Images from northern China, where a proposed pipeline could be the answer to a resource mismatch of coal wealth and water poverty.

Over the last decade, China’s economy — the world’s second largest — has grown about 10 percent annually, fueled primarily by soaring coal production. But the driest regions in the nation are the very same northern provinces where much of the coal is located.

Photos © J. Carl Ganter/Circle of Blue and Toby Smith/ Reportage by Getty Images for Circle of Blue.
Choke Point: China :: Bohai Pipeline Slideshow

Photographs by J. Carl Ganter and Toby Smith/Reportage by Getty Images. Smith is a British photojournalist, represented by Reportage by Getty Images, who specializes in global energy and environment matters. His further work can be viewed on his website, and he can be reached at toby@shootunit.com

Read more: Bohai Sea Pipeline Could Open China’s Northern Coal Fields

J. Carl Ganter is co-founder and managing director of Circle of Blue. He is a journalist and photojournalist, recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award, and an Explorers Club Fellow.

Circle of Blue provides relevant, reliable, and actionable on-the-ground information about the world’s resource crises.