South Korea will move ahead with a plan to assess the logistics of building up water infrastructure in North Korea, the Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water) said in a proposal request on May 11, in a project largely unpublicised until today.

The South Korean government-run agency is hoping to review the capacity of current in-country dams and assess the costs of supplying water for use in North Korea.

The ultimate goal of the project is to make the country a “drought and flood-free area” by establishing water infrastructure “in preparation for unification.”

Droughts and flooding are common in North Korea.