it. The difficulty of protecting water from contamination or lack of fuel to boil water before drinking, for example, combined with poor sanitary conditions lead to such health problems as debilitating bouts of diarrhea. The Fourth Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project is part of a series of World Bank water and sanitation projects which aim to complement China's efforts in improving rural water supply and sanitation. This project provides financing to four provinces Anhui, Fujian, Guizhou, and Hainan which will combine the Bank funds with modest subsidies to provide new water supplies to villages in poor counties. The new supplies will meet health standards, and, equally important, will be conveniently located, saving villager time and encouraging increased consumption.