However, the plague of water scarcity engulfed Macao again when the reservoirs could barely meet the water demands of the two increasingly booming cities.

Zhuhai was designated as a special economic zone in 1980, resulting in an expanding population and urbanization.

A water diversion project was therefore launched to take water from the Xijiang river, a tributary of the Pearl River, to Macao.

"Diverting water from the Xijiang river to Macao never came easy. Workers had to toil to complete the project," said Chen Shan from Zhuhai's water supply company.

Within two and a half years of construction, the first phase of the project entered operation in 1988.