Public urged to become aware of need to save water

Shanghai is well on the way to become more water efficient, authorities said on Sunday, at the opening ceremony of this year’s weeklong campaign to promote public awareness of water saving.

With 938 water-saving measures in place, the city saved at least 6 million cubic meters of water last year, with the maximum daily saving amount 21,400 cubic meters, according to Shanghai Water Bureau.

In 2020, the city's water consumption for per 10,000 yuan of GDP was 19 cubic meters, down 5 percent from the previous year. The water use amount for per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value was 34 cubic meters, a 2.9 percent year-on-year decrease.

More than 200 government departments and enterprises were honored for successfully saving water last year via establishing water management mechanisms, installing new water-saving equipment and promoting the use of unconventional water resources.

These included Huashan Hospital, whose water consumption dropped from 894,000 cubic meters in 2017 to 675,000 cubic meters last year, saving 219,000 cubic meters in total, or the amount of 88 standard swimming pools.

A digital management platform connected with 162 intelligent water meters in the hospital now can monitor water use in all areas and receive alarms when irregularities happen.

The hospital has also used building information modeling technology to help find out leakage risks to reduce waste of water. 

All the sanitary ware in the hospital has been replaced with water-saving ones, and an 8-cubic-meter bin has been installed on top of one of its buildings to collect rainwater, which is used for a public toilet after being filtrated and sterilized. It can save about 2,000 cubic meters of tap water per year. It also uses water from a lake in the hospital for its afforestation irrigation system to save 50 to 60 percent of the water used in irrigation.

It has also been organizing lectures and using its website, newspapers, books and social media platforms to promote water saving among its staff.

Shanghai Children’s Home is another institution equipped with an intelligent management platform, which enables the managers to monitor real-time water consumption and tendency of water use on their mobile phones. It also uses rainwater for its afforestation irrigation. Last year, it saved 1,260 cubic meters of water.

In order to promote the public awareness of water-saving, China has been celebrating the national water-saving promotion week in May annually since 1992. Every year, a series of events are held around the country.

In this year's awareness week, starting from Sunday, activities about water saving will be held in Shanghai both online and offline, including a knowledge contest, an online class and a virtual tour.