10 Things China is doing to Ensure Water for the Olympics

Could you imagine having the 1996 Atlanta Olympics last year in the peak of the drought? This is what China is going to do this August without half of Atlanta's existing infrastructure.

China indicates that water demand could rise to 30% above average in the city as thousands of visitors arrive for the Olympic games. One Chinese official admitted that providing water for the Olympics will be a "severe test for us."

Last week I wrote a post about the 10 things you may not know about China and Water. As a follow-up, I thought this morning I would collect from different media reports 10 things China is doing to ensure water for the Olympics.

1. China is building 14 new wastewater treatment facilities, with the goal of increasing waste water treatment to 90 percent in both the city center and surrounding towns.
2. China had a goal to increase sufficient water treatment for tap water from 42 percent in 2001 to 70 percent in Beijing. The tap water goal has been scaled back to focus only on the Olympic Village, postponing potable tap water for the whole city until after 2008.
3. The national stadium drinking water project will use pretreatment and reverse osmosis to provide over 500 gallons per minute of drinking water (~500,000 bottles of water per day).
4. A rainwater recycling project at the national stadium will recycle rainwater using underground pools and water will be re-used for landscaping, fire-fighting, and cleaning ( Capacity is about 80 tons per hour). This is a first for China.
   
5. Qinghe Water Reuse Project—the largest municipal wastewater membrane reuse project in China—will supply water for the Olympic lake, landscaping, and non-drinking water applications in the Olympic Village.
6. More than 150 million cubic meters (39.6 billion gallons) of water are being diverted from the Yellow River through a network of canals stretching across three provinces to refill a lake south of the historically drought-stricken Chinese capital.
   
7. The National Aquatics Centre, known as 'The Water Cube', will reuse and recycle 80% of water harvested from the roof catchment areas and pool backwash systems to top up the pools.
8. China admitted in July of last year that almost half the barreled water sold in the capital could be "fake", or not as pure as its manufacturers claim. China is now mandating a special code that will be printed beneath a label on the mouth of every barrel to ensure quality.
9. China has closed polluting factories and relocated over 15,000 residents to reduce household pollution near Beijing's main water supply reservoir, the Miyun.
10. The rowing venue was built on the dried-out Chaobai river bed in Beijing's Shunyi district and will use water from the Miyun reservoir. Rapid urban development dried out the Chaobai river nine years ago.

Sources:
Olympics a threat to Water Supply
Welcome to WaterCube, the experiment that thinks it's a swimming pool
Beijing Says Water a "Severe Test" it Can Pass
China's Green Olympics: A Lasting Impact?
2008 OLYMPICS: China sprints to provide water