Confronting limitations: new solutions required for urban water management in Kunming City.
Despite continuous investment and various efforts to control pollution, urban water environments are worsening in large parts of the developing world. In order to reveal potential constraints and limitations of current practices of urban water management and to stimulate proactive intervention, we conducted a material flow analysis of the urban water system in Kunming City. The results demonstrate that the current efficiency of wastewater treatment is only around 25% and the emission of total phosphorous from the city into its receiving water, Dianchi Lake, is more than 25 times higher than its estimated tolerance. With regard to the crisis of water quantity and quality, the goal of a sustainable urban water environment cannot be attained with the current problem-solving approach in the region due to the technical limitations of the conventional urban drainage and treatment systems. A set of strategies is therefore proposed. The urban drainage system in Zurich is used as a reference for a potential best-available technology for conventional urban water management (BAT) scenario in terms of its low combined frequency of sewer overflow.
Huang
Dong-Bin
DB
Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Ueberlandstrasse, 133, P.O. Box 611, 8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland. dongbin.huang@eawag.ch
Bader
Hans-Peter
HP
Scheidegger
Ruth
R
Schertenleib
Roland
R
Gujer
Willi
W
D002947:Cities; D013557:Switzerland; D014505:Urban Population; D014865:Waste Disposal, Fluid / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D018505:Waste Management / Q000379:methods*; D014872:Water Movements; D014876:Water Pollution / Q000032:analysis / Q000517:prevention & control*; D018508:Water Purification / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D014881:Water Supply