請看《中國日報》的報道：

Bidding farewell to their hometown for good, 499 villagers in central China’s Hubei Province left their homes Wednesday morning, becoming the first group to relocate to make way for China’s South-North Water Diversion Project (SNWD).

上周三早晨，湖北省的499位村民告別自己的家鄉成為第一批為南水北調工程外遷的移民。

上文中的South-North Water Diversion Project就是“南水北調工程”，簡寫為SNWD，是通過跨流域的水資源合理配置，大大緩解我國北方drought-prone cities(缺水城市)水資源嚴重短缺的問題。

這里的diversion為“轉移;分出支流”的意思，平時還可以做“娛樂、消遣”來用，比如：Golf is my father’s favorite diversion. (高爾夫球是我爸最喜歡的消遣項目。)

Their journey was the starting point for the nation’s largest relocation program after that of the Three Gorges Hydro-Power Project, which involved the relocation of 1.27 million.

這次外遷開啟了三峽水利工程移民后我國規模最大的一次移民外遷項目，當年三峽移民的總人數為127萬。

這里的relocation program就是“移民外遷項目”，也就是locate the villagers to another place。據說所有的relocatee(移民)在未來20年都會受到government subsidies(政府補助)，同時還有one-off compensation payment(一次性補償金)。