The Chinese government plans to spend 2 trillion yuan ($330 billion) on combating heavy water pollution, state media reported Tuesday.
China’s 1.36 billion people make up a fifth of the world’s population, but they have to make do with only seven percent the world’s available water. Large areas of this water have become highly polluted as a result of industrialisation.
The situation is especially precarious in the arid north, where some regions have less water per capita than the Middle East. China’s water problems are made even worse by its heavy reliance on coal, which uses copious amounts of water to suppress dust and clean the fuel before it is burnt to generate nearly 70 percent of the country’s electricity.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection aims to improve China’s water quality by 30 to 50 percent by investing in waste water treatment, recycling and membrane technology. The plan is not yet finalised, but the budget has been set at a staggering 2 trillion yuan, exceeding the 1.7 trillion yuan ($277 billion) China plans to spend on improving air quality, which has gotten way more publicity due to public outcry and more perceptible effects on health.
The ministry did not state how the funds would be raised, when the plan would be put into effect, or what time frame they had in mind.
During a news conference in Beijing last week, Environment Minister Zhai Qing said that groundwater resources are heavily polluted and threatening access to drinking water. According to government data, a survey of 5,000 groundwater checkpoints found that 57.3 percent of the samples were heavily polluted, as China emits around 24 million tons of COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand, a measure of organic matter in waste water), and 2.45 million tons of ammonia nitrogen into its waste water every year.
China will need to spend around 60 billion yuan ($9.8 billion) over the next five years to set up sludge treatment facilities, and an additional 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) on annual management, according to Qing.
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