Situation analysis of China's wastewater discharge

Great progress has been made in reducing China's water pollution after decades of efforts. From the perspective of wastewater discharge, the situation of wastewater discharge since 1985 is analysed in this study, with importance attached to industrial wastewater, including wastewater from township enterprises, and to municipal domestic wastewater. In general, the total wastewater discharge in China is still growing year by year, resulting mainly from the increasing municipal domestic wastewater discharge. Industrial wastewater discharge has been under effective control, with the discharge rate that meets standards being higher than 90%. Take township enterprises as an example, their wastewater discharge and chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge, which for a time accounted for 21% of the total industrial wastewater discharge and 44.3% of the total industrial COD discharge, respectively, have decreased greatly, after taking a series of measures such as shutting down, stopping run, combination and transferring, and increasing environmental protection efforts. The increasing municipal domestic wastewater discharge is mainly because of the growing urban population. However, owing to some factors such as water price, its increase slowed down. Besides, the treatment rate of municipal domestic wastewater reached 49.1% in 2007, and is still increasing.