Strategic Zoning for Urban Wastewater Reuse in China

Abstract

It has been widely recognized that urban wastewater reuse is an alternative for water shortage problem. Although the improvement on urban wastewater reuse in China is quite significant, the further development still requires more strategic regulating and directing at the national level. However, due to the huge spatial differences in socialeconomic and resource conditions among different areas in China, it is difficult to apply a same policy framework to the whole country. In the paper, the mainland of China has been divided into 342 research regions and each region has one large-scale or medium-scale central city. The paper tried to answer the question how to select the development pattern of urban wastewater reuse for each region. Firstly, in order to evaluate the necessity and regional economic feasibility to develop urban wastewater reuse, an indicator system with three indexes at the upper level and seven indicators at the lower level was build up. And valuing method and the weight for each indicator was given. All the research regions covering the mainland of China has been scored with the indicator system. Secondly, the national strategic zoning has been done with the key method of cluster analysis. All regions have been sorted into five types of strategic development zones. Each zone has its own wastewater reuse development option such as Preferential Imperative Development, State Supporting Development, Self Supporting Development, Waiting for Development, and Non-Mandatory Development. Thirdly, the corresponding policy suggestion for each zone was given to the government. The possible updates between the different development patterns have been discussed as well.

Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China

“…And then the quality and quantity of water use and wastewater discharge information can be collected and released through the platform coupling the monitoring system; (c) Strengthen the technology research and popularize the use of water-saving facilities and technologies. The researchers must be encouraged to find new or improved more efficient and implementable technological solutions for water saving (Xia et al 2007), wastewater reusing (Zeng et al 2008), reducing water consumption, improving water-use efficiency , transferring water and seawater desalination. And the government should try to improve efficiency of water conservation by popularizing the use of water-saving facilities and technologies in agriculture, industry and daily life; (d) Implement water tariff reforms (Zhong and Mol 2010), establish the scientific and rational water price system, and work out perfect laws and regulations system.…”

Water Reclamation and Reuse

“…Regional policies based on socio-economic factors and available resources were recommended to work better than applying a national wide policy for urban wastewater reuse in China (Zeng et al, 2008). Five zones based on these factors were developed and the applicable policies that should be implemented in each zone in order to encourage reuse of urban wastewater were described.…”

Identifying Drivers of China's Provincial Wastewater Reuse Outcomes Using Qualitative Comparative Analysis

“…The North China Plain has less than 10% of China's total water resources, but accounts for over 30% of its gross domestic product (GDP) and population (Zeng et al. ). The overexploitation of rivers and groundwater in the region is a well‐known challenge (Chang et al.…”