Asia: reducing lost water could bring water to millions

Millions of people in Asia and the Pacific could have access to clean water if leaks were plugged and water utility reforms adopted, says a new study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

“By cutting the amount of lost water in half, 150 million people could be supplied with treated water”, said ADB’s Vice President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development Bindu Lohani.
ADB estimates that 29 billion cubic meters of water is lost each year in the region, causing Asia’s water utilities to lose more than US$ 9 billion in revenue each year.

The ADB study, which showcases eight of the best-performing water utilities [2] in Asia, shows that current unaccounted for water (UFW) levels in the region of up to 60%, can be brought down to less than 20%. Phnom Penh even managed to lower its UFW level to just 6% in 2008.

Good Practices: The Success Framework for Urban Water Utilities. Source: ADB publication “Good Practices in Urban Water Management”

The study developed a Good Practices Success Framework (see figure above) with seven key elements that urban water utilities need to address. Regarding one of these elements, empowering the poor, the study notes that each of the eight water agencies studied provided some kind of subsidy for obtaining a water connection and, in deserving cases, for the use of water as well.

[1] Chiplunkar, A., Seetharam Kallidaikurichi and Tan Cheon Kheong (eds), 2012. Good practices in urban water management : decoding good practices for a successful future. Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Asian Development Bank. xx, 206 p. Available at: <
http://www.adb.org/publications/good-practices-urban-water-management
>

[2] Bangkok, Thailand; Colombo, Sri Lanka; Jamshedpur, India; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Manila, Philippines; Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China; and Singapore.

Related news: Higher water tariffs are associated with lower water loss, E-Source, 06 Dec 2011

Related web site: World Bank – Urban Water

Source: ADB, 03 Jul 2012

China: US$ 27 billion for safe water for all rural areas by 2015

Photo: Ministry of Water Resources

Everyone in rural areas will have access to safe drinking sources by 2015, reaffirmed China’s minister of water resources Chen Lei. He was speaking on 25 April 2012 at a bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Chen Lei, minister of water resources. Photo: China Daily

At the session, the minister presented at report on rural water resources, which stated that government would prioritise piped water systems, including the extension of urban water supply networks to rural areas.

China to ensure safe rural drinking water

The State Council of China has passed a five-year plan aimed to provide access to safe drinking water for 298 million rural residents from 2011-2015.

A total of 114,000 rural schools, and nearly 80 per cent of the rural population will have access to safe drinking water through centralized water supply facilities.

In China’s 11th Five-Year Plan period from 2006-2011, 105 billion yuan (US$ 16.6 billion) was spent to provide safe drinking water for 210 million rural inhabitants.

Source: Xinhua, China Daily, 21 Mar 2012

China, Guizhou: two million hit by drought

A drought in southwest China has left over two million people short of drinking water, the government said.

Guizhou province has been under the grip of a drought since early July 2011. Rainfall last month was 70 percent less than average, according to new agency Xinhua.

The drought has affected over one million hectares of crops and left 760,000 livestock short of drinking water. This has caused an economic loss of more than six billion yuan (US$ 923 million).

Source: ©Indo-Asian News Service, MSN News, 12 Aug 2011

China, Hangzhou: chemical spills taints city’s water supply, schools closed

Two separate pollution incidents have hit the drinking water supply of the Chinese city of Hangzhou (pop. 9 million), Zhejiang Province, in the beginning of June 2011.

In the first incident, the drinking water supply of more than half a million people was cut off when phenol (carbolic acid) spilled into the Xin’an river, creating a run on bottled water. A tanker truck carrying 20 tons of phenol, which had broken down, was hit by another truck as it was being repaired. The crash ruptured the tanker truck’s chemical tank and the leaked phenol was washed by rain into the river, which is one of the sources of Hangzhou’s drinking water.

Authorities temporarily shut down water plants and released extra water from nearby dams to dilute the spill. The concentration of carbolic acid near the accident site remained at more than 900 times the safe drinking level. Despite reassurances that drinking water in Hangzhou itself was safe, residents rushed to buy bottled water, leaving shelves in some supermarkets empty.

China, Shandong Province: Asian Development Bank to help improve dam quality

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is helping water-scarce Shandong Province to rehabilitate and improve the efficiency of nine ageing dams with a US$ 29.8 million technical assistance loan. The Risk Mitigation and Strengthening of Endangered Reservoirs in Shandong Province Project will “set the standard for efficient, safe and cost-effective reservoir operation and management nationwide”.

“This initiative will reduce the risk of reservoir failure as well as protect lives, property and livelihoods downstream where poverty levels are high. It will also provide more water for agriculture and household use, improve the quality of reservoir releases, preserve water quality and improve groundwater resources,” said Yoshiaki Kobayashi, Water Resources Management Specialist in ADB’s East Asia Department.

About 90% of China’s reservoirs were built between 1958 and 1976 and are in poor condition. Since 2001 China is carrying out a phased rehabilitation programme. In Shandong Province (pop. 94 million) water scarcity and saltwater intrusion into coastal catchments are severe problems.

“ADB’s assistance will give the provincial and local governments access to international expertise in rehabilitation and management, and establishing models which can be replicated throughout the PRC,” Mr. Kobayashi said.

The ADB loan makes up around 33% of the total project cost of almost US$ 90.1 million. The Chinese Government, the Provincial Government of Shandong, and county governments will finance the remainder.

Source: ADB, 22 Nov 2010

China: animal waste a threat to clean water supply

The massive increase of animal waste coming from the livestock industry has become a main source of water pollution in the country, environmental researchers have warned.

One measure China is introducing to reduce the pollution is through the construction of 80 million household methane digesters and 10,000 large-scale biogas plants by 2020.

Citing China’s first national census of pollution sources released in February [2010], Zhang Qingfeng, a leading water resources management expert at the Asian Development Bank, said agriculture is responsible for up to 67 percent of the 423,200 tons of phosphorus discharged and 57 percent of the 4.7 million tons of nitrogen discharged into water.

China: facing up to groundwater crisis

Researchers call for effective monitoring and management of water resources.

A crisis is developing beneath China’s thirsty farms and cities, but no one knows its full extent. With about 20% of the world’s population but only about 5–7% of global freshwater resources, China draws heavily on groundwater. Those reserves are being depleted at an alarming rate in some regions and are badly polluted in many others, warned experts last week at the International Groundwater Forum 2010 conference in Beijing.

China, Sichuan: project brings safe water and sanitation to the rural poor

Ziyang County in Sichuan province is not only one of the poorest in China, but it also suffers from a water shortage like other regions in the southwest. Over the last few years, most of the existing wells in the village are either contaminated or have dried up.

“In the past, villagers had to fetch water. During the drought season, they have to go fetch and walk back from a long distance, which is tough,” said village head Ji Hongli.

But since December 2009, Singapore non-governmental organisation, Mercy Relief has stepped in by boring new wells supplying potable water to five villages within the township.

The water is delivered to each of the 574 households through a new piping system.

Clean, drinking water has been made available for every household under the purview of Mercy Relief’s development project at Dong Feng. Photo: Mercy Relief

Villagers are not just grateful for having access to safe drinking water.

“Washing the clothes with the clean water is good as we won’t feel itchy after putting them back on. In the past, we sometimes get little spots on our bodies and we keep scratching them,” said one villager.

“In the past, the water had sediments so we had to let it sit for a while. The top portion was used for cooking and washing vegetables, while the cloudy layer was used for washing our feet and feeding the livestock,” said villager Chen Shifang.

Now with extra water for their livestock, villagers are able to have more of them, thereby increasing their earnings.

Incomes are expected to rise by about US$60 a year – not an insubstantial increase in an area where annual incomes are about US$300.

“We had to dig deep into the earth to get water, and to pump the water up, which means that they could get water easily, not only for their own drinking and cleaning, but also for their fields,” said Abdullah Tarmugi, Mercy Relief advisor.

The project was developed with assistance from the local poverty alleviation foundation at a cost of over US$200,000.

Sanitation

Prior to Mercy Relief’s project implementation in December 2009, the 1,025 villagers of Fei’e Village were living in an unfavourable sanitation environment where human and animal excrement were not managed properly – a hygiene issue exacerbated by the prevalence of open-pit toilets. Through the installation of biogas digestors serving all 224 households, an efficient waste management system was thus developed where the excrement is stored in the digestors underground and used to harvest biogas fuel, which is used as alternate fuel for cooking and lighting via the provision of biogas cookers and lamps. The residue excrement from the digestors is also used to fertilise the villagers’ crops – their main source of income.

This has generated savings for the villagers, from not having to use electricity from the grid for lighting, and encouraging them to abstain from the environmentally-unfriendly practices of buying coal and wood for cooking and chemical fertiliser for farming. More importantly, the project has revamped the sanitation environment to minimise the outbreak of epidemics.

Besides lighting and cooking, the residu excrement in the biogas digestor is used to fertilise the villagers’ crops. Photo: Mercy Relief

Source: Maria Siow, Channel News Asia, 01 Jul 2010 ; Mercy Relief, 17 Jun 2010

China: Algae outbreak in major lake threatens drinking water for 300,000

A green algae outbreak has been reported in China’s fifth-largest freshwater lake, threatening the drinking water source for 300,000 residents in an eastern city.

Three to four square km of green algae were found on the east part of Chaohu Lake, the water source for Chaohu city, Su Huimin, chief of Chaohu municipal environment protection bureau, said Thursday [08 July 2010].

“Hot weather and flood discharge from the more polluted western Chaohu

Lake have led to the algae outbreak,” said Su.

Su told Xinhua that the drinking water supply for local residents has not been affected so far, but the green algae was close to the city’s drinking water source.

“We will now test the water quality every two hours, instead of every four hours as before,” said Tang Xiaoxian, director of the local environment monitoring center.

Tang added that local authorities have beefed up monitoring of the green algae and also sent boats to clear it.

Covering an area of 13,000 square km, Chaohu suffers from severe environmental pollution, with lake embankments destroyed and wetland damaged during the urbanization and industrialization drives in the province.

In 2007, an algae outbreak in China’s third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu, cut tap water supplies for more than 1 million people in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province for about 10 days.

Source: Bi Mingxin, Xinhua, 08 Jul 2010