China unveils its new five-year wastewater roadmap

3/19 - GWI - China this week set a dramatically lower target of 20 million m3/d of additional wastewater treatment capacity to be built over the next five years.

The number is less than half the previous five-year goal of 50.22 million m3/d, reflecting the country’s remarkable progress towards universalising services (municipal wastewater treatment coverage grew substantially from 32% in 1999 to 96% in 2019).

Earlier this year, China published new guidelines for wastewater reuse, raising the proportion of sewage which must be treated to reuse standards to 25% by 2025. This offers further evidence of the country’s ambition to transition from capacity expansion to a greater emphasis on treated effluent quality. As part of the effort, China also aims to construct and upgrade 80,000km of wastewater collection pipelines over the next five years.

More details will be unveiled in two water-specific 14th five-year plans (2021-2025), which are expected to be issued by mid-2022.