BEIJING Delegates to China's ongoing annual legislative session Wednesday urged the government to approve an $18 billion water diversion project to bring badly needed water resources to the parched north.

"China is suffering from serious water shortages in its northern regions that is affecting the livelihood of the people and endangering the ecosystem," Chen Bangzhu, chairman of a key environmental committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said.

"The north-south water diversion project is a mega-project that is strategically aimed at realizing the optimal allocation of water resources," he said.

Tang Qinglian, former vice minister of construction and a CPPCC delegate, said estimated costs for the initial phase of the project would be around 150 billion yuan ($18 billion) for what would become the world's largest water diversion project, AFP reported.

China's cabinet, the state council, was expected to approve the project in the early years of the 10th five-year plan (2001-2005), while a feasibility study by the Water Ministry should be completed by June, they said.

China's northern regions have been hit by successive droughts during the latter half of the 1990s, with the yellow river increasingly drying up from its mouth for longer periods during the dry season and as nonrenewable underground water supplies are increasingly tapped.