CHINA: Country battles drought and water shortages with water-recycling systems and collected rainwater

As provinces in eastern and southern China recover from floods brought by typhoons, drought is affecting the lives of more than five million people across the country. Beijing, already plagued by spring sandstorms and the worst pollution in six years, is currently suffering its seventh successive year of drought, the worst in 50 years. From 1999 to 2005, rainfall was down 25 percent from average levels. Reservoirs serving Beijing, host city for the 2008 Olympics, are drying up because of the long drought. In recent years, Beijing has turned its eyes to purified sewage water and is collecting rainwater to ease drought. Gaobeidian Sewage Treatment Plant, the biggest of its type, is responsible for most of the city's sewage purification work all together with other eight sewage treatment plants. The plant, built in early 90s, has a purification capacity of around eight million cubic meters every day. "With this water recycling system, on the one hand, we provide a large amount of purified water for industrial refrigeration and cleaning. By doing so, we can spare a lot of tap water. On the other hand, we discharge the rest of purified sewage water into the rivers, which helps prevent pollution in Beijing's water system", said Ma Wenjin, chief operator of the plant. China will invest up to 300 billion yuan (37.5 billion U.S. dollars) in urban sewage treatment and recycling in the next five years. The Chinese government said by 2010, 70 percent of the waste water in Chinese cities must be treated for reuse before being discharged into the natural water system. Sewage treatment facilities have grown in China over the past five years and the country's sewage processing capacity has tripled since 2001. But only 60 percent of the capacity is currently used, due to a substandard sewage-collecting network. China's many provinces experience water shortages due to prolonged droughts in the spring, while other provinces in the south have been flooded for weeks because of heavy rain and typhoons. "In fact, we are going through a water shortage right now. Besides if we let the sewage water go straight into rivers without any treatment, it could cause severe pollution. Therefore, water purification can ease pollution and turn sewage water into usable resources at the same time", deputy manager at the Beijing water management, Liu Peibin said. A pilot project to recycle rainwater has been set up in 85 communities in Beijing since 2001. Shuangzi Community is one of them. The community collects around 850 cubic meters of rainwater every year from the ground and the roofs of buildings, and transmit it through pipes into an underground water tank, where it is stored and treated before usage. "We use the rainwater and purified sewage water to water plants, flush public toilets, for fountains, washing cars, putting out fire, and to use in the heating system in winter in our community" said the chief of Beijing's Shuangzi community, Xiao Linmin. A sewage treatment system and filtering bricks installed all over the community to absorb rainwater into the underground tank is another highlight of the water recycling project. Local residents have welcomed the new system. "We collect rainwater to save tap water. Now we are facing a severe water shortage. I read in the newspaper that big reservoirs in Beijing do not store much water after the rainfalls. We live on those reservoirs for water, so we have to save water", said 72-yea-old Xie Zhimin. Several major cities and provinces across the country, including Nanjing, Shanghai and some drought-hit areas, have already adopted similar rainwater recycling systems. Beijing may divert water from the Yellow River to guarantee water supply during the 2008 Olympics as the world's driest major city ponders how to slake the thirst of 17 million people. Across China, more than 300 million people in rural areas are short of clean drinking water and pollution is so severe the government estimates 40 percent of water in the country's major rivers is fit only for industrial or agricultural use. More than a decade of near double-digit economic growth has put serious strain on water demand in China, which has only 7 percent of the world's total water resources, compared to more than 20 percent of the global population.

ITN Source | August 11, 2006

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