Pedestrians walk with umbrellas during a heavy downpour in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay district on Oct. 19, 2016.

(TENGKU BAHAR/AFP/Getty Images)

At a Glance

China is developing a program to increase rainfall in the drier parts of the country.The program could increase precipitation over as much as 10 percent of the country’s land mass.

In an effort to bring more rain to its dry northwestern region, China has begun to develop what will be one of its largest weather modification projects.

The country’s meteorological agency conducted a feasibility study and found that , reports the South China Morning Post. The area amounts to 370,658 square miles, which is more than one and a half times the size of France.

The $168 million needed for the project was approved by the country’s top economic planners and will be used to purchase four new aircraft and update eight existing planes, almost 900 rocket launch systems and more than 1,800 digital control devices, the Morning Post also reported.

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In order to create more precipitation, China plans to use cloud-seeding technology. During this process, , where it creates ice particles. Water vapor freezes into the particles and then falls down like rain.

This isn’t the first time China has utilized cloud-seeding technology. Prior to this project, the country has cleared the skies for public events, such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and has attempted to induce rain to wash away the thick smog , Fortune reported.

From 2006 to 2016, artificial rainfall enhancement increased precipitation in the Qinghai province by 55 billion cubic meters, government spokesperson He Shengcun said in a statement obtained by the Morning Post. The city of Beijing has established a "development plan" for weather modification until 2020.

The entire project is expected to take three years.

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A woman wears a protection mask as she walks along a street on a polluted day in Beijing, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2015. Schools closed and rush-hour roads were much quieter than normal as Beijing’s first-ever red alert for smog took effect Tuesday, closing many factories and invoking restrictions to keep half the city’s vehicles off the roads. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)