1.1 Background – Why Need the Practice Guideline

Categories: 1 Introduction
Time of issue: 2022-04-26 17:03:13
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By the end of 2021, the rural population was 498.35 million (China Statistic Yearbook, 2022) in China, accounting for approximately 35.28% of total population and scattering in 481,000 administrative villages and 2,361,000 natural villages. To promote sustainable rural development and improve people's living standards in rural areas, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly released the Three-Year Action Plan for Rural Living Environment Renovation in February 2018, which has put forward requirements on wastewater management and toilet renovation in rural areas. In the same year, the Central Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) launched the Rural Vitalization Strategy (RVS) and issued the Rural Vitalization Strategy Plan (2018-2022) (RVSP) in September. The RVSP specifies the task of promoting localized rural sanitation management and innovative rural wastewater (RWW) management models as one of the interventions to rehabilitate rural ecological environment, and to achieve the goal of building beautiful and livable villages in PRC.

In China, RWW management was limited with directly discharging the majority of untreated wastewater to the natural environment until 2008, and slowly progressed before entering a rapid developing phase after 2015, resulting in significant increase of RWW service coverage. The national average rate of RWW service was reported as 1% in 2006, increased to 6% in 2010 and up to 10% by 2014. By the end of 2020, the RWW service coverage ranged from 10% to 90% in different regions.

Since 2010 the rural sanitation and wastewater have been significantly improved as a result of intensive governmental investments. Many villages have installed sanitary toilets, public sewers, and onsite wastewater treatment facilities. According to the 13th Five Year Plan (FYP) for Comprehensive Rehabilitation of National Rural Environment (2015-2020), the number of administrative villages with RWW facilities should have been 78,000 in 2015 and will be 208,000 by 2020, respectively. The percentage of administrative villages with RWW facilities installed would be 34.7% and the treatment rate of RWW in these villages should be no less than 60% by 2020. The 14th FYP (2021-2025) also emphasizes on rural toilet renovation and construction of wastewater treatment facilities for villages, especially in underdeveloped, water scarce, and frigid regions. In addition to capital investment, the government also issued a serious of guidelines, technical specifications, and standards to provide general guidance for practitioners.

However, many improperly planned, designed, and implemented projects, with insufficient community participation and a lack of proper operation and maintenance (O&M), or inappropriate technologies, have led to a high level of failed rural wastewater projects in PRC. Challenges remain in the design, construction, O&M, as well as management of RWW facilities:

Inappropriate and unclear regulations/policies on rural wastewater management;
Technical difficulties for RWW design due to regional disparities, including different geographical, topographical, climate, environmental, economic and social conditions in various villages;
Inadequate design criteria, such as unaffordable specifications in construction of RWW treatment facilities (e.g. excessiely strict provincial RWW discharge standards make practical RWW treatment not feasible for many villages);
Unsustainable financing approaches in RWW facility construction that relies heavily on public financing or subsidizing by the governments;
Financial difficulties for O&M of facilities due to lack of cost recovery mechanisms to support sustainable operation and management of facilities;
Limited managerial capacity and lack of working knowledge, qualified practitioners, and practical guidelines for sustainable operation.
Weak regulatory enforcement on effluent control; and
Inadequate villagers’ and/or community’s awareness of, engagement in, and ownership for the government’s initiated RWW projects.

Many technical failures in O&M of RWW facilities could be caused by poor design and construction in the following areas: (i) incorrect estimation of influent flow volume and quality; (ii) inappropriate technical solutions, such as overly complicated treatment process that are difficult to operate; (iii) inadequate standardized technology options, making the facilities inapplicable in different local conditions; (iv) poorly designed or installed sewers and RWW facilities; and (v) unqualified designers and operators.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide practice guidelines for Chinese decision makers, officials, design engineers, contractors, operators, and villagers to better understand the key issues and constraints in terms of RWW management and to identify feasible solutions and tools to improve the performance and sustainability of the RWW projects.