A total of 12 scenic riverside areas will be built along the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project by the end of 2015, authorities said.

The project, the largest of its kind in the world, is designed to divert water from the Yangtze River in the south via eastern, middle and western routes to satisfy the demand for water in the arid northern region of China.

"Along the middle route, there are many large water projects that are on a scale rarely seen in the whole world," said Yu Youjun, deputy director of the State Council's Office of the diversion project commission on Dec 19.

Construction of the 12 riverside areas along the middle route in Beijing and Tianjin municipalities and Hebei, Henan and Hubei provinces will be completed and open to the public by the end of 2015, according to the office.

Of China's 43 World Heritage Sites, 12 are along the project's middle routes, according to the National Tourism Administration. "The abundant tourism resources will attract a large number of visitors when the middle route project is completed," Yu said. Increasing the number of visitors will benefit people in water-supplying regions, he added.

The middle route from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, which is on the Hanjiang River, a major tributary of the Yangtze, is scheduled to begin transferring water in 2014.

The middle route will transfer about 9.5 billion cubic meters of clean water annually to drought-prone cities in the north, including 1.2 billion cu m to Beijing every year.