After years of exploration and research, Tianjin has become the model city for water conservation. The Municipality was named by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, as “the water-efficient city”, and listed as the first provincial water-conservation pilot city on the east-middle line of South-North water diversion project by the Ministry of Water Resources. Tianjin has become the role model for other cities, in terms of water conservation.
The total volume of water resource in Tianjin is 1.569 billion cubic meters. With the imported and transferred water counted in, the water ownership per capita of the Municipality is only 370 cubic meters. Tianjin’s water supply depends on the transferred water from rivers outside, namely the Luanhe River and the Yellow River. The gap between supply and demand is prominent.
The achievement from Tianjin’s water-conservation effort is obvious. In 2008, water consumption for every 10,000-yuan GDP was 47 cubic meters, and that for every 10,000-yuan industrial-added value stood at 16.15 cubic meters. And the recycling ratio of industrial water reached 90.95 percent, which has met leading standard in China.
Firstly, the Municipal Government promotes the water-conservation campaign through legislation. Tianjin has promulgated and implemented 21 relevant local regulations and laws, which have effectively safeguarded and supervised water-saving work.
With the power to adjust the economic structure, the Municipal Government has ousted industrial techniques featuring high water consumption, low water efficiency, serious water pollution and high energy consumption, and has upgraded techniques of the water-cooling circulative system for 200 enterprises of various industrial segments, such as electronics, metallurgy and petrochemical industries, so that the concentration rate has been raised by over 3.5 times. The city also controls the planting of water-consuming crops. In Tianjin, 60 percent of the effective irrigated areas have adopted water-saving measures and technologies.
The research on water-saving technologies has also effectively promoted the development of a water-efficient city. A series of State-level projects have settled in Tianjin. All of them are based on independent innovation, focusing on the key technologies in seawater usage, sewage resource transformation, industrial waste water treatment, membrane material, domestic water, and agricultural water-saving system. Tianjin has also proposed the trans-departmental, trans-regional, trans-field subject research on water conservation. The main body of Tianjin Dagang Xinquan Seawater Desalination Project, Asia’s largest desalination plant and one of Tianjin’s key projects, is now under trail operation. The project is now essentially capable of supplying water for the one-million-ton ethylene project.
The development of recycling water has also made progress. At present, 170,000 tons of recycling water can be treated in depth every day. The city has laid 238 kilometers of pipes for recycling water in downtown area, with about 27 million square meters of inhabited areas equipped with two pipes in their houses. One pipe is for common water, while the other for recycling water. Preliminarily, the system for recycling water supply has taken shape.
Retaining rain and flood water has also attracted great attention in Tianjin. With engineering and non-engineering measures, Tianjin has established the flood management system, effectively saving water transferred from the Luanhe River.
Meanwhile, Tianjin has set the new target of establishing a water-efficient society by 2020. The primary task is to facilitate the construction of 10 systems, which involve the water ownership system, resource management, water-efficient industry, economic adjustment, public participation, multi-source water assignment, water-saving within each industrial segment, the protection of aquatic environment, water-conservation laws and water-conservation technologies. With all these steps, Tianjin is expected to build a modern civilized society with sustainable and efficient water usage.
Those goals have already gone into a series of detailed data: The proportion of people who can drink safe water in the countryside is to rise to 100 percent; more than 99 percent of waste water drained from industrial enterprises meet relevant discharge standards; the processing ratio of city sewage stands at least 95 percent, while the utilization ratio of the reclaimed water is higher than 20 percent and the basic need of water for the essential water eco-system can be ensured.
