ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE CLEAN WATER SUPPLY IN SOUTH by Civic Exchange

ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE CLEAN WATER SUPPLY IN SOUTH CHINA

A Report By: William Lee Zu Yan Liang Abel Sanchez-Torres Kevin Zhang

March 2005

Achieving Sustainable Clean Water Supply in South China An Interactive Qualifying Project Report Submitted to the Faculty of

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science Degree Sponsoring Agency: Civic Exchange, Hong Kong On-Site Liaison: Ms. Christine Loh, Chief Executive Officer, Civic Exchange Submitted by:

________________________ William Lee

________________________ Zu Yan Liang

________________________ Abel Sanchez-Torres

________________________ Kevin Zhang

Date: 3 March 2005 Approved by: ____________________ Professor Ronald Biederman, Advisor ____________________ Professor Creighton Peet, Co-Advisor

Abstract Hong Kong and Guangdong Province are facing clean water supply problems due to drought, waste, and over consumption. Our project, sponsored by Civic Exchange, presents our research and analysis of the clean water situation in South China, and proposes strategies to improve water management in the region.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank our liaison Ms. Christine Loh for sponsoring our project and guidance. Thanks also go to everyone at Civic Exchange and Society for the Protection of the Harbour for allowing us to use their office on a daily basis. We would like to acknowledge Professor Creighton Peet and Professor Ronald Biederman for their advice and useful comments on this report. We also like to thank Professor Albert Koenig from The University of Hong Kong, Chief Engineer T.O. Lee of the Water Supplies Department, and Professor William Barron from The University of Hong Kong for taking the time to talk with us and giving us indispensable information for this report.

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Authorship Page Abstract: Group Executive Summary: Group Chapter I: Abel Sanchez-Torres and Kevin Zhang Chapter II: Group Chapter III: Kevin Zhang and Abel Sanchez-Torres Chapter IV: 4.1: William Lee 4.2: Kevin Zhang 4.3: Abel Sanchez-Torres and Kevin Zhang 4.4: William Lee and Zu Yan Liang 4.5: William Lee 4.6: William Lee Chapter V: Group All other efforts regarding this report were shared so as to equally distribute all work between the members of the group.

Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................. iii Authorship Page........................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................v Table of Figures .......................................................................................................................vii Table of Tables ...................................................................................................................... viii Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................ix Chapter I: Introduction...............................................................................................................1 Chapter II: Background and Literature Review.........................................................................3 2.1 The South China Region..................................................................................................3 2.1.1 The Complex Government in Guangdong Province and the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) .......................................................................................................................3 2.1.2 Hong Kong’s Interface with Guangdong Province...................................................4 2.1.3 The Dongjiang River.................................................................................................4 2.2 Clean Water Supplies in South China..............................................................................5 2.2.1 Hong Kong’s Clean Water Supply ...........................................................................5 2.2.2 Guangdong Province’s Clean Water Supply ............................................................8 2.3 Water Consumption in South China ..............................................................................10 2.4 Heading towards a Solution ...........................................................................................12 2.4.1 Resource Efficiency and Resource Conservation ...................................................12 2.4.2 Total Water Management Programme....................................................................12 2.4.3 Public Education .....................................................................................................17 2.5 Conclusion .....................................................................................................................17 Chapter III: Methodology ........................................................................................................19 3.1 Investigating Public Awareness and Public Education..................................................19 3.2 Assessing Efficiency......................................................................................................19 3.3 The Tiered Water Pricing System..................................................................................20 3.4 Examining Water Pollution Regulations .......................................................................20 Chapter IV Results and Analysis .............................................................................................22 v

4.1 Water Pricing Structure..................................................................................................22 4.2 Water Supply Network ..................................................................................................25 4.3 Public Education ............................................................................................................27 4.4 Alternative Water Supply ..............................................................................................29 4.5 Cross-border Communication........................................................................................31 Chapter V: Conclusions and Recommendations......................................................................33 5.1 Efficient Usage of the Water Supply .............................................................................33 5.1.1 Water Supply Network ...........................................................................................33 5.1.2 Water Pricing System .............................................................................................34 5.1.3 Public Education and Awareness............................................................................35 5.2 Cross-border Communication........................................................................................35 5.3 Alternative Water Sources .............................................................................................36 Chapter VI Future Work ..........................................................................................................37 6.1 Privatizing Water ...........................................................................................................37 6.2 Analyze Hong Kong Pilot Scheme Results ...................................................................37 6.3 Analyze Cost of Providing Free Water to Hong Kong Residents .................................38 6.4 Analyze Guangdong Provinceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Water Situation ..........................................................38 References................................................................................................................................39 Appendix A: Interview Protocol..............................................................................................41 Appendix B: Interview Transcript with Professor Koenig ......................................................42 Appendix C: Interview Transcript with Mr. Lee .....................................................................49 Appendix D: Interview Transcript with Prof. Barron..............................................................58 Appendix E: Old WSD Poster .................................................................................................63

Table of Figures Figure 2.1: 2004 Hong Kong Water Consumption..................................................................10 Figure 2.2: Guangdong Province Water Consumption............................................................11

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Table of Tables Table 2.1: Reservoir Storage Capacities....................................................................................6 Table 2.2: Water Supply Agreements between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province ............7 Table 2.3: Rainfall level for Different Regions of Guangdong from 1987 to 1997 ..................9 Table 2.4: Guangdong water reservoirs and their total capacities .............................................9

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Executive Summary Water supply is vital to the development of any nation. Water is used for a wide array of purposes, from agriculture to drinking. As a necessity for basic survival, water is probably the most important resource on earth, along with air. Clean water, however, is scarce and many areas of the world face shortages. Excess consumption, waste, pollution, and lack of fresh water sources are a few of the factors that have led to such situations.

Hong Kong and Guangdong Province are two areas beginning to face clean water supply problems. With no natural freshwater sources of its own, Hong Kong has come to rely heavily on external water sources. Through a contract with Guangdong Province, Hong Kong has been purchasing water from the Dongjiang River, a tributary of the Pearl River, which accounts for 80 percent of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual freshwater supply. Guangdong Province, on the other hand, is a water rich area in China. It contains several large rivers, the largest of which is the Pearl River.

Guangdong Province has high water consumption due to fast economic development in the Pearl River Delta area, its large agricultural sector, and its high population. The water consumption in Hong Kong is growing at a mild rate annually, mostly in the residential and commercial sectors. In addition, prolonged drought and increasing water pollution in Guangdong Province are a threat to its freshwater sources.

For our project, we focused on several aspects that can benefit the region: water pricing, public education, water transport system, transborder communication, and alternative water supplies. We interviewed experts and gathered data related to different areas in order to

design strategies to help the governments of Hong Kong and Guangdong Province move towards better water management.

We concluded that changes had to be made to the current state of affairs. For one, water prices in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province are much too low. The governments of both areas subsidize water for the consumer, and as such water prices do not even reflect the cost of supplying the water. This has led to waste and does not encourage end users to practice efficient water use. For public education, the biggest change that can be made is raising water prices. By affecting the current generation of water users, the effectiveness of the current education programs will be vastly improved. The next generation of water users, now being educated with teacher training, multimedia campaigns, and new school curricula, should grow up with better knowledge to conserve and use water more efficiently in the future.

Fixing the water supply network will benefit both areas. In Hong Kong, about 36 percent of the annual freshwater supply is lost due to defects in the water transport system. In Guangdong Province, water loss in the agriculture sector alone accounts for 30 percent of freshwater loss per year. Hong Kong has started plans to rehabilitate their water supply network, but work is being carried out slowly. If work is carried out in both areas, the freshwater supplies will be extended.

Cross-border communication between Guangdong Province and Hong Kong is vital. Both areas are connected not just geographically, but also economically and politically. Communication between the two governments, however, are lacking in terms of the water

supply. Increasing the level of communication concerning the water supplies and jointly fixing problems such as pollution problems will benefit both areas.

Alternative water supplies were the last area we focused on. Seawater currently accounts for 80 percent of the water used for flushing in Hong Kong, and there are currently plans for an effluent treatment plant in Ngong Ping. A pilot desalination plant has also been completed as of November 2004. There are no plans to use any of the water for drinking purposes however, though the effluent treatment plant will supplant clean water for flushing to the Ngong Ping area. For Guangdong Province, alternative water sources could replace a large amount of clean water for high demand sectors. Agriculture and industry, accounting for almost 80 percent of the clean water used in the province, could be switched over to reclaimed water.

Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, as can be seen, need to head down a path of better water management. This results from a combination of efforts. It might be difficult because of political or social barriers, but clean water is valuable to the region and changes have to be made.

Chapter I: Introduction Of all the natural resources on earth, there is arguably none more important to human survival than water. While nearly three-fourths of the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface is covered with water, only less than one percent of it is fresh water, and even less is fit for human consumption. Coupled with pollution, waste, agriculture, urbanization, industrialization and an ever increasing global population creating a higher demand for water, the relatively small amount of clean water available has led to many water shortages and crises all over the world.

An area that has had to face these issues is South China (defined in this project to mean Guangdong Province and the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong). The population of Guangdong Province is nearing 86 million people and is still growing 1.2 percent each year. With rapid industrialization in Guangdong Province for the past two decades, it has become a global economic center known for its industrial strength in textiles and manufacturing, as well as for agriculture. Hong Kong, long an economic center, has a population around 6.85 million people. With almost no freshwater sources of its own, a large majority of the water Hong Kong obtains is from Guangdong Province, which sells Hong Kong water from the Pearl River, the major river system in South China. While this arrangement may currently be sufficient, better and more sustainable methods need to be developed to satisfy Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future demands. In addition to consuming great amounts of water, the growing population in South China contributes to ever greater quantities of municipal waste. The agricultural run-off and wastewater from industries in the Pearl River Delta region likewise include heavy metals and other hazardous pollutants. This endangers the supply of clean water for the people and ecosystem of this region.

There have been numerous analyses and studies concerning water consumption levels in South China. Hong Kong has already begun attempts to reduce water usage based on these 1

studies. Hong Kong has implemented a dual pipe system for all new buildings and houses to use seawater for flushing toilets in order to reduce the amount of clean water consumed. Hong Kong has also experimented with water treatment technologies such as desalination in its search for alternative sources of water.

Current studies and reports have not led to suitable solutions for a sustainable clean water supply in South China. Desalination was a method attempted previously by the Hong Kong government and is currently being considered once again. Another project Hong Kong is considering is the reuse of effluent. However, the government has not focused on the promotion of efficient water use. Water pollution regulations in South China are neither strictly enforced nor stringent when compared to countries such as the United States. As such our sponsoring organization, Civic Exchange, was interested in developing a strategy for sustainable water usage in South China.

Our goal was to develop strategies for the South China region for a sustainable water supply through improvements in water management. Our project analyzed the costs and benefits of various conservation measures, and a variety of technologies and possible solutions that Hong Kong and Guangdong can adopt. By understanding the water supply issues, we have identified how the water system currently works and any attempts that have been made to conserve and use water more efficiently. We also determined Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and Guangdongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views about the long-term provision for sustainable clean water in the region. We have explored how other regions in the world have attempted to deal with their water supply issues, what the costs have been to implement such methods, and then compared them with the situation in South China. From the culmination of all the information gathered, we recommended a strategy for sustainable water resource management for the South China region.

Chapter II: Background and Literature Review Hong Kong and Guangdong Province are geographical neighbors and rely on each other for many resources. Since the 1960’s, Hong Kong has had an agreement with the Guangdong government to obtain water from the Dongjiang River. As the population and economy has grown rapidly in the region, so has the demand for clean water.

2.1 The South China Region The South China region is helping to fuel the economic development of China as a whole. Hong Kong has always served as a catalyst for growth in Guangdong Province through the exchange of products, people, information, and capital. Currently, there are discussions of constructing a long distance bridge connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai, and Macau, bringing the region closer together. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region in South China is considered as one of the world’s fastest growing economic regions. Although the PRD is only a small region of Guangdong Province, it generates 78.5 percent of the province’s total GDP (Loh & Gill, 2003, p.3).

2.1.1 The Complex Government in Guangdong Province and the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) Guangdong Province has possibly the most complex administrative structure in the world. The region itself is comprised of three SEZs (Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou), three counties, 16 county-level cities, and one metropolitan area (Guangzhou) (Loh & Gill, 2003, p.6). Although the geographical distance among the various areas is small, each area has various degrees of autonomy to make economic decisions. Relaxation of central control by the Chinese government and geographic proximity to Hong Kong, Macau, and overseas Chinese communities has made the PRD economically vibrant.

2.1.2 Hong Kong’s Interface with Guangdong Province Until China adopted its Open Door economic reforms in 1979, Hong Kong was the primary window to the outside world for China. Since then, China has gradually opened up the country gradually. In 1997, Hong Kong reverted from British to Chinese sovereignty and is now governed under the “one country, two systems” principle. This system is to be in place for 50 years during which time Hong Kong is to maintain its current socio-economic and political structure.

As part of the Open Door policy, China allowed foreign investments in the PRD during the 1980s. This enabled Hong Kong’s manufacturers to relocate their productions from Hong Kong to the PRD to benefit from greater land and labor supplies, as well as lower costs. Hong Kong, on the other hand, continues to provide capital, expertise and management skills (Loh, 2002b). Besides the economic interaction between Hong Kong and Guangdong, the governments of these two regions are in frequent contact with each other on matters such as border control, immigration, security, food, air quality, and water supply (Loh, 2002a).

2.1.3 The Dongjiang River The Dongjiang River, one of the Pearl River’s major tributaries, is located in the eastern part of Guangdong Province. It drains an area of 35,340 square kilometers of which 90 percent is in Guangdong Province. The river flows from northeast to southwest. Three major metropolitan areas, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong, all with large populations and fast economic growth, are in the river basin region. The river is important to Hong Kong, as well as its neighboring regions, because they all draw their potable water from the Dongjiang. A secure water supply is “vital to the great economic success and prosperity in the region” (Chen and Chau, 2000, p.125).

The industries in the PRD region of South China, mainly funded by Hong Kong entrepreneurs, are putting severe pressure on this source of water. Therefore, some experts believe the protection of this water source is the responsibility of both parties, Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. This problem can not be solved by a single party alone.

2.2 Clean Water Supplies in South China The main source of fresh water in the South China region is the Pearl River, formed by various tributaries such as the Dongjiang River, Dongguan, and Xijiang Rivers.

2.2.1 Hong Kong’s Clean Water Supply Supplying Hong Kong with an adequate water supply has always been a difficult task. Even though Hong Kong is located on the coast, it has a shortage of clean water resources. This is due to the lack of natural lakes and rivers, and the granite base this region sits upon, yielding no substantial underground water (Lu et al, 2003, p.1451).

Hong Kong has two main sources for clean water (Information Services Department [ISD], 2004). Those sources are rainfall, from natural catchments, and supply from Guangdong Province. The scarcity of natural reservoirs led to the construction of numerous man-made reservoirs. Hong Kong’s first “reservoir in the sea” was at Plover Cove, which was first completed in 1967. It was created by damming and draining an inlet of Tolo Harbour. It had an initial storage capacity of 170 million cubic meters, and was increased in 1973 to 230 million cubic meters by raising the dam. Nearly one-third of the total land area in Hong Kong has been developed as water catchments. Hong Kong’s total storage capacity in reservoirs is 586 million cubic meters. However, the reservoirs are never at capacity.

Although the reservoirs can supply a certain amount of clean water, the supply is often unstable and uncontrollable due to seasonal variations and uneven distribution of rainfall.

Table 2.1: Reservoir Storage Capacities (WSD, 2004, p.1) Hong Kong is dependent on adequate storage for the maintenance of a regular supply. The reservoirs and their storage are tabulated below: Reservoir Pok Fu Lam Tai Tam Tai Tam Byewash Tai Tam Intermediate Kowloon Tai Tam Tuk Shek Lei Pui Reception Aberdeen (2 Res.) Kowloon Byewash Shing Mun (Jubilee) Tai Lam Chung Shek Pik Lower Shing Mun Plover Cove High Island Total:

Year on Supply 1877 1889 1904 1907 1910 1917 1925 1926 1931 1931 1936 1957 1963 1965 1968 1978

Reservoir Storage m3 231 000 1 490 000 80 000 686 000 1 578 000 6 047 000 374 000 121 000 1 259 000 800 000 13 279 000 20 490 000 24 461 000 4 299 000 229 729 000 281 124 000 586 048 000

The second source of water for Hong Kong is from Guangdong Province, specifically the Dongjiang River. This is the primary source of water for practically all of South China, including Hong Kong. In 1960, the first agreement with the Guangdong authorities was made to purchase 22.7 million cubic meters of raw water each year (Lu, 2003, p. 1451). In the latest agreement made in 2003 (ISD, 2004, p. 1), the amount of water purchased was to increase 10 million cubic meters per annum from 810 million cubic meters. This agreement recently ended on January 1, 2005; the supply quantity and cost are now under further review and negotiation (The Standard, 2005). The designed maximum capacity of the supply system is 1.1 billion cubic meters annually. In 1986, the water purchased from Guangdong represented only about 52 percent of the total demand, whereas in 1996, the 720 million cubic meters represented over 70 percent of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demand. The current supply of water from the

Dongjiang River represents nearly 80 percent of Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s demand. The following table shows water supply agreements between Hong Kong and Guangdong from the year 1960 to the agreement that just expired.

Table 2.2: Water Supply Agreements between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province (Source: Chen and Chau, 2000, p.127)

Year

Agreement

Amount (M m3)

Year Effective

1960

1st

1960

1964

2nd

1965

1972

109

1976

145

1978

182

1982

220

1982

1978

3rd

1980

Supplementary

1987

4th

Progressive increase from 1989 onward to 1995 reaching 660 Mm3

1989

5th

Further increase after 1995 with an annual increase of 30 Mm3 to 760 Mm3 in 1998 and reach 840 Mm3 in 2000 and eventually up to a maximum of 1100 Mm3 per year

These two sources of water are fully treated to conform to standards set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for drinking water (ISD, 2004, p. 1). The treatment includes chemical coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, pH value correction, chlorination, and fluoridation. However, in recent years, the increase in human population and urbanization of the South China region has caused gradual deterioration of water quality in the Dongjiang. The deterioration has been linked to industrialization, animal husbandry, domestic sewage discharges, agricultural chemicals, and soil erosion. Since 1998, to help alleviate the pollutants, all the raw Dongjiang water has been pretreated by a Biological Nitrification Plant at the Shenzhen Reservoir before it is piped across the border to Hong Kong (Ho et al, 2003,

pp. 1441-1442). The closed aqueduct from the abstraction point on the Dongjiang to the Shenzhen Reservoir, commissioned in June 2003, has improved the water quality as well by preventing pollution from intermediary sources.

2.2.2 Guangdong Provinceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Clean Water Supply Guangdong Province is one of the most water rich provinces in China (GD Water Supply Department, 2004). It is located in a rich rainfall region where the annual average rainfall level is 1774 mm, 2.7 times more than the average rainfall level in the rest of the country (GD WSD, 2004). Table 2.3 below shows the amount of rainfall in different regions of Guangdong from year 1987 to 1997.

Table 2.3: Rainfall level for Different Regions of Guangdong from 1987 to 1997 (GD Water Report, 1997)

Regions Name

Lower Basin of Xijiang Beijiang River Dongjiang River Pearl River Delta Hangjing River Eastern Guangdong Western Guangdong Total

Statistic value in 10 Maximum and Minimum Rainfall in Area years Guangdong in 10 years (Ten Rainfall Thousands Rainfall Amount Max. Level Min. Level Meter Level Year Year (Billion (mm) (mm) Square) (mm) Cubic Meters) 1.79

1541

276

1938

1997

1068

1991

4.32

1736

750

2244

1997

1243

1991

2.35

1793

421

2238

1997

1242

1991

2.68

1686

452

2193

1997

1216

1991

1.80

1797

323

2157

1997

1121

1991

1.52

1884

286

2507

1997

1404

1989

3.17

1828

579

2306

1997

1460

1991

17.64

3087

Although the province is considered water rich, supplying Guangdong with an adequate water supply is not an easy task. Droughts are frequent, and water pollution and inefficient water use add to the water problem. There are over 6500 reservoirs, with capacities totaling 38.1 billion cubic meters (GD WSD, 2004). The government categorizes them into three sizes, small, median, and large as shown below in Table 2.4 (GD Water Report, 2004).

Table 2.4: Guangdong water reservoirs and their total capacities (GD Water Report, 2004)

Size

Number of Reservoirs

Capacities

Small

25.23 billion cubic meters

Median

274

7.4 billion cubic meters

Large

6238

5.462 billion cubic meters

Total

38.1 billion cubic meters

A majority of the water used in Guangdong is from these reservoirs. Only 0.8 percent of Guangdongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water supply comes from groundwater (GD Water Report, 2004).

2.3 Water Consumption in South China Currently, the rate of clean water consumption in the South China region is growing every year, due to rapid development and population growth in Guangdong Province. In 2004, clean water consumption in Hong Kong was 980 million cubic meters, with over half of that going to the domestic sector (Water Supplies Department, 2004). The total per capita consumption rate of water in Hong Kong is 75 cubic meters per year. All together, domestic and service uses accounted for over three-fourths of the total amount of water consumed in Hong Kong, as can be seen in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1: 2004 Hong Kong Water Consumption (WSD, 2004)

In contrast to Hong Kong, Guangdongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water consumption patterns are very different. From the most recent data, domestic and service uses accounted for only 20 percent of total water used in Guangdong province in 2002.

The China Water Conservancy

Department (2004) claims that per capita clean water usage in Guangdong is 504 cubic meters per person per year, higher than Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s average of 430 cubic meters per person per year (CWC, 2004).

As the Guangdong Agriculture Department states (2004b), usage of clean water for agriculture in Guangdong Province accounts for nearly 60 percent of the total water usage in the whole province (GAD, 2004b). In Guangdong, there are about 4.34 million hectares of arable land, making up about 24.4 percent of the total land area of the province (GAD, 2004a). Each acre of farmland in Guangdong uses an average of 830 cubic meters of water annually (China Water Conservancy, 2004). Although a large amount of water is used for agriculture in Guangdong, half of the water is wasted due to leakage during transportation (Chinese Water Conservancy, 2004). The other major consumer of clean water in Guangdong is the industrial sector, which accounts for the final 20 percent.

Figure 2.2: Guangdong Province Water Consumption (Source: South China Morning Post, February 15, 2005)

2.4 Heading towards a Solution It is evident that Guangdong Province and Hong Kong must reduce their levels of clean water consumption in order for the region to continue its growth. This can be achieved through a combination of measures, but concepts such as resource efficiency must be introduced.

2.4.1 Resource Efficiency and Resource Conservation In Factor Four, resource efficiency is described as using less of a resource to achieve the same or a better effect (Weizsäcker et al, 1997, p.xxi). More efficient use of clean water will be vital for continued growth in South China. A variety of solutions can be implemented in order to increase the efficiency of water consumption.

Domestic Water Efficiency The use of water-efficient fixtures such as showerheads and appliances such as washing machines in the domestic and commercial sectors can reduce water consumption levels to a fraction of previous levels (Weizsäcker et al, 1997). Reducing water leakages in the water supply network can help as well. Combining water efficiency with alternative water resources will extend the supply of clean water. Grey water reuse and using untreated rainwater for purposes such as flushing, watering gardens, and industrial cooling has the same effect as using clean water.

2.4.2 Total Water Management Programme In Hong Kong’s 2003 Policy Agenda, a Total Water Management (TWM) program implementation was pledged as an initiative to enhance water conservation and water

resource protection (ETWB, 2003). The TWM entails optimal utilization of water resources in the whole water cycle. This includes using the most appropriate types and quantities of water available for different purposes, minimizing wastage, and protecting the quality and quantity of existing water resources while developing feasible alternative water resources.

The Water Supplies Department (WSD) of Hong Kong has long been promoting the idea of water conservation (ETWB, 2003, p.2). Education and publicity programs were launched to raise the public awareness and appreciation of the benefits of water conservation. Visits to waterworks installations have opened, and roving exhibitions, seminars, forums, publicity programs have been organized.

Seawater An alternative to using fresh water is the use of seawater to service some plumbing. Hong Kong was first in the world to implement a dual pipe system, using seawater for flushing purposes (Water Supplies Department [WSD], 2004b). A pilot program was set up in Yau Ma Tei, in 1955, to test out this type of system. In 1957, in order to save fresh water, the Water Authority suggested that it would install seawater flushing systems in the newly developed areas of Kowloon. The drought in 1963-64 and the general lack of water resources in the 1960's promoted the widespread use of seawater in Hong Kong. In 1991, about 65 percent of Hong Kong's households used seawater for flushing. Today, about 80 percent of the total population is provided with seawater flushing. About 650,000 cubic meters of seawater is used daily, the equivalent of some 25 percent of the daily fresh water consumption. The main advantage of using seawater is its proximity to consumers and abundant supply. It enables densely populated districts to enjoy good public hygiene, even with a deficiency of fresh water. In addition to providing seawater for flushing, the WSD will consider extending the supply system to further areas that are economically justified.

Replacing Water Mains There have been significant discrepancies between the amount of water Hong Kong has been documented to receive and what was actually received. The discrepancies can be tied to loss during transmission, inaccurate measurements and erroneous data (Adamo, 2002, p. 18). Currently, Hong Kong loses 36 percent of its main fresh water supply due to pipe leakage, which has gone up from 23 percent in 1971. Lack of maintenance on the water pipes can account for this increase in water loss. Hong Kong's fresh water and seawater supplies are provided through a network of 6,800 kilometers of water mains (WSD, 2004c). Most of these water mains are underground, and about half of them were laid some 30 years ago as part of the development of urban areas and new towns. A study was conducted that accounted for the capital cost of the replacement and rehabilitation work, savings in maintenance costs, the loss of water and the social implications of leakages and main bursts. From the recommendation of this study, the WSD has recently launched a comprehensive and systemic plan to replace or rehabilitate about 3,000 kilometers of aged water mains over 20 years to improve the condition of the water supply network (WSD, 2004a) and to prevent its further deterioration. The loss of treated water through leakage and bursting of water mains will be reduced upon the completion of the plan, along with reducing the potential contamination of clean water.

Alternative Water Supplies Considering the water demands on the Dongjiang River basin, Hong Kong and Guangdong Province might have to aim for alternative sources of water. The WSD of Hong Kong is exploring alternative water resources to reduce the reliance on the water from Dongjiang (ETWB, 2003, p.4). The WSD has completed three desktop feasibility studies on the extension of local water gathering grounds, reuse of treated sewage effluent, and

desalination of seawater. The result of the study of the extension of local water gathering grounds was that it would receive the lowest priority. This is due to significant environmental impacts and the highest cost of the three alternatives. Effluent reuse and seawater desalination were found to be more attractive alternatives and recent advancements in water treatment technologies have made them more economical than previously.

Desalination The Hong Kong government (WSD, 2004b), in the mid 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, had investigated the possibility of desalination, the process of converting seawater into drinking water. In 1970, the first desalination plant was built on Castle Peak Road, near Tai Lam Chung Reservoir. A year later, a 2-year project estimate of $2,000,000, was formally approved for the experimental operation of the plant. The construction of the pilot plant cost $1,250,000 and when completed, it produced a mere 50,000 gallons of fresh water every day. The desalinated water was purely for experimental purposes and was not used for public consumption. In 1973, the Hong Kong government (WSD, 2004b) began, from the knowledge gained from the pilot plant, to build the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest desalination plant at the time, the Lok On Pai Desalter. The site area was 15 acres, with a total project cost of $460,000,000. The plant would have six production units; each one was projected to produce 6,670,000 gallons of fresh water per day, with an estimated production cost of approximately $4 to $5 per 1,000 gallons of water. In October 1975, the first unit of the Desalter was commissioned. By September 1977, all six units were in operation. Due to all the reservoirs being half full and rainfall in the coming rainy season predicted to be adequate, the government, in June 1978, temporarily suspended desalination production. Hong Kong faced a drought again in 1981. The government planned to reactivate the Desalter (WSD, 2004b). However, due to confrontation in the Middle East between Iran and Iraq, the price of fuel in 1981 rose 3 times compared with 1978. In 1981 it was expected that

the price of producing 1,000 gallons of fresh water would be as high as $38, which would make the annual cost of running the Desalter, $500,000,000. The idea of re-opening the desalination plant met with strong opposition from the public, with the public favoring the idea of buying more water from Guangdong. In 1982, under pressure from the public, the government finally closed down the Desalter. The advantage of the Desalter was that the government would have been able to control the quantity and time of production. However, desalination requires enormous investments, and as a result it could only serve as a last resort. With today's rapid development in the fields of science and technology, there have been advances in desalination technologies. At the present time, Hong Kong people feel that Dongjiang water is expensive and poor in quality, but they still do not support the idea of desalination (WSD, 2004b). New pilot desalination plant studies are currently underway once again (ETWB, 2003, p.5). Plants are now in place in two locations with different seawater characteristics, running with nominal capacities of 200 cubic meters per day each. Each of the plants is employing membrane technologies in both pre-treatment and reverse osmosis, along with appropriate post-treatment processes to determine the optimum process design under local conditions. The data from the studies will determine the cost-effectiveness of implementing desalination facilities in Hong Kong.

Effluent Reuse A pilot program is under development for the implementation of effluent reuse in conjunction with the Cable Car Project at Ngong Ping (ETWB, 2003, p.5). Ngong Ping currently is serviced by fresh water only (Lee, Personal Communication, February 2, 2004). The proposed plant is to treat a range of 1,500 to 2,900 cubic meters of sewage daily (ETWB, 2003, p.5). Effluent will be used for flushing, and other possible reuse options such as landscape irrigation, street cleansing, water features, and water-cooled air-conditioning. The

pilot study will assess the cost-effectiveness of the reuse of effluent, and its overall success would be based upon the acceptance by the general public in its applications. A well planned publicity campaign, with data from the pilot program, would be needed to gain public acceptance and build public confidence in effluent reuse.

2.4.3 Public Education In order to lead users towards more efficient use of water, public education is vital. As Lovins states (1997, p.250), without public education, resource efficiency will not be successful. A recent survey completed by Civic Exchange and China Development Institute (2002) showed the views of residents in the PRD region regarding environmental protection. The study showed that among the topics covered in the survey, the residents think the water quality problem in the region should be second in priority on the list of problems the Guangdong government should tackle. The survey also showed that people with higher education are more conscious of the water problem than people with less education. All of the people who have obtained a bachelors degree or higher are worried about the water quality, whereas only about 35 percent of the people who have obtained a high school degree or below are aware of the issues (PRD Protection, 2002). Another important phenomenon is that most people in the PRD region do not trust drinking tap water. They usually drink mineral water, bottled water, or boiled water instead of unheated tap water. This is a result of a misconception about the quality of water and long tradition of drinking only boiled water.

2.5 Conclusion The problem of securing sustainable clean water for South China can be achieved through various methods. After our review, we have decided that developing a 17

comprehensive strategy for sustainable water resource management for the South China region was the best method for reaching our goal.

Chapter III: Methodology In order to achieve our goal we developed a set of project objectives. The objectives were focused on the development of better water supply management, based on a combination of water conservation, fair water pricing, and improved water efficiency through the application of technology, public education, and improved public policies. These were essential to achieve our goal.

3.1 Investigating Public Awareness and Public Education Our first objective was to look into the public awareness and public education programs concerning water. It was important to learn how much the public was aware of certain water problems that the region is experiencing to help develop our recommendations for public education. Key informant interviews were the best tools for achieving this objective because we were able to ask and gather in-depth information. We interviewed Mr. T.O. Lee, chief engineer for the development and planning branch of the Water Supplies Department (WSD), to learn about the public education programs done in the past and what types of public education they are planning for the future. Additional topics that we covered were the type of research that had been done on public awareness that determined the content of their programs. We also inquired about the best methods to reach the public and the effectiveness of their previous educational programs. The interview protocols and transcripts are included in Appendixes A - D. In addition to the interviews, we looked at education programs in the United States were looked at to see how their programs were conducted.

3.2 Assessing Efficiency Efficiency was another key aspect to consider when attempting to understand how to manage water resources in a more sustainable manner. By using water more efficiently, the

South China region can cut the water used annually by a large amount. Using archival research, we were able to learn about the latest technologies, water-use statistics, and current water efficiency problems in South China. Some of the main topics we studied were the reuse of effluent, fixing leaking pipes, and the use of water saving technologies. To get more information on Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plans and insight on efficient use of water we interviewed a representative from the WSD. The interview protocol and transcript are included in Appendixes A and C, respectively.

3.3 The Tiered Water Pricing System The tiered water pricing system of Hong Kong is another issue our team examined. To make recommendations on modifying the tiered pricing system, it was critical to understand the tiered pricing system structure, and the reason why it was developed. We were able to obtain the water regulation and ordinances, which include the charge for fresh water, from the WSD website. A key informant interview was used to gain more information as well. We interviewed Mr. Lee of the WSD to obtain a more in-depth view on the tiered pricing system. We asked the WSD if they felt that the price for water was reasonable, how the water price effects conservation of water and how higher water prices might affect the public.

The interview protocol and transcript are included in Appendixes A and C,

respectively.

3.4 Examining Water Pollution Regulations Water pollution regulations were another focus of our project. Adequacy of pollution regulations would not only this drive down the costs of water treatment, but would make the environment cleaner as well. The current regulations are difficult to obtain due to transborder complexities in the South China region. Research from the internet and at libraries provided 20

us a background understanding of the current situation, while key informant interviews gave us greater understanding by using in-depth questioning. We interviewed Professor William Barron from the University of Hong Kong who is an ecological economist, to help us understand economic and environmental policies. A lecture concerning the Swiss experience with transborder regional integration that took place at the University of Hong Kong also assisted us with understanding the complexities of the Pearl River Delta integration over resource management issues.

To analyze the interviews, we had fully transcribed each interview and identified the vital information provided by the interviewee. This information was assessed for bias, and cross-checked with other resources. Similarities and differences were noted, as well as supplementary resources mentioned by the interviewee.

Chapter IV Results and Analysis In this chapter we detail our findings and analysis. The data is divided into the following categories: water pricing structure, water supply network, public education, alternative water supply, and cross-border communication. Each of these sections includes interviews and additional research results, and an analysis on each topic. The analysis presented here provides all necessary information on which to make the conclusions presented in the next chapter and leads into the courses of action the team recommends.

4.1 Water Pricing Structure In Hong Kong, domestic water users are charged based on a four-tier system, as shown in Table 4.1. Each residential household receives 12 cubic meters of clean water every 4 months at no cost. As consumption exceeds the volume provided in the first tier, each household begins to receive water at increasing rates.

Table 4.1: Domestic Supply Rate for Clean Water for a Four Month Period (Source: Water Supplies Department, 2004, p. 81)

Tier First Second Third Fourth

Volume (m3) 0 – 12 12 – 42 42 – 61 Over 61

Price per cubic meter (HK$) Free (Subsidized) $4.16 (Subsidized) $6.45 (Unsubsidized) $9.05 (Unsubsidized)

For non-domestic consumers, water prices are based on a flat rate per cubic meter, as shown in Table 4.2.

Table 4.2: Non-Domestic Supply Rate for Clean Water for a Four Month Period (Source: Water Supplies Department, 2004, p. 81)

Sector Service Trade Construction Ocean-going Shipping Non-Ocean-going Shipping

Price per cubic meter (HK$) $4.58 (Subsidized) $7.11 (Unsubsidized) $10.93 (Unsubsidized) $4.58 (Subsidized)

Of importance are the first two tiers in the pricing system for domestic water users. The Hong Kong SAR government subsidizes water for the first two tiers, and so the water is far below the actual cost for producing the water. Only when a household reaches the third tier of pricing does the rate reflect the cost of supplying the water (Water Supplies Department, 2004, p. 39).

Figure 4.1: Distribution of Household Average Monthly Bill 2003-2004 (Source: Water Supplies Department, 2004, p. 43)

As Figure 4.1 shows, 17 percent of Hong Kong households did not have to pay for water in 2003-2004. A combined 65 percent of all households paid HK$50 or less for water per month during that year, in 2003-2004. Compared to other nations, the price of water in Hong Kong is very low. In the United States, for example, the average household spends HK$3700 annually for water and sewage charges (US EPA, 2005).

The existing pricing system is not adequate for encouraging people to use less water. Although the tiered system follows the right idea in that it penalizes heavy users, the volume of water provided in the first two tiers is too high, and prices are too low. The WSD recognizes that current clean water prices in Hong Kong are low. Though there could be changes, WSD officials believe the politics involved would make it hard to raise charges. The current water prices have been frozen since February 1995, and past attempts to modify them have met with opposition from the Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo). From the LegCo general meeting on February 15, 1995, the argument was given that the government should not seek frequent rate increases or to recover the cost of water. Some legislators argued that water was a basic necessity and prices should only be at a level to prevent people from wasting it (HK LegCo, 1995). It is evident that the LegCo was and is still does not see water to be a form of natural capital and that its consumption has a significant cost involved. Therefore, their concern is focused around the old argument that water is a daily necessity and as such the government has a responsibility to provide it at low cost for the people especially low income households.

While the reasoning is made to prevent people from wasting water, it is a reality that the prices do not encourage people to reduce their water consumption. If the government continues to subsidize the price of water as much as it currently does, the public will not take notice of the water situation. As part of an education campaign, raising water rates would provide incentive for people to participate in such programs.

Furthermore, an interesting fact is that the price of water for the service trade sector is actually below the reported cost of supplying water. Businesses are not the same as households since they generate revenue, and as such providing a subsidy to them is different than providing a subsidy to residences.

In Guangdong Province, water rates are not based on a tiered pricing system (Water Pricing, 2004). Instead, users are charged a flat rate. This rate differs depending on the area. Prices are so low, however, that the Guangdong Water Supplies Department loses money, similar to the Hong Kong WSD. Experts in Guangdong also say that the only way to encourage people there to stop wasting water is to raise the water prices.

4.2 Water Supply Network Water mains in Hong Kong are responsible for losses of about 36 percent of the clean water annually. The replacement and rehabilitation of water mains is already a focus of the WSD, as mentioned previously in Chapter 2. The 20 year plan the WSD initiated to replace and rehabilitate the water mains is progressing very slowly, and under legislative pressure, had been reduced to a 15 year plan.

The WSD uses two methods of repairing the water mains: conventional trench methods, and trenchless methods. Regarding the criticism about the slow progress of the 15year plan, if the process were to be sped up, the WSD believes it would inconvenience the public and create complaints. This is because more trenches would have to be created along the roadways, meaning road closures that would impede the flow of both pedestrian and automotive traffic. The trenchless method requires the water supply to be shut off, a lining to be applied and cured onto an existing water main, and the water turned back on, with minimal effect to consumers. This can only be achieved for a maximum of about eight hours every night while most water demand is at a minimum. The length of this process means that only small sections of mains can be repaired during the night periods.

The WSD is targeting the most glaring leakage problems that were detected as a priority. A problem that arises, however, is that the government does not really have much authority regarding pipes on private property. The WSD can urge people to fix their mains but the residents choose whether and when they actually want to repair them. If repairs cost more than water for the consumers, then it is really not beneficial for them to fix problems with their pipes. In this way, the water pricing structure is tied in with the water transport network, and by raising prices, consumers are given an incentive to fix leakages in their pipes and reduce water waste.

Fixing public mains will extend the clean water supply, but the rehabilitation projects are not being carried out quickly enough. It would seem the WSD is overly concerned with causing inconvenience during repairs to improve the water transport network. A public campaign should be created to explain why the inconvenience for roads to be dug up is necessary. After all, the long time frame to build a new subway line in Tsimshatsui, one of the busiest areas in Hong Kong, was accepted by the people as a necessity.

As such, with the current situation, a significant amount of water and money is lost due to defects in Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water transport system. At the 36 percent loss previously mentioned, and the annual clean water consumption of 980 million cubic meters, approximately 352.8 million cubic meters was lost in 2003 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2004 alone. At the reported cost of HK$6.45 per cubic meter to supply water, this accounts for approximately HK$2.275 billion lost for one year. In perspective, HK$2.2 billion is being spent on a five year plan to rehabilitate 350 km of water mains.

For Guangdong Province, due to a lack of information regarding the water supply network, available information only shows loss due to transport for agriculture, but the losses

are staggering. It could very well be that losses in other sectors are significant as well, and the authorities should review the water transport system as a whole to minimize losses. The large loss due to agriculture indicates that the total losses are probably very high.

Thus, the water supply system is an important area to focus on for Hong Kong and Guangdong Province. Both areas’ annual clean water losses through their transport systems are significant and represent a large fraction of the annual water supply.

4.3 Public Education In Hong Kong, there are several education campaigns concerning the conservation of water run by the WSD. As stated by the WSD in their 2003/2004 Annual Report (2005), the “WSD will continue to promote public awareness of environmental concerns through [their] homepage and posters, roving exhibitions and giving talks at schools and to estate managers” (p.21). The education effort targets two different groups. One of the targets is educating the children for the achievement of long-term water conservation. The other is to target the adult users that pay the water bills, which would produce immediate noticeable effects on water usage.

To educate the children of Hong Kong, lessons covering water treatment and conservation are taught in the primary schools. In addition to these lessons, the schools can schedule a roving exhibition with the WSD, as well as a visit to a water treatment plant. In children’s magazines, there are sections involving conservation of water. Readers are able to write back to the publisher with their ideas, and win prizes. The objectives of these programs are for the children to learn about the preciousness of water and the need to conserve it.

According to WSD officials, some of the department’s older education campaign programs were not very effective. The focus of the older campaigns was saving money through water conservation. These targeted the water bill payers. Appendix E shows one of WSD’s older water conservation posters. The reason the programs were not effective was due to the fact that Hong Kong residents pay much less for water than other international cities. For many residents, conserving water might only have saved a few Hong Kong dollars at most per month. Residents did not feel paying more for water was a burden, so there was no incentive for them to join the campaign. The latest water campaign by the WSD was unveiled in February 2005. The campaign no longer focuses on the money factor while conserving water. Instead, it focuses on conserving water for the environment, the community, and for the future. The campaign is being released on television advertisements and on the WSD’s website

For Guangdong Province, information regarding their public education programs was difficult to obtain. From the China Daily (2005), an article regarding the severe water shortages throughout the country due to on-going droughts in the nation mentioned a message stated on a water conservation billboard. This message read, “Will the last drop of water on Earth be the tear of a human being?" Thus, it would appear that there are water conservation campaigns, although for the purpose of this research, it has not been possible to assess them critically.

By promoting greater efficiency, the region can be better prepared for any water supply problems encountered in the future. Experts feel that current education campaigns in Hong Kong are ineffective due to the low water rates, and as such the best education would be to increase water prices.

The Boston water management education program is a model that South China might learn from. The program began in the early 1990, and was largely based on efforts to replace fixtures, reduce leaks, metering, provide technical advice, and restructuring rates. By repairing leaks and retrofitting housing fixtures with better showerheads, faucet aerators, and toilet dams, Boston was able to inexpensively save 24-27 percent of its water (Hawken, Lovins, & Lovins, 1999, p.231). In the mid-1990â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, the water and sewer rates have doubled or tripled due to state and federal governments reducing their role in financing water and sewer utilities. As these subsidies are ending, aging water and wastewater infrastructures are in need of replacement or rehabilitation, so the costs are essentially shifted to the consumer as well (Muratore, 1998). By having increased water rates, consumers are more aware of their water usage and have reduced their consumption.

4.4 Alternative Water Supply Alternative sources of water may be part of the solution. Local experts have different views on the potential possibilities for alternative water supplies. Some say that the desalination plant and effluent treatment plant will not be useful. The only real use for the water produced from the effluent treatment plant would be for toilet flushing in areas lacking the dual pipe system. However, a majority of the territory is already served with seawater for flushing and is cheaper. Reusing the effluent for drinking purposes is also too expensive, compared to existing alternatives.

For Guangdong Province though, some Hong Kong-based experts feel reusing grey water could be a good idea because of the different types of water demand there. Agriculture and industry have much more significant water consumption levels than in Hong Kong, and so grey water could be a substitute for clean water in irrigation or industrial cooling. Others

hold a different view on the situation. The motive behind the Ngong Ping effluent plant is finding more efficient ways to use clean water. The Ngong Ping plant will supply flushing water to the surrounding area, which is at a high altitude and thus makes pumping seawater to the area very costly. The desalination plant is seen as a safeguard in case of unforeseen water problems in the future, even though it is costlier to do desalination. There are also other costs associated with the desalination plant, most significant of which would be the cost of energy. Yet, others see alternative water supply as one of the three options Hong Kong has. As mentioned, Hong Kong currently draws water from the Dongjiang River, but the distance the water is transported is not very great by international standards. As such, it is a possibility for Hong Kong to tap another water source outside the Pearl River Delta, though the costs would be very high because of the need for new water supply infrastructure. Some experts also believe desalination is not such a good idea for Hong Kong because of the fact that Hong Kong imports all its energy, which could lead to very high costs.

For Hong Kong, finding alternative sources for clean water should be the last resort because Hong Kong lacks its own freshwater sources, save rainwater catchments, and depends on external supplies. It should not try expensive alternatives such as desalination of seawater. Even if desalination became an acceptable alternative, however, the energy costs to operate desalinators might be too high, and could possibly even make Hong Kong more reliant on energy in order to get water.

In Guangdong Province, grey water can be used as an alternative to clean water. Agricultural irrigation uses a majority of the freshwater supply every year, and industrial consumption continues to grow. Grey water can be used as a viable alternative to clean water for such purposes and will reduce the clean water demand in such areas.

If alternative water supplies are sought from water treatment technologies, education will be needed to prevent misconceptions on the quality of water from these supplies. For example, Los Angeles had planned a Toilet-to-Tap project that would recycle wastewater into potable water. However, due to misconceptions, the public resented the idea of drinking recycled and purified wastewater, which prompted the project to be cancelled. However, in neighboring Orange County, a massive education campaign prevented the misconceptions, which allowed for its own implementation of a similar program (Cavanaugh, 2004).

4.5 Cross-border Communication Communication between the Hong Kong and Guangdong Province governments is vital to ensuring future water supplies. Experts believe that Hong Kong and Guangdong Province needs to communicate better on issues such as water quality.

As has been mentioned, the water in the Dongjiang River, Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s source of water, is becoming increasingly polluted because of industrial and agricultural waste. In the entire Pearl River, pollution is increasing due to the same factors. This is a threat to the quality of the water supplied to consumers, as 40 percent of the water in Guangdong Province is supplied untreated to the end user.

It is not that communication between the Hong Kong and Guangdong Province governments is non-existent. Officials from both areas discuss the water purchasing contract on a regular basis. The Hong Kong government also provided an HK$2.36 billion loan to Guangdong Province for the construction of a closed aqueduct from Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drawing point on the Dongjiang River to Shenzhen to improve the quality of the raw water supplied to Hong Kong.

In addition, the Hong Kong-Guangdong Province Joint Working Group on Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection was established in 2000 to tackle cross-border environmental concerns such as air pollution and degrading water quality in the Pearl River. The communication and collaboration between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province can be strengthened, though. Though the closed aqueduct from the Dongjiang River to Hong Kong was completed in 2003, it does not make up for the fact that increasing levels of pollutants are being dumped into the river and other tributaries of the Pearl River. Collaborating to reduce pollution levels in the Pearl River would improve the quality of water for both areas.

One model that could be followed is the collaboration between France, Germany, and Switzerland regarding Lake Constance. The lake, bordered by Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, was a freshwater source that became threatened with ecological extinction because of high pollution level due to the industries along its shoreline. France, Germany, and Switzerland formed a joint committee to determine what the best course of action was to restore the lake. New regulations were imposed and enforced to control industrial waste, and the lake was cleaned up.

Guangdong Province and Hong Kong can follow in the same vein as in the Lake Constance model. While that was on a smaller scale than cleaning up large rivers on the scale of the Pearl River, better communication and joint regulations of the water supplies are the main lessons to learn from the Lake Constance situation.

Chapter V: Conclusions and Recommendations South Chinaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clean water supply will not be sustainable if water management in the region does not improve. If water consumption continues to increase at its current rate, alternative water sources will need to be sought. But in the short term there are a number of strategies to manage the water supply more efficiently. The conclusions and recommendations are presented from highest to lowest priority.

5.1 Efficient Usage of the Water Supply Using the available water supply with greater efficiency is the most effective method of prolonging the current water sources without being forced to find alternatives. By reducing the amount water wastage by consumers and reducing leakage in the water transport systems, the use of the existing water supply can be prolonged.

5.1.1 Water Supply Network The water loss in the water transport systems of South China is of a considerable amount. Without fixing the supply network, the government does not set an example for the consumers to follow, and the consumers might not take the conservation campaigns seriously. Instead of being concerned with inconveniencing the public, the government should create a pro-active public campaign to explain why the inconvenience for roads to be dug up is necessary for the greater good.

By fixing and reducing the amount of losses in the water supply networks, the supply of water available for consumers will notably increase without increasing the actual clean water production. The process of replacing and rehabilitating water mains should be

expedited, and perhaps incentives can be made to consumers for fixing leakages on their private properties as well.

5.1.2 Water Pricing System Water rates in South China are inexpensive compared to other countries such as those in Western Europe and North America. In Guangdong Province, water is charged at a flat rate. The implementation of a tiered pricing system for domestic users will aid in achieving water sustainability. By penalizing high volume water users, consumers will be more conscious of the amount of water used, and reduce their usage. Certain non-domestic users in Guangdong Province, such as the agricultural sector, need subsidies due to their high demand of water. The implementation of the tiered pricing system in Hong Kong has been a right step towards promoting water conservation. However, the system does not penalize heavy water users enough. The volume of water provided in the first two tiers is too high, and prices are too discounted. Given the current situation, the best solution for the pricing system would be for the volume of fresh water subsidization in the first two tiers of the pricing structure to be reduced and/or the rates charged for fresh water raised. In this way, Hong Kong could follow the lead of the mainland or Singapore, where the governments have gradually increased the water rates for consumers. The pricing system is tied in with educating the public about seeing water as a scarce and precious resource. What is needed then is a fundamental change in the water pricing scheme. Increasing prices so that they reflect the cost of buying, treating, and supplying the water will make the consumers realize water is a valuable commodity. This is important for the promotion of water conservation and efficient use campaigns.

5.1.3 Public Education and Awareness Resource efficiency cannot be achieved without sustained and well designed public education. Public education and awareness programs promoting water conservation and efficiency will greatly increase the people’s consciousness of the water supply dilemma in South China. Misconceptions of water quality and technologies by the public could be alleviated as well. Although Hong Kong’s WSD has run conservation programs previously targeting its paying consumers, they were not very effective. New programs are currently being pushed through television advertisements by the WSD and appear to be better designed. However, to expedite the success, raising the overall rates for water will make the programs more effective.

Increasing the quality and quantity of the education programs will assist with all aspects of achieving a sustainable water supply. The idea of water conservation and efficiency are not the only topics that can be promoted. Water efficient technologies, such as low flow taps and showerheads, efficient washing machines, and low flush toilets can be promoted. These technologies can reduce the amount of water used by consumers daily. Misconceptions about the quality of water in Hong Kong can be alleviated by letting the public know the water quality surpasses the potable water standards set by the WHO. For the acceptance by the general public of alternative water resource technologies, such as desalination and effluent reuse, education would also be required.

5.2 Cross-border Communication As both Guangdong Province and Hong Kong depend mainly on the Pearl River’s tributaries as their primary water sources, both governments need to take the initiative on monitoring the water quality in the river so the water does not become too polluted, thus

making it very costly to clean up. Those who pollute the watershed should be held responsible for the clean up process. Increasing communication between the two governments will be vital for better regulation of industries along the river and enforcing policies to prevent pollution of the river.

5.3 Alternative Water Sources If greater water efficiency is not achieved, the need to seek alternative water sources is inevitable. The simplest answer for an alternative source would be obtaining water from untapped rivers and reservoirs. This solution, however, is not so simple due to the ongoing drought and pollution problems in the region. Environmental impacts and costs would have to be considered as well.

The WSD of Hong Kong is currently running pilot programs studying the costeffectiveness and public acceptance of desalination and effluent reuse. The desalination pilot program is in its data gathering phase, while the effluent reuse pilot program is still in its construction phase. Further recommendations based on these technologies can only be produced after the results of these trials have been released.

For Guangdong Province, however, a significant amount of clean water could be conserved if recycled water were used for the high demand sectors of industry and agriculture.

Chapter VI Future Work As is the nature of projects such as ours, time and the availability of resources are always a constraint. In this chapter we suggest possible areas for future research concerning the area of water supply in the South China region.

6.1 Privatizing Water One of the current major water supply topics in the South China region concerns privatization of water. By itself, this topic is very broad and requires much research, and due to the limited amount of time our team had, we could not cover the topic adequately enough to make an effective analysis of it.

One possible starting point could be the February 17, 2005 article in the South China Morning Post entitled Market Forces Flow in the Water Sector, which gives a brief overview of water utility privatization on the China mainland.

6.2 Analyze Hong Kong Pilot Scheme Results As has been mentioned in our report, the Hong Kong Water Supplies Department have constructed desalination plants in Tuen Mun and Sai Kung, and are in process of constructing an effluent reuse plant in Ngong Ping. These are for the purpose of studying the actual cost of desalination and reusing effluent in Hong Kong. The results of the desalination study are scheduled for release in the second half of 2004, and the results on the effluent reuse study are scheduled for early 2005. Depending on the results, the possible direction Hong Kong takes will change. Future research projects can analyze the findings and develop better strategies for Hong Kong to follow.

6.3 Analyze Cost of Providing Free Water to Hong Kong Residents In Hong Kong, 17 percent of households do not pay for water, and 12 cubic meters is supplied to each household. Census data on household sizes can be used to calculate the amount of water each household should obtain. Instead of a fixed amount of subsidized, perhaps the amount can vary according to household size. Future projects could perform calculations based on the data and develop improved suggestions regarding the water pricing scheme.

6.4 Analyze Guangdong Provinceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Water Situation One of the big information gaps of our project was overall information on the water situation in Guangdong Province. We gathered information concerning general water usage patterns and overall problems in the province, but not much was in-depth. This resulted from a general lack of information and the difficulty of finding appropriate people with expertise on the situation in the province. Future projects could attempt to gather more significant information concerning Guangdong Province, which would lead to more refined recommendations for better water management in the province.

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The Civic Exchange. (2002). Survey of Residents of Pearl River Delta on Environmental Protection. Hong Kong: The Civic Exchange. The Civic Exchange. (2004). Hong Kong’s Independent Think Tank [Brochure]. Hong Kong: The Civic Exchange. The Civic Exchange. (2004). About Civic Exchange. Retrieved November 7, 2004, from http://www.civic-exchange.org/01about/n_about_mission.htm The Civic Exchange. (2004). Current Projects. Retrieved December 5, 2004 from http://www.civicexchange.org/n_current_det.htm Von Weizsäcker, E., Lovins, A.B, & Lovins, L.H. (1997). Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use. London, UK: Earthscan Publications Limited. Water Supplies Department. (2003a). Water from Guangdong. Retrieved November 20, 2004, http://www.info.gov.hk/wsd/en/html/water/hkwchn.htm Water Supplies Department. (2003b). Water Supply. Annual Report – Water Supplies Department 2002 - 2003. Retrieved November 13, 2004, from http://www.info.gov.hk/wsd/en/html/pdf/rpt0203/pdf/09_water_supply.pdf Water Supplies Department. (2004a). Benefit from the Works. Replacement and Rehabilitation of Water Mains. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.info.gov.hk/wsd/en/html/edu/rehab/benefit.htm. Water Supplies Department. (2004b). Looking Ahead. Waterworks of a Century. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.info.gov.hk/water150/mbook/TEXT/TEXT_ENG/Construction/construction_p3.h tml. Water Supplies Department. (2004c). Objective and Background. Replacement and Rehabilitation of Water Mains. Retrieved November 20, 2004, from http://www.info.gov.hk/wsd/en/html/edu/rehab/objective.htm.

Appendix A: Interview Protocol Our interviews will be semi-structured, and all four team members will attend. One person will be the interviewer, two will record, and one will just be at the interview to observe. The interviewer will ask the interviewee questions prepared beforehand, and will ask questions based on the flow of the interview. Introduction The problem of our project is the unsustainable water use in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong (collectively referred to as South China for our project). Due to factors such as increasing modernization on the mainland and growing population in the region, the rate of water consumption is increasing every year. This is placing a stress on the Pearl River, the regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s main source of water. Our goal is to recommend strategies for South China for developing a more sustainable water supply. Our focus is on better water management through increased water conservation, efficient water use, and public education.

These questions will be asked of each interviewee: 1.) Is there anything that you would like to know more about our project? 2.) What direction do you see Hong Kong and Guangdong Province taking to tackle their clean water problems? 3.) Are there any problems in the current situation between Hong Kong and Guangdong Province? As in the water contract? 4.) Do you see any problems with the current solutions Hong Kongâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s government is attempting? 5.) Do you have any expertise in the Guangdong Province situation? 6.) Do you have any additional contacts for us?

Thank you for the interview.

Appendix B: Interview Transcript with Professor Koenig M: To start off with, is there anything that you wish to know more about our project? K: Well, I’ve seen the short brief. You can do many things with such a brief, you can expand it, it’s quite open ended, so it depends on you what you want to do. I just hope you are not trying to duplicate the work of our Water Supplies Department. M: We’ve been looking at their reports and we were actually surprised that they were actually starting off with water development plans, so we are trying to focus on things that we feel they are lacking. We want to look more at policy and regulation. K: Well, that’s my weak point. I’m not into policy, we’re more into engineering, and we let others make the decisions. M: Well, same with us, we’re more technical. And there’s also education, which is more social. Well, I will start off with something very recent: the Chief Executive’s policy address. Are you familiar with it? K: Well, I saw two paragraphs concerning water, one on sewage, and one on total water management. But I don’t know what he means by total water management. M: Well, from his policy address, what he really mentioned was looking for alternative water sources, such as reusing effluent water, and desalinating sea water. K: There’s a pilot desalination plant somewhere, if you go to the WSD, they can give you some perspectives. The WSD also has an advisory group, and they publish from time to time, papers. One of those papers was from a few years ago concerning potential water sources for Hong Kong. In that paper, they were saying that desalination was too expensive, and they still considered the cheapest solution getting water from the Dongjiang River. But now they have a new minister, and the new minister has different ideas, so they’re trying desalination again. So yeah, politics changes, sometimes faster than engineering. M: Do you think what they’re trying now is a good idea for long term sustainability in terms of water supply? K: Well, I don’t know many big cities in the world using desalination. It’s still more expensive than anything else. In Singapore they’re trying it, but in Singapore, the government, whatever they decide will be carried out. They use it as a threat to Malaysia. Malaysia knows that Singapore is dependent on their water and they tried to drive up the price. Hong Kong has an agreement with the mainland; after all, we’re the same country. The mainland has an interest that Hong Kong doesn’t suffer any problem with water. They may want to make a little more money than they could earn from their citizens, but you know, Hong Kong needs more money also to start projects. So I don’t see anything wrong.

The only problem is that the water demand in China will grow. This area is developing very fast. Not only domestic demand, there is also a lot of industrial demand. And at the same time some people feel that there is a change in the climate. Some years have been drier than in the past, so the availability of water may change over time. But that’s a classical situation that you have in almost every country. Whether desalination is feasible, I don’t know. Even now with the cheap water, Hong Kong people do not fully pay for the cost of the water supply, so if you had desalination, I could imagine it would cause more problems. And desalination also uses a lot of energy, so there’s really a question whether desalination is an environmentally friendly technology under the circumstances of Hong Kong. M: Do you feel that Hong Kong should be approaching this differently then, such as increasing education or new policies? K: But education does nothing. In every speech by the chief executive, every policy address, you will find ‘we will improve conservation.’ Actually, conservation hasn’t done much in Hong Kong. The biggest conservation that has been done for many years is the use of seawater for toilet flushing. I don’t know any other city that can really conserve in that way 15 – 20 percent of the fresh water supply. And even if you treat the sewage and reclaim it, the only use you have more or less is toilet flushing. So the question is should we do that at high cost when seawater is free? You know sometimes there are political agendas in these things; it’s not always engineering or rational economics. There are many groups in Hong Kong clamoring for different things. And sometimes you have to do studies like desalination to show that you think about the future, even when you’re 95 percent sure that in the next 10 years they wouldn’t build anything. But some people may be quiet for a long time. M: So you feel that no matter what, Hong Kong will have to rely on external sources for clean water? K: Yes. Even though rainfall in Hong Kong is very high, the present freshwater consumption in Hong Kong would be equal to all the rainfall, and you just can’t catch all the rainfall in Hong Kong. 1/3 of the area is already reserved for catchment areas where we get the rainfall, and that water is now only about 20 or 25 percent of our total demand. New York City can’t get all its water from its own area, Boston can’t, no city can do it. They all rely on areas outside with less people, lower density. M: But what about using water more efficiently than people are doing now? K: Well, there is a lot of pressure on that. For example, here about 1/3 of the water is lost due to leaking pipes, so that’s a huge source. But you can’t change that overnight. There is a lot of pressure to replace old pipes faster than they are doing now. And let’s say you reduce it down to 10 percent loss, that will take at least 20 years, but then you save 20 percent of the water. On the other hand, they had signed an agreement with China specifying how much water Hong Kong would have to buy. Because in the past Hong Kong was afraid of shortages, they would reserve large quantities. So if we now use much less water per capita and fix the leakage problems, then we would be buying so much water that we do not need our own

water. And this happened a few years ago when we had a very wet year, and we had a lot from Hong Kong itself, and they had committed themselves to buying so much that they had to discharge more than 100 million cubic meters, so there were problems there. So you buy water at 3 dollars a cubic meter and then you discharge it. Now they may still do it, but now they don’t say they discharged water from China, they just say they catch less. M: That’s quite a situation between Hong Kong and China. K: That’s not the problem there, but the Chinese say you signed this contract saying you will buy this much, and there’s no escape clause. And the water demand has not increased as much as they thought. Industry is moving, so the only increase here is people, and even population growth is much less than expected. And I’m sure Christine Loh told you that government agencies have different estimates for population growth. Some say 8 million by 2020, some say 9 million. And that makes a big difference when it comes to water and how to plan for water supply security. You may not need all the water, but in case it’s a very dry year, it’s good that we have it. And it’s better to pay 3 dollars for water today than 7 dollars for a desalination plant. M: So do you think that there needs to be a big shift in views for them to attain a sustainable water supply? K: Well, I think the biggest impact will be renewing the water supply network. That saves you most. And all the work will stay in Hong Kong, so there they can save quite a lot. And another thing is that you cannot assume for the next 20 years that the per capita water consumption will stay stable. If you look in Western Europe, they only use half the water here per capita, and I’m sure that they have the same high level of living standards. Like the toilet maybe using too much water, Christine Loh always talks about it, and she bases her example on the United States, which is not really the most water efficient country. M: We’re very wasteful in terms of water. K: Well, as long as you have too much water, what’s the problem? I just saw today in a German magazine that you could save a lot of water with, for example, new washing machines that use half the water, or shower heads that use less water. You could immediately cut your demand by 20 percent doing it that way. And there’s the possibility of reusing grey water. But what would we do with grey water in Hong Kong? Probably only toilet flushing. M: Street cleaning? K: But street cleaning only uses a minimal amount of water. I don’t know why everyone thinks cleaning streets takes up half the water supply. It’s hardly anything if you analyze the situation. Just find out how many cleaning trucks there are, how much water they hold, and how much is used. That’s only a couple hundred cubic meters, and we use 2.4 million cubic meters every day, so it’s peanuts.

M: But what about reusing it for drinking water? K: That’s too expensive. Then you could say you’re giving everyone three bottles of drinking water for free. And many people here buy the water in the store, have you seen that? M: Yes. K: That’s distilled water. One liter of that costs as much as one cubic meter (1000 liters) of public water supply. But you cannot tell the people that public water supply is as safe as that water, or may be even healthier. There’s a lot of psychology there. Somehow, people think that if there is nothing in the water, the better it is, but it’s not healthy. We drink only about three liters a day, but households use almost 300 liters a day per capita. So it’s really only a small amount. M: Households use about 50 percent of the clean water in Hong Kong. So when you say that you can’t reuse grey water for drinking because of cost, there has to be something else to reduce the use by households. K: Yes, except for toilet flushing. But tell me, how many cities in the United States do it? Even in the southern or western states, where there is lack of water. How many do you think do it? M: We don’t think there are any that do. K: Yeah, you see, you need a second water supply. If everyone does it in their own house, then there’s not control over the quality, it’s much more costly. But if you do it for real, then you need a second water supply system, and that costs a lot of money. Luckily, Hong Kong has one, but the pumping stations along the seashore, they’re not sewage treatment works, so you’d have to create a big new system. So now they’re studying this possibility for the north of Hong Kong, because that’s the only wastewater treatment plant which treats sewage that is not contaminated with salt water. So in that sense, they could recycle that water easier, because it’s not saline. But if they wanted to use saline water, they could pump it from the sea. But the problem is that you can not discharge saline treated effluent into inland rivers. So that’s the only part of Hong Kong which could reuse its water. Because if you have the saltwater pipes installed, is there any point in replacing it? M: When you say reuse, do you mean reusing it as brackish water or as clean water? K: For what? There’s no big agriculture in Hong Kong, it rains half the year in general. M: But what about for Guangdong? K: You mean sending it to Guangdong (the treated water)?

M: No, I mean reusing grey water in Guangdong. K: Well, in Guangdong the citizens will have to decide whether or not they want to do it. They would all have to install a second supply system, or you use that water for agriculture, and then you save water. They also have many uses that we do not have. They could also use it as cooling water in many factories. There’s a big demand. But many of those demands in Hong Kong are insignificant. But for Guangdong, yes, there’s a possibility there. But Guangdong Province, compared to the north of China, is water rich, really water rich. M: But in the Dongjiang River, there’s a lot of stress on it because not only does Hong Kong draw from it, so do other areas in China. K: Well, have you seen a map of where the Dongjiang is? M: Yes. K: And have you seen where Hong Kong gets the water from the Dongjiang? M: We know the general area from where they draw. K: And have you seen how industry is upstream from where Hong Kong draws the water? M: They say there’s a lot of pollution there because of the industries, right? K: Well, we looked at it and we found that the area upstream is relatively low industry. Most of the industry is downstream from that point. Dongguan, Shenzhen, the whole corridor from there to Guangzhou, is entirely out of the East River where Hong Kong gets its water. But people always say it’s polluted by industry. The quality there is relatively good, it’s class 2 in China, which says something. There’s a lot of class 3 and class 4 rivers there. Don’t just say it’s all polluted, it’s not true. M: But won’t that pollution affect other people who draw water from those areas? K: In Guangdong yes, and down in Dongguan and those areas. But recently they built an aqueduct to Hong Kong so now they can transport water from the East River to Shenzhen without being in contact with other water and effluent and so on. So one must say that the water supply to Hong Kong is relatively clean compared to other cities in China. And the Chinese government regulates upstream. They don’t let too many industries upstream, and one reason is Hong Kong. One has to admit that. M: So they do regulate in that area? K: Many cities upstream have complained that they cannot industrialize because the Guangdong government favors Hong Kong. [Discussion of Hoyuen water supply]

M: An important part is sustainable water use in our project. Do you think everything right now is sustainable? K: I don’t like that word, sustainable. There’s no meaning attached to it. What do you mean by sustainable? M: All right, let’s put some numbers to it. For the next 25 or 30 years do you think what they’re doing now is viable? K: Well, I don’t really see them doing anything differently than any time before. The big project was the completion of the aqueduct. M: One thing you mentioned was the pricing system in Hong Kong. Do you think that system is flawed? The first level is free, I think 12 cubic meters, and price goes up as households use more, but we feel that it’s still very cheap. K: That has something to do with how to recover the cost, that’s partly a political matter. You can’t just say so much water is produced, so much money is used, and then you divide the money by the quantity. Many people feel that’s not fair in Hong Kong. And the income is quite distributed in Hong Kong, but per capita consumption might be similar, so poor people would spend a higher fraction of their income on water. The government has tried to increase the fee for water many times, but the legislative assembly has not permitted it so far, so that’s a political question. But the thing is that they can not recover the full cost. That has been a part of the policy speech, but in more diplomatic words. But compared to most US cities, the prices here are very cheap. I don’t know what you pay over there. M: Over there, it’s much more expensive. We don’t have subsidized water, whereas they do here. K: I’d say that the water price is probably 6 dollars per cubic meter, if you consider everything. And out of that, we already pay 3 dollars for the water from China. So there’s not much there for the government to play with. M: Well, let’s shift views. Are you familiar with the Guangdong situation at all? K: Not too familiar. Within China, Guangdong is considered a water rich area. M: Well, water use is growing, and a lot of it is being wasted. K: How do you know? M: Well, it’s from estimates, so we’re not sure if it’s truthful or not. K: Sometimes you get unreliable data [from China]. I heard in Shanghai, for example, there’s 10 percent water leakage, whereas 35 in Hong Kong, so there must be something going on. There’s a lot of manipulation like that in China, and a lot of interests involved.

I think that in the past, many cities did not invest that much into the network, so they must lose a lot of water. The same thing is true about the sewers. For many years nothing happened, so the sewers became leaky.

Appendix C: Interview Transcript with Mr. Lee M: Well, we will start with the first question on our list. One of the big unanswered questions is what do you think Hong Kong wants to achieve in terms of clean water supply? L: Well, that’s actually an easy question to answer and I’ll give the standard answer. The WSD is responsible for providing clean and potable water to people and seawater for flushing, and it is our objective that an adequate and clean supply is available. M: Well, do you have any emergency measures in case Guangdong Province does not have enough water to sell to Hong Kong? L: That’s not a very easy question to answer. If you look at the history of water in Hong Kong, you will see that there have been periods of water shortages, like in the 1960, because we don’t have large lakes or rivers in Hong Kong, and we have to build reservoirs to store water. You can see from on our milestones that as population grew and Hong Kong grew, we had to build more reservoirs, and now, we have no more land to build more reservoirs. And finally, in the 1960s, around 1963 I think, we had a very strong growth in water demand, more than 20 percent a year, but the rainfall decreased. So in that year, we had about 50 percent of the yearly average [for rainfall]. It’s similar to last year, when we had 60 percent of the yearly average. And so during that period we suffered a very severe water restriction. Before that, the Hong Kong government had already foreseen this problem, so they began to purchase water from Guangdong Province. But at that time, there were no canals or rivers, so water was just transported on barges or tankers to Hong Kong. And from that time onwards, we started to rely on water from Hong Kong province. You can probably imagine how cheap water was at that time. It was about HK$0.05 for a cubic meter, compared with HK$3.085 these days for one cubic meter. In early 1960s, the water from Guangdong Province only accounted for 20 percent of the entire water consumption in Hong Kong, but now it’s 80 percent of our demand, so we have become very reliant on them. M: Do you see this reliance as dangerous or uncertain because of the growth in Guangdong Province and the fact that other areas also draw from the same river? L: You are right. Actually, because of historical background, we started to purchase water from Guangdong Province, but we still built reservoirs, like Plover Cove and High Island. These two reservoirs are built from the sea, and they are very large reservoirs compared with the consumption. And you would also know that we had a desalinator in Lok On Pai, if you study our milestone. But at that time, the desalinator operated through distillation, which has very high costs because you have to boil the water. The operating costs were too high, and for the water supply and basic need of the people, we didn’t expect that we would raise the water fee to a level that would let us support the desalinator. So you know that after we finished it [the desalinator], it was never used.

M: We know that there is a new desalination plant in Tuen Mun that was finished in November. Is this seen as an alternative clean water supply, because everything we have read is that it is meant only for uses that don’t require clean water? L: You know that membrane technology is very expensive compared to the purchase price of water [from Guangdong Province]. Roughly, it’s about HK$7.7 per cubic meter. We still have to study the real production cost. And we buy the water at HK$3.08, and roughly we spend around HK$1 for treating and pumping the water, so the production cost of water in Hong Kong is around HK$4, but you get that information from our water fee structure. If you note how we design our water fee structure, for one of the tiers, we aim at getting back the cost of production of water. So that costs around HK$4 – 6 per cubic meter. But for the desalination plant, it’s about HK$7.7 per cubic meter. In Singapore, they claim they can achieve around HK$5 – 6 per meter cubic, but we still have to study because we have a different situation and a different scale. And now we are doing the trial run at the Tuen Mun saltwater pumping station plant to determine what is the most feasible way to apply desalination technology in Hong Kong. And you know Hong Kong is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, and we have an abundance of seawater, so it’s the right direction to look at that. But still, we foresee that even if we have large scale desalination, we would be aware of the cost. You had a question that Hong Kong residents pay much less for water than other international cities and so they won’t feel that paying more for water is a burden. And that’s why when we launch a water saving campaign, they may not join the campaign because it’s not really advantageous. M: Do you think that can be attributed to a poor education or poor campaign? Do you feel the direction of education is the wrong direction? As in, not as informative or threatening as it should be? L: I think the situation is different from the 1960s. Today, it is very hard for us to tell the Hong Kong people that if they don’t save water, they will suffer immediately. I think it is difficult for us to do that. So our strategy is quite mild. Actually, you can see some ads on the television, just launched yesterday. You can see it is very mild; it’s not a very frightening advertisement. We are still monitoring the situation. Now Guangdong Province, they are starting to feel the severity of water shortage. Their biggest reservoir is in Xinfeng. Upstream of the East River, there are three reservoirs, the largest of which is Xinfeng. The capacity of that reservoir is around 24 times the total storage of Hong Kong, which is about 586 million cubic meters. But still, the difference is that they have to cater for the whole demand of Guangdong Province, including the Pearl Delta Region. The reservoir level is dropping, but the thing is, the Guangdong Province government emphasizes that providing water to Hong Kong is a top priority. Why is this so? I think there are political reasons. First, because we pay. Second, the national strategy to maintain Hong Kong’s prosperity is a top priority. So unless Guangdong Province runs out of water, they will try to provide Hong Kong first.

A: To go back to one of the items you have mentioned, you have said that for people here to try to save water, it is difficult because they don’t really feel the cost of water. Has it ever been discussed to try to change the water rates? L: Actually, in our water fee structure, you can see that we provide 12 cubic meters [the first tier] for free. It is because that apart from paying the water fee, they also pay a land rate to the government. Part of the land rate is used for the operation of the Water Supplies Department. In return, we provide the free 12 cubic meters. After that, you can see that at the fourth tier, people are charged HK$9, which is substantial, compared to second tier. I think it already reflects the current situation that is acceptable to the community. This fee structure has to pass the LegCo, and they are very cost sensitive people. If propose a high rate, they will ask us why we charge so high. If we propose a low rate, the government will be in trouble with financial deficit. It’s already a balance. But of course, the revenue still can not cover our operating costs, and the government is getting a headache trying to deal with that. M: You mentioned that the LegCo is against raising prices because of, perhaps, public opinion or some other matter. We know that in the past, there have been attempts to raise the prices that have been shot down. Do you feel that this is also a result of education campaigns that don’t portray future situations such as water shortages due to over consumption of water? L: I think it’s not that easy. In the 1990s, the rainfall in some of the years has exceeded 50 percent the yearly average. And the agreement that we signed in 1984 and 1989 overestimated the water consumption in Hong Kong, so we had to spill some water out. For that, the public criticized us, asking us why we made the wrong projections and why we dumped the water. It is very difficult for us. On one hand, we kind of wasted water. On the other hand, we projected that there would be water scarcity problems. I think there would really have to be a water scarcity problem in Guangdong Province that affects Hong Kong before people change their mind. It’s not our mind; it’s the public and political parties’ minds. Here in the Water Supplies Development Branch, we look at it similar to you. We project our need for the future, but the problem is that we had an unexpected situation in the late 1990s. The situation is changed now though, so it’s not that easy. Maybe after 1 or 2 years when the severity of water scarcity is high, then people will start becoming ware. It’s not something that simple education can help, and that’s my personal opinion. I think humans always make the same mistake. They really have to suffer before they learn. For example, the SARS outbreak in 2003 made people start to think about sanitation and disease prevention. M: Well, I’ll step away from educating people about danger, but what about educating them about using water more efficiently, such as installing fixtures or appliances that use a lot less water? L: Hong Kong is different from western countries. In western countries, they live in houses or low rise apartments. Sometimes they have gardens and such. But in Hong Kong, we have a

high density population, and actually, I don’t see they have a very large variation in water consumption. They take showers, they cook, they clean, and that’s not very excessive is it? Our water consumption is about 2.7 million cubic meters per day, and we have 6.8 million people. So if you divide that, it’s about 0.3 cubic meters per person a day. Is that still very high? M: Well, that’s high comparatively. In Western Europe, per capita usage is around .16 cubic meters a day. And it’s about half of that level on the mainland. But we think that can be attributed to many things, like not using more efficient appliances, or using super efficient showerheads. So have there been campaigns or incentives for people to change these fixtures? L: Well, we have run a lot of publicity programs to advocate water conservation. In terms of the equipment we used, we have fliers in which we ask licensed plumbers to use some type of valve type flushing devices. In the past, we had not approved the use of valve type because they weren’t reliable. Since 2000, we have approved their use because they have become more efficient and reliable. We know some construction companies install dual flush flushing devices and even water reuse systems in their buildings. But still, your point is that the water fee in Hong Kong is comparatively low, so people don’t see water as an expensive item. M: One of the big projects right now for the WSD is fixing water mains. We have read about the 20 year plan and the phases. We don’t get a sense of urgency because of the length of time it’s taking to fix the water mains. For example, there was the 5 year plan to replace 45 km of mains, and another 5 year plan now for another 370 kilometers. We know that leakage actually causes leakage of about 25 percent of the clean water every year, so how come it’s not being carried out faster to conserve more clean water? L: You mean we can move on faster for the mains rehabilitation? M: Well, we feel 20 years is a very long time. L: One thing you have to understand is that Hong Kong is a high density area, and a lot of the utilities are buried underground. So, we always get complaints about frequently opening the roads. Actually, can we do it in 5 years or a shorter period? Yes, but it’s not practical. If we open a lot of the roads, people won’t be happy. Another thing is that we need a lot of labor to do it. Not to mention that we would still have many complaints. Even if we adopt trenchless methods, it is not that easy, because of operational problems. We still have to shut down to do rehabilitation. And if you shut down at night, you only have 6 – 8 hours to do the work, so you can only do it section by section. These are the practical obstacles that we face. M: But the WSD is targeting pipes that are most damaged or leaking the most, right?

L: Yes. M: Can you tell us where the main sources of leakages are? Are they mostly in buildings or in the mains? L: That’s really difficult to tell. Of course, we have some figures in hand and we are doing the repair work on the mains with the most severe leakages, so what’s your point? M: Well, we feel that if it was in buildings, then that’s more the responsibility of the landlord, whereas the mains are the WSD’s responsibility. So what I’m trying to say is are there any incentives for landlords to repair the building’s pipes? L: Well, trying to find leakages is very boring. Some are visible, like water coming through the wall, but it takes a lot of work to find the point of leakage. And for people, they can decide when they want to repair their own pipes. Everyone wants that repair work to be done by others, so who will pay for that? That’s another political problem. But as for the buildings, as far as our department’s concerned, it is very difficult to assess. That leakage will be charged, but we can’t identify it as leakage or just usage. So when the owner gets the bill and it is high, then that will be incentive to fix the pipes. M: One other major topic is the effluent treatment plant at Ngong Ping. We have read from the new annual report that the water will be used for flushing or for cleaning, but not for drinking. Are there any plans to use it as clean or potable water in the future? L: Well, it’s the first such water reuse program in Hong Kong. The main reason behind the project is that we want to look for an efficient way of reusing water. Also, Ngong Ping is at a high altitude, so providing saltwater to the area would be very costly to pump the water up to the area. But if we want them to make full use of their potable water, it has to be reused. Of course, if we use the water for flushing, it’s much cheaper than using the water for drinking because of the different standards. But right now, they have to do an analysis to see what the most economical solution is. M: What do you see as to what Hong Kong should be doing for water security? Let’s say for the next 10 years? I ask this because of the uncertainty of water supply from Dongjiang and other external factors. L: Well, nowadays the news about Guangdong Province is not the full picture. The issue is quite complex because Hong Kong, compared with other places in Guangdong Province, is rich. At the present time, they can pay for water. This funding is critical for the development of Guangdong Province. It’s quite complicated, and we can not comment on how they use the funds. Still, it is a very important source of income for the province. In that sense, we still have confidence that they will be willing to sell us water for the next 10 or 20 years. I don’t see substantial change unless there’s something wrong with the Dongjiang and they refuse to provide water for us, even if we pay high. Now that will be critical. If we foresee that that will be the situation, that will be an alarm for us.

Still, I don’t foresee anything changing for the next 10 or 20 years. That’s a problem. Unless the national strategy changes and Hong Kong doesn’t have to kept prosperous, there will be changes. You can’t just look at it compared to other areas. We are quite different from Singapore and Malaysia. They are two different countries. The water can be stopped from Malaysia to Singapore. Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, though, are the same country. Keeping Hong Kong prosperous is a priority for the Chinese government. I don’t foresee Guangdong Province as being unwilling to sell us water for the next 10 or 20 years. And we are trying to move towards desalination. We are attempting to prevent what you have mentioned. Just like Singapore. Why are they building desalination plants? They have some obstacles in negotiating the water prices with the Malaysian government, so they want to have a bargaining chip. Everyone knows it’s very costly to do desalination, even if you have very sophisticated membranes. People won’t accept this as a reason to pay more. Now if I say that Hong Kong will produce water by itself, but water fees go up 200 percent, what will the people do? They will resist such change, and ask us why we don’t purchase water from Guangdong Province. There will be questions and complaints, it’s not that straightforward. M: Are there any mechanisms to prevent conflicts over who gets to draw water from the Dongjiang? L: Well, it depends on the Guangdong Province government. M: In terms of negotiations, have there actually be talks about tapping other water sources besides the Dongjiang River? L: Some years ago, we had some of the voices from the public that we had to obtain water from Sichuan, the source for Macau. Unfortunately, the Sichuan is also under the authority of Guangdong Province, so unless you have a strong justification to add another source, then they won’t agree to it because of the need for new infrastructure and capital to do such a project. Can the government recover the cost of such an investment? I will ask you the same question. If you were buying water for HK$8 for a liter, would you pay double for water of a same quality? M: Well, I guess not. A: In the past years, they have bought water at a fixed annual rate, and this happened during the time that Hong Kong had to dump water. Are they looking for alternatives like variable rates? L: Well, that is just our wishes on the Hong Kong side. But if you think of it as a monopoly, and you’re the one who provides the service and products, would you accept this variation? Of course you can accept, but then you start to think about how much you can get from the customer. It’s like saying I employ you on an hourly basis and I just pay you when you’re here. However, if you don’t work fixed hours, how are you going to negotiate your rates with me?

The water contract is like that. In Hong Kong, when it rains, we wish not to have to buy water. In Guangdong Province, they want to make revenue by selling water. However, if it rains in Hong Kong, Guangdong Province won’t make money because Hong Kong won’t sell the water. In that situation, Guangdong would just set a higher rate per volume. M: So it’s a simplification. L: If we want to negotiate with China and we want to get water in a flexible approach, we would have to expect to pay more per unit. M: You posed a question about buying water at one price compared to buying it at another price. Hong Kongers buy a lot of their water and they don’t drink tap, why do you feel this is? L: Basically, I think it’s by choice. If you have a lot of money you don’t care if you spend a little more. Another thing is convenience. And then there’s misconception. Some people exaggerate the pollution in the Dongjiang River. This is a good idea for boosting sales of bottle water. Of course, we have insured that all the water coming out of the water works complies with all WHO standards. So if you trust the WSD, then the water is clean. Of course, if you trust some random people, then results might be skewed. Hong Kong people also don’t have a habit of drinking the tap water. M: The two biggest consumers of water here are residential users and service trade. What exactly is service trade? L: We classify service trade as companies. M: Those two sectors use about 75 percent of the water in Hong Kong. Where do you feel the most water could be conserved in these two sectors on a yearly basis? L: It’s very difficult to say because it depends on the future trend. If more buildings have the water reuse system, then those buildings will save more water. For domestic users, even if you have a reuse system, if you lack the confidence in reusing the water, then savings depends on their confidence. M: When you say reused water, do you mean effluent water? L: Some buildings have a reuse system, and I hear about companies using the systems for cleaning floors and such. M: Do you know what kind of water reuse systems they are? L: I really can’t say. Some use filtration, some use membranes, it depends. If you want to reuse it for drinking, you might have to use better disinfection. However, for cleaning purposes, it is much cheaper to use the system that way. M: At the rate that Hong Kong and Guangdong is heading, do you feel that Hong Kong can continue on this path of consuming water?

L: Last year, we experienced a decline in water consumption by less than 1 percent. The annual projection for the next 10 years is 1.6 percent annual growth. Because of SARS in 2003, consumption was a little higher. Last year it was a little lower. I still expect consumption to increase because the population is still growing, though slowly, and there are still developments in Hong Kong, like the tourism sector or Disney Land. I don’t see consumption levels dropping, unless we can narrow the percentage of water leakage. Hopefully this can be achieved because we are investing a lot into mains rehabilitation. M: Well, I really meant to say do you think Hong Kong can continue this kind of consumption level? L: Well, it’s different from the 1960s, where growth was 20 percent a year. If that happens, it will be dangerous. Now, growth is maybe 0.5 percent, so it’s not that much. There are still things we are doing with desalination, and unless there’s a serious problem with Dongjiang, then we are fine. Of course, if there is a problem, we might have to draw water from Sichuan. But if the selling price of Dongjiang is high and reaches a level near the price of desalination, then I think undoubtedly, we will move to desalination very fast. With desalination, all we need is a site to build plants. Everything else is set. We have good seawater quality, and we do a lot of sewage treatment to clean up water being dumped into the ocean. M: So the pilot desalination plant and effluent treatment plant are seen as preparations for possible future crises? L: Yes, definitely. I think we put a lot of hope into the desalination plant, but a problem is that it uses a lot of electricity, and that is also an uncertainty in Hong Kong, because the price of electricity is increasing. A: What project do you feel is the most important? Rehabilitating mains or the plant or something? L: Well, both are very important. For rehabilitation, we reduce water loss, which is a very heady problem. M: What kind of new education campaigns are going on? I have not seen the new ads, so I’m not sure if they focus on conservation or efficiency? L: Mostly conservation. We focus mainly on conservation. In such a short ad, we can’t tell people that much. We focus on simple things like don’t leave the water running when washing your hands, or using the water you prepare food with to water plants, things like that. M: Well, we feel that if you tell people to use water more efficiently, conservation follows it, but it seems that the WSD feels it’s much more complex to teach people about efficiency. L: Well, last year we had this poster [shows poster] that said “Save Water, Save Money.” How can you really convince people to save water if all they can save is maybe HK$9? That’s really nothing to them.

At least with the younger people, they can grow up knowing not to waste water. M: So is there an emphasis on education youth? L: We have a program in one of the kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; magazines inviting ideas for saving water. Water supply is also a subject in primary schools, and the material covered is water treatment, saving water, and sanitation. We can do a lot more, but at present, I can tell you that we are not just sitting around doing nothing. M: Can you lead us toward any sources for the new WSD ads? M: Do you feel regulations on water consumption are adequate or should they be stricter? L: The LegCo already feel that the water fee structure already penalizes heavy users enough. M: One question about cost. Is there a sewage cost? L: Yes. We collect the sewage cost for the DSD, but the charge will be based on water consumption. It is a flat rate per cubic meter. M: Do you know the charge? L: I forget, I would need to check. If you check the sample water bill, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on there. I think it might be 30 or 40 percent of the water consumption bill.

Appendix D: Interview Transcript with Prof. Barron M: To start off with, is there anything you wish to know about our project? B: Yes, I don’t really know that much about it. So please give me a short introduction, just a few minutes. M: The problem of our project is that South China is facing imminent danger in terms of clean water supply. Hong Kong relies on the Dongjiang River in Guangdong Province. [Project Brief] B: When we talk about sustainability, you can really only talk about sustainability for the foreseeable future. When I teach sustainability to the students, I tell them that sustainability does not mean attaining some steady state. It’s a matter of a dynamic equilibrium. We try to maintain equilibrium but we’re constantly changing the foundation of that equilibrium. In terms of water supply, the equilibrium would be supply and demand in balance. That doesn’t mean we have a certain supply and equate demand with that. Over time, we might have to find new supplies, if we want to grow or have more people or increase per capita consumption of water. So yeah, 30 years is actually a fairly appropriate amount of time to look forward. We can’t look forward a 1000 or even a 100 years with anything meaningful. Sustainability doesn’t mean finding equilibrium and staying there. In terms of the problems you have identified, there are really three options. One is for Guangdong to stop growing. The second would be to improve the efficiency of water supply. Right now, I don’t know the figures for Guangdong, but everywhere in the world, losses in the water supply system, especially the freshwater system, is very high. So reducing the losses is an obvious way to extend the resources. I don’t know what losses are in Guangdong, but I know that it’s fairly high in Hong Kong, and I’d suspect it would be much higher in Guangdong. M: In Guangdong, most of the water loss happens through agriculture. Agriculture uses about half of the freshwater, and half of that is lost through leakage and runoff. B: Okay, that’s an example right there. In terms of piped water, there’s usually a high level of loss associated with it. For example, in Hong Kong, they could do a much better job of reducing leakages in the water system. Of course, that costs money and people don’t do it. If it’s cheaper to buy more water, then you don’t worry about it. But if you want to extend your water supply, reducing the losses is an obvious way to do it. The third option, basically, is to import water from further away. This is a very common occurrence. Southern California does not have anywhere near enough water for its own needs, and I think most of its water comes from mountains in the north. I think the same is true in a lot of Europe and Britain, and probably Japan. The distances that we are transporting water in Hong Kong is quite small by international standards. So it’s not unreasonable to look for water sources well beyond the Pearl River Delta.

However, I’m not sure how efficient or costly that would be. And you always face the problem that at one time, the source seems plentiful, and then overtime, the locals want to use it themselves. So this is a constant problem, and the law in China may or may not allow Hong Kong to buy a watershed, probably not though. So you have the three options. Become more efficient through reducing water losses. Enforce reductions in water use. Or we can bring it in from further away. Or, ultimately, one day it may well be desalinating seawater to become an appealing technology. If you’re short of water and have enough energy, which is the case in the Middle East, it’s an appealing idea. In a place like Hong Kong, where we import all our energy, it gets very expensive so it’s not really a good idea. M: So you feel the direction that the WSD and the HK government are taking right now is not the right direction? B: Part of the problem is that the government is not very open about the whole thing. Some years ago, I tried with a young colleague to get some information from the government about water supply issues, and it was very difficult. I don’t know how good the Hong Kong government’s plans are because I don’t know their plans. To be honest, I don’t think anyone does. M: They mention some vague things like building a desalination plant and the effluent treatment plant. But if what you say is true, do you think the lack of public awareness can be attributed to that as well? B: Well, I think you can certainly make the public aware, and the government certainly wants to make people aware of the situation. I think the real problem is that water in Hong Kong is still very cheap. And when something is inexpensive, people find it difficult to treat it as something of value. For example, I sometimes forget to pay my water bill because it’s only HK$80 for a couple months. In the United States and Western Europe, it’s many times that for the same amount of water. So if the government is serious about educating the public, then the real option is raising prices to a level where people if they, for example, notice a leaking faucet or sink, fix it. Right now they don’t have a real incentive to fix the problem because it’s so cheap. If water was more expensive, then they’d have an incentive to fix the problems. I know that that is politically not easy, but they could have a stepped system. M: Well, they have a similar pricing system, but the first level is actually free, roughly 3600 US gallons. And only until you reach the high levels do you actually pay the real costs of providing water. B: This is the thing. So we’re all basically on the free part or the really low part. They really don’t have the system in place that I just described. They understand the principle of it, but the amounts that they give at the low end are so great that it doesn’t provide a realistic incentive. What you want to do is provide an incentive for people to fix problems like a leaking faucet. Right now they don’t. And you also want an incentive for people to turn off the water when they don’t need it, like when they’re brushing their teeth.

Sure, you can educate people, telling them that it’s a bad thing [to use water in such a manner]. Some people will think about that, but you have to go beyond just that and telling people it’s their fault. In addition we have the problem of leaky water pipes. Guangdong might have even worse of a problem. Or maybe not. Hong Kong has older pipes. As the pipes in Guangdong are newer, they might actually be more efficient than Hong Kong’s. But certainly there are opportunities for that. I don’t feel the government is seriously acting as if we have a water problem. They basically tell people we’re all okay. M: Well, that might be because of the water contracts that they can keep renegotiating. Do you see any real danger in terms of getting water from the Dongjiang? B: Probably not. One advantage Hong Kong has, although Guangdong is getting quite wealthy by Chinese standards, Hong Kong is still much wealthier, and so Hong Kong could pay more and bid away the water from other users. And that will work as long as there aren’t any political problems with that, and right now there don’t seem to be. But one of the difficulties with this sort of thing is that you don’t know if a political problem will arise in the future and a place that has the water won’t sell it. But I don’t know about that, and no one does, no one can tell. But I think for the time being, we’re okay, but it does seem to be, at this stage, the government’s real focus is on expanding supply and not making use more efficient, thereby cutting total demand. When you have demand for something, you really have two parts to it. One is the final product, and the other is the water you put into the system. So in meeting that demand, you can either reduce demand at the tap, or reduce losses in the system, which also reduces gross demand. And it’s gross demand that you have to meet. Sometimes you focus on the end use, but you can also focus on reducing transportation and distribution losses, so there is much more potential there. But then again, I don’t get the sense that the government wants any sort of public dialogue concerning water and how much we’re paying for it. My feeling is that they’d rather not have the public involved. But that’s the case with this government in many cases. This is not a government that sees the benefit of public consultation. They want to head off public opposition to what the government wants to do. M: Well, you bring this up, and you work with the Civic Exchange, so you know how the NGOs are operating. Do you feel the NGOs are beneficial to this situation? B: Of course. The NGO community in Hong Kong, like in most places, is extremely diverse, which is a good thing. The NGOs keep pressure on the government. Sometimes the NGOs don’t have as much technical information as they should have, and that’s not their fault. The government is stingy with the kind of information it releases. The government only has consultation because they feel if they show the appearance of consultation, the amount of criticisms will decrease. And that’s just my view.

M: Are you familiar with the Swiss Experience, the lecture with Mr. Schottli? B: I’m not really familiar with the situation. I read the description about Basel, and that’s potentially interesting. There are lots of other examples as well, like in the United States. Now the Swiss Experience is different in that it involves different countries. In some ways, because of the one country, two systems, our relations with Guangdong are more like two countries instead of two parts of the same country. Over time, that will be reduced. I think there might be some lessons there, but no country has the system like Hong Kong does. We’re not really apart of any province. So I think Hong Kong and the governments in Guangdong Province have to evolve a fully functioning dialogue. Right now that’s not in place. We need a much better system. These other models are interesting places to look at, but they’re not in anyway models that we can look to. M: Well, he brought up an interesting point that France, Germany, and Switzerland formed a committee to study the ecological damage of Lake Constance. I understand you’re on a transborder air pollution committee. Is there a similar thing here for water supply? B: No. In Hong Kong, some people have argued that we shouldn’t be spending so much on sewage treatment; we should be looking at cleaning up the water coming to Hong Kong from the Pearl River. I think the problem you have with water pollution is that not too many people are worried about it. I think they are right, by the way. You don’t have to drink the water, but you have to breathe the air. So there is more urgency concerning air quality. Ultimately, if we don’t solve the air and water problems, then we don’t have sustainable development for Hong Kong and the PRD. I have a fairly low opinion, as you can tell, of the government’s ability to do very well. One reason is that the government can’t effectively play the “One country, two systems” game to a better and much more effective cooperation with Guangdong. M: Well, you do mention that, for the short term, clean water supply is not much of an issue because of the Dongjiang River and Guangdong’s willingness to supply Hong Kong with water. So do you feel that for the short term, the focus should be on more efficient use and fixing pipes? B: Yes. For water supply, what we really need is a much more open discussion with the government. Making the discussion more transparent is important. Locally, by improving efficiency and giving people an incentive to reduce their water consumption, such as increasing prices. And in the long term, we have to look at new supply. The current supply won’t last us another 100 years, maybe another 30. And sustainable development means not only growth, but also maturity. So what we need to do for sustainable development is to recognize that the growth allows us opportunities to develop more efficiently, or become smarter about how we look for those water supplies.

We don’t have to do that right now, because it’s not that pressing yet. The thing is, if you’re more efficient and you run into a supply problem, then it’s easier to deal with the supply problem than if you weren’t efficient. So if you have an incentive for people to stop wasting water and you don’t have a third of your water lost through leakage, then you’ll be in a good position to deal with water problems.

Appendix E: Old WSD Poster