Shanghai aims to become water-saving society by next year's end
Shanghai is striving to become a water-saving society, pledging to accomplish the goal by the end of next year, the local water authority announced during Wednesday's theme event, which marked the 31st World Water Day and the 36th China Water Week.
Shanghai's nine suburban districts have met the standard of a water-saving society since 2021.
Also, construction work in downtown areas was launched on Wednesday and is expected to finish by the end of 2024, according to the authority.
Kong Xiangdong, a famous Chinese pianist, improvised a piano piece about water during Wednesday's theme event on water conservation
Famous Chinese pianist, Kong Xiangdong, showed up at the event as Shanghai's water-saving ambassador. He improvised and played a piano piece by using a piano fully made of environment-friendly materials.
He called for residents to save water, starting with small things around us, such as drinking all the water from a disposable bottle before throwing it away.
Kong Xiangdong (center), along with four citizens from the environmental field, called for water conservation.
In addition to water conservation promotion among citizens, some 10 enterprises and nine social institutions were honored for their water conservation works last year.
Shanghai consumed about 7.7 billion cubic meters of water in 2022, the city water authority said.
Of this, 17 cubic meters of water were consumed on average to create per 10,000 yuan (US$1,452) of GDP, while 33 cubic meters to produce per 10,000 yuan of industrial output, down 45.2 percent and 37.7 percent, respectively, compared with the end of the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) period.
