China doubles down on its water infrastructure goals
The Chinese central authorities have outlined new five-year goals regarding municipal infrastructure development, which include a renewed promotion of the quality and efficiency of the country¡¯s water and wastewater treatment facilities.
On the infrastructure front, the programme envisages the building and renovation of 65 million m3/d of water treatment capacity, and the construction and upgrading of 104,000km of water supply pipelines. Notably, it also calls for an increase in digital monitoring and management of the urban water distribution network ¨C particularly in municipalities and provincial capitals ¨C by incorporating solutions such as wireless sensors and GIS software. The aim is to reduce the average national network leakage rate from 10% in 2020 to under 9% by 2025.
China also plans to construct and upgrade 80,000km of wastewater collection pipelines between 2021 and 2025, in a bid to increase the sewage collection rate from around 65% at present to over 70% by 2025.