Hechi has abundant rainfall on a 30,010-square–kilometer watershed, and an average of 25 billion cubic meters of water, accounting for 13.3 percent of Guangxi’s total. There are 7,100 cubic meters of water available for every 0.07 hectare of arable land, on average, higher than the national average of 1,813 cu m and the Guangxi average of 4,750.

The city has 635 streams and rivers, totaling 5,130 kilometers in length, with the Hongshui and Longjiang being major streams. So, it has an abundance of hydropower resources, with approximately 10 million kW in reserves, or more than 50 percent of Guangxi’s total. In the mid-1960s, China began work on some mid-sized to large hydropower stations on the Hongshui and Longjiang, forming small reservoirs, which can also be developed as scenic spots.

So, Hechi is a future energy center for South China and there are plans to build 10 cascade hydropower stations on the Hongshui River, four of them in Hechi. The Dahua power station has an installed capacity of 400,000 kW and the Yantan station, 1.21 million kW.

The Longtan power station in Tian’e county, which is about to go online, is a major part of China’s West Development project and will have an installed capacity of 4.2 million kW in the short run, and 5.4 million in the long run, making it second only to the Three Gorges Dam and the biggest on the Hongshui.