CHINA: China appeals for international technology, not money, to help solve its chronic water shortages

Water resources in China are under severe strain, so much so that delegates at this year's World Water Congress in Beijing are giving special attention to China. A decade of booming economic growth means ever rising demand for water, but China only has seven per cent of the world's water resources, compared to 20 per cent of the global population. 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. China's water problems are topping the agenda at the 5th annual World Water Congress, co-sponsored by China's Ministry of Construction and the International Water Association, which opened in Beijing on Sunday (September 10). Over 3,500 delegates from all over the world are expected to discuss issues ranging from sewage water treatment, rainwater usage, and water safety, and promote new technologies to sustain water resources during the conference. "We are here to build a platform to introduce advanced technologies from abroad to help China ease the worsening water shortage and pollution problems. What we need most is not money, but technologies, experience and even other countries' failures for us to learn from," said Qiu Baoxing, Vice Minister of China's Construction Ministry. The World Water Congress is working to promote the concept of sustainable water management around the globe. "China has a great opportunity to leap from the mistakes of the West and to adopt clever new technologies. And I believe it has the leadership to do so," said IWA Vice President David Baman. Heavy pollution of rivers across China has made much of its available water undrinkable. An explosion at a chemical plant in north-eastern China last December caused over 100 tonnes of toxins to leak into a nearby river, forcing authorities to cut water supplies to millions of people. Too much fluoride in the water affects over 63 million people in northern China, while salty water is a problem for 38 million in northern and eastern coastal regions. In the barren north-western areas of Xinjiang, Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, some two million people are being slowly poisoned by arsenic in the water. Parts of southern China have been hit this year by months of drought which destroyed farmland, dried up rivers and reservoirs and allowed salt water to wash upstream and contaminate fresh water supplies. Desertification of the country's west and Mongolian steppes has made the spring sand storms worse in recent years, reaching as far away as South Korea and Japan. In China's rapidly growing cities, where people from the much poorer countryside have flocked in the last few decades, hoping to share in the country's economic growth, almost half of all waste water is dumped untreated into rivers and lakes. Leaky pipes and over-use of groundwater have exacerbated shortages, and have even led to severe subsidence problems in some cities. In recent years, China has turned its eyes to purified sewage water and is collecting rainwater to ease drought and pollution. 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.

ITN Source | September 11, 2006

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