[5][6][7] Engineer Wang Mengshu initially proposed transferring water from the Songhua River in Jilin, around 900 km from Beijing.

[8][9][10] The decision to start the project was also based on the strategic need to safeguard Beijing's water supply, which could theoretically also be met at similar cost through desalinization.

[13] Water from the Yangtze River will be drawn into the canal in Jiangdu, where a giant 400 m3/s (12.6 km3/year if operated continuously) pumping station was built in the 1980s.

Initially, the route was expected to provide water for the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, and Hebei, with trial operations to begin in mid-2013.

[16] The completed line will be slightly over 1,152 km (716 miles) long, equipped with 23 pumping stations with a power capacity of 454 megawatts.

[17] An important element of the Eastern Route will be a tunnel crossing under the Yellow River, on the border of Dongping and Dong'e counties of Shandong Province.

[13] The central route, known colloquially as the Grand Aqueduct, runs from Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze, to Beijing.

The canal was constructed to create a continuous downhill flow all the way from the Danjiangkou Reservoir to Beijing without the need for pumping stations.

One problem was the impact of the project on the Han River below the Danjiangkou Dam,[5] from which approximately one-third of the route's total water is diverted.

On 18 October 2009, Chinese officials began to relocate residents from the areas of Hubei and Henan provinces that would be affected by the project.

[25] Critics have warned the water diversion will cause environmental damage, and some villagers said officials had forced them to sign agreements to relocate.

The exact amount of evaporation loss is not known, but it may be improved in the future as more water is transferred and the flow rate increases.

[29] Engineer Wang Mengshu noted that a tunnel structure would have reduced the project's cost, as the ground-level canal required more excavation and land acquisition as well as the construction of 1,300 bridges.