2013 Master Plan for Integrated Management of Water
Environment in the Taihu Basin
2014 Revision
1. Preface
At the end of May 2007, the outbreak of water crisis in the Taihu Basin aroused
great attention of the Party Central Committee and the State Council as well as the
widespread concern from all sectors of community. According to the State Council’s
requirements, the Development and Reform Commission, together with the relevant
departments and local governments, made Master Plan for Integrated Management of
Water Environment in the Taihu Basin in urgency to guarantee people's drinking water
safety and improve the quality of water environment in Taihu. In May 2008, the State
Council officially approved and implemented it. Through the concerted efforts of all
parties concerned over the past five years, the management of Taihu has achieved
initial success in the aspects of drinking water safety, stable and good quality
guarantee of the water environment. The short-term goals have been basically
obtained which were determined in the Plan. However, the Taihu management has a
long way to go. With the regional economic society development and in-depth
management, the Taihu is faced with new situations and new problems to be solved.
In April 2012, in order to consolidate the management results and improve the
management level, the fifth plenary session of inter-provincial joint meeting on
Comprehensive Management of Water Environment in the Taihu Basin proposed the
Master Plan Revision. After in-depth investigation and study, the Development and
Reform Commission, together with the relevant departments and local organizations
technical forces, formulated Master Plan for Integrated Management of Water
Environment in the Taihu Basin (2013 revision) (hereafter referred to as “Master Plan
Revision”).
The management area of the Plan covers 31,800 square kilometers in total,
including Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou and Zhenjiang City, 4 cities and 30 counties
(cities, districts) in Jiangsu Province, Huzhou, Jiaxing, Hangzhou, 3 Cities and 20
counties (cities, districts) in Zhejiang Province, Liantang town, Jinze town and
Zhujiajiao town in Qingpu District of Shanghai. The management period is from 2013
to 2020, with a short term to 2015 and a long term to 2020.
The Plan is the guideline and fundamental basis for the comprehensively harness
of water environment in the Taihu Basin in a future period.
2. The Management Work during 2008-2012
Since the State Council approved “Master Plan” in 2008, two provinces and one
city actively organized the implementation work. By the end of 2012, the actual
completed investment reached 96 billion yuan.
1. Management achievements
Since the implementation of Master Plan, the water environment in the basin has
been mended and the urban and rural living environment has been greatly changed
with the rapid improvement of pollutant disposition ability, the great pollutants, the
obvious improvement of quantity of drinking water sources and the alleviated degree
of eutrophication. The regulation in Taihu has achieved remarkable stage results and
basically realized the short-term goal.
---- The goal of wide-scaled prevention and control as well as the security
assurance has been well realized.
In recent years, there has been no drinking water safety incident throughout the
whole basin. The drinking water safety issue on account of the blue-green algae
outbreak has been controlled and the aggregation extent of cyanbacteria bloom
outbreak in large area has been evidently reduced. The "Two Guarantees" goal, that is,
to guarantee the drinking water safety and no large area of foul water in Taihu, has
been realized. The monitoring data shows that the largest cyanbacteria bloom area in
Taihu is 505 square kilometers in 2011, a reduction of 52% compared to 2007.
Currently, among the seven drinking water sources in Taihu, only Gonghu and Xidong
water plants in Wuxi have been influenced by cyanobacteria in high temperature
season of summer time. Thanks to the cyanobacteria salvage and interception
measures adopted at water withdrawal entrances, the water plants operated in safety.
We highly improve the drinking water safety through water source protection, dual
water source construction project, advanced drinking water treatment system, the
establishment of contingency plans and other measures.
----The industrial structure optimizes and upgrades constantly.
The two provinces and one city vigorously have promoted industrial
restructuring and upgrading, and implemented the 13 special emission standards for
key industries and the new emission standard for water pollutants of paper industry,
all of which is stricter than the rest of the other places in the nation. Suzhou, Wuxi,
and Changzhou of Jiangsu Province take new energy, new material, environmental
protection, electronic information, biomedicine and other industries, respectively, as
the strategic emerging industries. In 2010, the industrial output value of emerging
industries in the core area of Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou attained 1.44 trillion yuan.
With strict environmental access system in Zhejiang Province, 82 heavily-polluted
enterprises closed down in Hangzhou-Jiaxing-Huzhou area, and 112 enterprises were
forced to implement the compulsory clean production audits.
----Urban sewage treatment system has basically taken shape.
Take Jiangsu Province for an example. The sewage treatment scale, a total of
6.33 million ton each day has been formed. The supporting pipe network has been
built into 12,220 kilometers and the urban sewage treatment plant has run an average
load rate of 75%. Improvement and renovation projects have annually reduced
10,9000 tons of COD, 3,300 tons of ammonia nitrogen, 5,400 tons of total nitrogen,
500 tons of total phosphorus; new (expansion) construction projects have annually
reduced 280,000 tons of COD, 18,700 tons of ammonia nitrogen, 23,300 tons of total
nitrogen, 3,300 tons of total phosphorus. The district-based or city-based sewage
treatment rate in the Taihu Basin of Zhejiang Province reached 86.8%. The Shanghai
urban sewage treatment rate attached to the area of Taihu management reached 90%.
----Water diversion from Yangtze River to Taihu Project has played a positive role.
Since 2007, the total amount of water has come to 11.398 billion cubic meters
from Yangtze River and 5.298 billion cubic meters into Taihu. There is an increase of
7.794 billion cubic meters water supply to the downstream areas via Taipu sluice
which has not only remitted the tension of water resource stress in the basin but has
also promoted the flowing of water mass, effectively inhibited the blue-green algae
outbreak which helped to improve the water quality of Taihu.
----The water environmental quality in the basin has significantly improved.
Pollutants have been significantly reduced through the comprehensive
management, especially in the specific-source pollution control, pollution control of
ships, conversion from fishing to lakes and return cultivation to lakes, and so on.
Compared with 2005, in 2010 in the Taihu Basin, the pollutant quantity of COD,
ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus, total nitrogen into rivers (lakes) were reduced by
25.86%, 48.04%, 24.14%, 4.36%, respectively. In the year of 2012, all the indexes of
water quality in Taihu have reached Ⅳ except total nitrogen, in a mild state of
eutrophication. Among the 24 major drinking water sources in the basin, 19 of them
have reached or exceeded Ⅲ the water standard of surface water; the target rate for
water function zones has been up to 40.6% in the river network .
2. The Gained experience
Since the “Master Plan” implementation, in spite of the fact that the GDP of
2010 in the Taihu Basin has a 1.02-time increase over 2005 and the population has
increased by 11,910,000, maintaining the good water environmental quality is a
hard-won achievement. During the process of Taihu management, We have
accumulated experience in organizationing management, governance model,
institutional innovation, and so on.
----Inter-provincial joint session system has laid a good foundation for
organizing Taihu management. The inter-provincial joint session system on
Comprehensive Management of Water Environment in the Taihu Basin, composed by
the relevant departments of State Council, two provinces and one city (hereafter
referred as “inter-provincial joint session”), has efficiently coordinated and solved
major problems in Taihu Project, actively promoted the communication and
collaboration between central departments and local governments, and powerfully
ensured the implementation of the “Master Plan” .
----Strict regulations and laws have provided a forceful legal protection for Taihu
management. In 2011, the state issued China's first integrated basin administrative
regulations “Taihu Basin Management Regulations”. The regulation has ascertained
the principles of the Taihu Basin management to abide by and strengthened the roles
of the Taihu Basin management agencies, local governments and relevant departments,
and focused on making regulations on drinking water safety, water conservation,
water pollution control, flood control and drought relief, shoreline protection, security
guarantee mechanism and supervision measures, etc. In 2010, the State Council
approved the “The Water Function Partition in the Taihu Basin”, and water function
zone management has been further reinforced. Every district increased the
formulation of local legislation and standards, promulgated and implemented a series
of special legislation and strict standards. Jiangsu Province issued the “the Taihu
Basin Water Pollution Prevention Regulations by Jiangsu Province”, “The
Environmental Protection Supervision and Management Measures on Centralized
Sewage Treatment Facilities by Jiangsu Province”, “Interim Procedures of the
Trading Management of Major Water Pollutant Emissions in the Taihu Basin by
Jiangsu Province”; Zhejiang province issued the “The Water Quality Management
Assessment of River Transition Section in the Cross-administrative Regions by
Zhejiang Province”, “The Assessment Methods on Specialized Planning
Implementation of Water Pollution Control in Major Area by Zhejiang Province”,
“The Urban Centralized Sewage Treatment Management Regulation by Zhejiang”;
Shanghai issued the “Shanghai Drinking Water Resource Protection Regulations” and
revised “Shanghai Drainage Management Regulations”. All these regulations will
gradually push Taihu treatment into a legalized track.
----Diversified funding mechanism offers an efficient method for the Taihu
project. The diversified investment and financing mechanism of “Government
guidance, local management, market operation, social participation”, as well as the
market allocations of water and environmental resources have opened up an important
channel to meet with the requirements for Taihu treatment funding. Under the
guidance of the central finance, local investment and other investment financing
channels have become the investment subjects.
III. Major Problems
1. The constraints of improving water quality in the Taihu Basin remain complex.
First of all, the conditions to cause the large-scale cyanobacteria outbreaks still
exist. Since the algae habitat has been formed in Taihu, the accumulation of nitrogen,
phosphorus and other nutrients is likely to cause large-scale cyanobacteria outbreaks
in Taihu so long as the external hydrological, meteorological and other conditions take
shape. The abnormal changes of these factors will make it more difficult in prevention
and control. Next, the total nitrogen concentration of Taihu is still high and there is a
large gap to fill compared with the short-term target in “Master Plan”. Then, the
current state of the Taihu Basin is that the pollutants into river (lake) still exceed the
emission volume limitation. With the economic development, the emission volume is
bound to increase and the pressure of reducing will be more. Additionally, the Taihu
ecosystem is degraded with the grass-type lakes turning into algae-type lakes; the
water environmental capacity has decreased and the self-purification ability is reduced.
It is an arduous task to restore the healthy lake ecosystem.
2. The general agricultural pollution has become a major source of pollutants.
With the specific industrial pollution management and urban sewage
management in the Taihu Basin gradually in place, the general agriculture pollution
which occupies the gradually increased proportion in pollution load makes it a major
contradiction in the management of Taihu. In “Master Plan Revision”, the
arrangements for non-specific source pollution control projects are relatively few and
they are not well performed as well. Especially there is the shortage of specific policy
support and evaluation mechanisms in the reduction of fertilizers and pesticides, the
construction of ecological interception ditch, and the rural clean project, etc. The
facility coverage of rural sewage treatment is low and there are some bottleneck
problems to be solved urgently such as financial and technical problems during the
process of construction and operation.
3. The structural pollution problem is still prominent.
Emerging high-tech industries in the Taihu Basin is still in its early stages of
development. Among the tertiary industry, production services was especially lagging
behind. In the second industry, pollutant emissions of textile, chemical, metallurgical
and other heavy pollution industries remains high, and a small number of industrial
enterprises take measures in reducing pollutant emissions. Besides, the industrial
pollution control investment is low; companies are not active in pollution control; the
contradiction between economic development and environmental protection is still
sharp.
4. The level of sewage treatment facility operation and management needs to be
improved
Over the past five years, although more than 300 sewage treatment plants have
been newly built in the Taihu Basin, there is a lag-behind pipe network construction
for sewage collection. Some of the sewage treatment plants operating load is low and
the device capacity is not fully utilized. The sewage treatment facilities are not fully
effective. In addition, some sewage treatment plants lack management and technical
professionals, and backward management also restricts the normal operation of
sewage treatment facilities and affects the water quality to reach the standard.
5. The elementary task remains weak.
Currently, the indicators of total nitrogen and total phosphorus have not been
included when the two provinces and one city assess the pollutant emission target and
river water quality, which does not help to achieve the overall objectives of the Taihu
management. Monitoring and warning platform and information sharing mechanism
have not been established. Due to lack of funds to support the implementation of the
subject, scientific and technological projects failed to carry out and the major
scientific and technological achievements and practical techniques have failed to form
an effective transformation and application.
Contents
Preface
1 Basic introduction
1.1 The introduction to the Taihu Basin
1.2 Water environment state
1.3 Management progress and achievements
1.4 Major problems
2 General requirements
2.1 Guiding ideology
2.2 Basic principles
2.3 Governance goals
3 Primary missions
3.1 Drinking water security guarantee
3.2 Adjustment of industrial structure and layout
3.3 Industrial point source pollution control
3.4 Urban sewage and garbage disposal
3.5 Non-point source treatment
3.6 Ecological protection and restoration
3.7 Water conservancy construction
3.8 Water conservation and emissions reduction
3.9 Monitoring systems and early warning system construction
3.10 Science and technology research
3.11 Resource utilization
3.12 Project operation management and guarantee
3.13The comprehensive renovation in Dianshan Lake
4 Major projects
4.1 The overall arrangement
4.2 Drinking water safety guarantee project
4.3 Industrial point source pollution control project
4.4 Urban sewage and garbage disposal project
4.5 Non-point source treatment project
4.6 Ecological restoration project
4.7 Cited platoon project
4.8 River channels and network rehabilitation project
4.9 Water conservation and emissions reduction project
4.10 Resource utilization
4.11 Monitoring and warning project
4.12 Science and technology research project
5 Investment estimation
6 Benefit analysis
6.1 Environment benefit analysis
6.2 Investment benefit analysis
6.3 Social benefit analysis
7 Safeguard measures
7.1 To strengthen the main responsibility and perfect evaluation system
7.2 To improve coordination system and establish long-term mechanism
7.3 To insist on scientific decision-making and strengthen scientific and
technological support
7.4 To be strict with standards system and insist the rule of law
7.5 To strengthen policy guidance and highlighting key aspects
7.6 To establish a shared mechanism and enhance the regulatory capacity
7.7 To strengthen market instruments and innovative operating mechanism
7.8 To strengthen project management and improve investment efficiency
7.9 To encourage public participation and strengthen social supervision