Table 2.3: Water resources of cities in different regions Coastal cities in the east
Cities in the centre Cities in the west
Water resource consumption
High
Medium
Low
Water consumption per 10,000 RMB GDP
Low
Medium
High
Water resource utilization efficiency 36
0.8
0.6
0.4
Source: National Bureau of Statistics, “China Statistical Yearbook 2010” and Ministry of Environmental Protection, “Environmental Statistics Yearbook 2010”.
Box 2.10: Better water management reduces resource pressures* In crowded megacities, tremendous municipal pipe systems deliver vital water and other services. Intricate networks pass beneath buildings and busy roads, complicating essential maintenance and repairs. The Pudong area of Shanghai is addressing these issues through new technologies to boost efficiency and reduce leakage. A geographic information system (GIS) maps the entire pipe network, helping managers monitor it and rapidly respond to any emergency situations. Based on GIS data, advanced hydraulic models can simulate various scenarios; through comparisons with real-time data, managers can detect abnormal water losses and illegal siphoning. Future demand can be projected, to assist plans to modify or expand the pipe network accordingly. A flow control centre regularly collects data from more than 300 water metres, performs up-to-the-minute analysis of supplies and tracks water quality. Qingdao, a beautiful coastal city, embraced greener development as part of preparations to host the 2008 Olympic Regatta. Because sewage plants operate near the coastline and tourist attractions, all output must be absolutely harmless to safeguard public health. Accordingly, sewage treatment plants were outfitted with sophisticated inclined-plate sedimentation tanks, biofilter processes, ultraviolet disinfection systems and biological odour removal devices. Sludge biogas is recycled to reduce energy consumption. The Maidao sewage plant, for example, now produces 70 percent of its required energy and has reduced its carbon footprint by 80 percent. The Tianjin Soda Plant, a subsidiary of Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry Group, has designed an environmentally friendly sewage recycling system that reduces water consumption by 50 percent. The system also ensures that the plant adheres to strict customer requirements for water quality and environmental protection. *Some new technologies mentioned above were developed and adopted by Veolia Water Company and other businesses.
cities (see figure 2.5) for differing reasons. For example, Xining City, the capital of Qinghai Province, although located at the source of three rivers, suffers from extreme water shortages due to its geographical location and water pollution. Somewhere between 2030 and 2040, China’s total population will reach 1.4 billion, and it will become a nation of severely restricted water supplies, with water consumption per capita at less than 1,000 cubic metres.35 The water supply gap for industries and domestic consumption will be 20 billion cubic metres annually.
48
Drinking water in many Chinese cities depends heavily on groundwater. Overexploitation of this
resource, however, leads to ground instability and sinking, which can cause cracked pavements and collapsed buildings (see box 2.9). In coastal cities, tidal intrusion threatens to salinize aquifers and other subterranean sources of fresh water, rendering them undrinkable and useless for agriculture. Compounding shortages is the inefficient use of water resources. Water consumed per RMB 10,000 of GDP is up to 399 cubic metres, five times the global average. Leaking pipes siphon off 20 percent of water supplies in urban water distribution networks. Recycling of industrial water is around 60 percent, compared with 85 percent in developed countries (see table 2.3 on water consumption and efficiency of water use).