Improve the efficiency of water resources utilization and promote high-quality economic development

Dongguan Fenggang Town, Shima River blue road landscape.

The green water is sparkling and sparkling, and the breeze blows, and the green trees and red flowers on both sides of the bank sway in the wind......

On the morning of March 22, the Dongguan Water Affairs System held the "Follow the River Chief to the Blue Road" Joy Run Dragon City activity in Shilong Town, as the first theme activity to commemorate the "Water Day and Water Week" this year. On the same day, representatives of river chiefs and citizens of various towns and streets (parks) gathered on the right bank of the main stream of the Dongjiang River to experience the effectiveness of water control in Dongguan and share the ecological achievements of water governance.

In the past ten years, Dongguan has actively practiced the water control idea of "water conservation priority, spatial balance, systematic governance, and two-handed efforts", adhered to the synchronization of water saving and efficiency improvement, and the same direction of government and enterprises, and promoted the national water-saving action in depth.

"World Water Day" and "China Water Week": a series of publicity activities to showcase the effectiveness of Dongguan's water work

March 22 is the 32nd World Water Day, and March 22-28 is the 37th China Water Week.

On March 22, the water affairs system of Dongguan City launched a series of publicity activities with the theme of "making good use of water resources and managing water resources strictly and carefully", demonstrating the effectiveness of Dongguan's work in promoting the high-quality development of water affairs and improving the ability of water security, and building a good pattern of water love, water protection, water conservation and water control that is known by the society, supported by all walks of life and participated by the whole people.

On the morning of the same day, the launching ceremony of the 2024 "World Water Day" and "China Water Week" theme publicity activities in Dongguan City and the 2024 "Follow the River Chief to the Blue Road" Joy Run Dragon City activity was held on the right bank of the main stream of the Dongjiang River in Shilong Town.

On the same day, the theme exhibition of "Born in response to 'luck' and 'river' and different" was launched in Dongguan Exhibition Center. The yellowed photographs and black-and-white images record the diligence and wisdom of the ancestors in digging and repairing the canal, and reproduce the changes of the Dongguan Canal in the development process.

At the same time, Dongguan actively responded to the "Thousand Cities Landmark Lighting and Water Saving" activity and lit up the lights for "World Water Day" and "China Water Week". "Beautiful China, Water Saving Priority", "Water Saving for All, Water Beauty in Guangdong", "Water Conservation in Dongguan", ...... A number of popular slogans have made the concept of water conservation deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

On the morning of March 23, the theme publicity activity of "I Speak for Happy Rivers and Lakes" and Dongguan City's "Drinking the Same River Water and Building a Happy River" was launched in Zhangmutou Town, Dongguan. The event advocates all sectors of society to actively participate in the construction of happy rivers and lakes, and promotes more rivers and lakes to become happy rivers and lakes for the benefit of the people.

On March 26, Dongguan Institute of Technology to serve Dongguan's high-quality development action and the theme activity of "World Water Day" and "China Water Week" - Dongguan Water Disaster Prevention and Sustainable Development Seminar was held in Songshan Lake Campus of Dongguan University of Technology. Industry experts and scholars gathered at Songshan Lake to focus on the perception and simulation, forecasting and early warning, emergency disaster prevention and ecological environment management of typhoons, urban rainstorms and floods under the background of climate change, and gathered the strength of schools, governments and enterprises to discuss cooperation and seek common development.

The rich and colorful theme activities have benefited the public a lot, and they have experienced the great changes in Dongguan's water ecological environment. Lin Yaqi, a student from Wanjiang Central Primary School, participated in the activity of "following the river chief to walk the blue road". "By participating in this event, I have strengthened my confidence in water conservation and water conservation. Lin Yaqi said.

Building happy rivers and lakes: the former "Wulong River" reproduces the water charm and scenery of Lingnan

Walking on the edge of the Shima River, the water is clear and the bank is green, the fish are shallow bottom, the white water birds stop and perch, and the citizens are in groups of three or five, taking a leisurely walk, a quiet and peaceful scene.

On March 23, in the theme publicity activity of "I Speak for Happy Rivers and Lakes" and Dongguan City's "Drink the Same River Water and Build a Happy River Together", the participants walked the blue road of the Shima River and felt the achievements of the construction of the comprehensive treatment project of the Shima River Basin.

The Guanlan River, which originates in Shenzhen, flows into Dongguan from south to north to form the Shima River, which feeds more than 1.5 million people in seven towns along the river in Dongguan. However, for a long time, the Shima River suffered from serious pollution, and the water quality was inferior to Class V, black and smelly, and everyone covered their noses and walked away, and was even called the "Wulong River".

At the beginning of 2019, Dongguan launched the comprehensive improvement of the whole basin of the Shima River, focusing on the core of "total emission reduction and section compliance", in accordance with the governance idea of "source control, process management, and end reduction", and taking the key small watershed as the combat unit to comprehensively control the Shima River.

After more than 4 years of comprehensive treatment, at present, the water quality of the national examination section of Shimahe Qiling has reached Class IV, and an independent closed sewage collection system has been basically completed, and the expansion project of Zhangmutou Phase III Sewage Treatment Plant, Zhangmutou Yufeng Sewage Plant, Qingxi Changshantou Phase I Sewage Treatment Plant and 11 sewage treatment plants have been upgraded, and 2024 kilometers of main and secondary branch sewage pipe networks, 3713 kilometers of micro branch pipe networks have been completed. 24 decentralized sewage treatment facilities and 18 integrated treatment facilities, 10,244 sewage outlets have been cleaned up, and 60 kilometers of beautiful blue roads have been built.

Today's Shima River has changed from a "stinky water ditch" butterfly to a "happy river", and reproduces the water charm and scenery of Lingnan. Birds of all kinds frolic in the water, look down for food, or spread their wings and fly. On the blue road along the coast, citizens leisurely walk, ride bicycles, and enjoy a different kind of slow time.

"Since the government has vigorously renovated the Shima River Basin, not only has the living environment improved, but there are also many good places for leisure and life has become interesting. Ms. Zhang, who lives in Qingxi Town, said with a smile that she would go for a walk on the Qingxi River Blue Road every night. On weekends, the family will go to the park to play bird watching, so that children can get close to nature and feel and appreciate the beauty of nature.

Shima River is a "model" for Dongguan to build a happy river and lake construction with the construction of green and beautiful water system and Wanli Blue Road as the starting point.

For three consecutive years, the Dongguan Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government have regarded the construction of Blue Road as a "hard task". Last year, the city's blue road construction exceeded 110 kilometers, Huayang Lake was also selected as an excellent case of national beautiful rivers and lakes, and rare birds such as Oriental white stork, painted ibis, and black-faced spoonbill visited Dongguan one after another.

By the end of last year, the city had built a total of about 560 kilometers of blue roads, and a large number of waterfront ecological landscapes with "smooth rivers, clear water, solid embankments, green banks and beautiful scenery" have emerged, providing citizens with more and more good places for strolling and leisure, healthy sports and water play.

Nowadays, more and more Dongguan people enjoy the beautiful and natural water ecological environment at their doorstep, and get the dividends brought by the construction of happy rivers and lakes. The land of Guanyi has unfolded a charming picture of beautiful rivers and lakes, water and greenery, water and prosperity, and the characteristics of Lingnan water towns.

Practice the "16-character" water control idea: reduce water and improve efficiency, and make efforts with both hands to continuously improve the efficiency of water resource utilization

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 16-character water control idea of "giving priority to water conservation, spatial balance, systematic governance, and working with both hands". Under the guidance of the "sixteen characters" water control idea, Dongguan has handed over an excellent answer sheet for the rivers and lakes Anlan, the beautiful water Changqing, and the water beauty industry.

Green development, water conservation priority. In recent years, Dongguan has actively created a national water-saving city, and after years of efforts, water-saving work has achieved remarkable results. The city's total water use increased from 2.064 billion cubic meters in 2014 to 2.035 billion cubic meters in 2023, a decrease of 1.41%. At the same time, the water utilization efficiency of water resources has been significantly improved, with the water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP decreasing from 35.1 cubic meters in 2014 to 17.79 cubic meters in 2023, a decrease of 49.32%, and the water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial added value dropping from 28.7 cubic meters in 2014 to 12.56 cubic meters in 2023, a decrease of 56.24%.

While "throttling", it is also necessary to "open source". In order to solve the dilemma of water shortage from the source, Dongguan actively expands the supply of water sources and creates a new pattern of multi-source mutual aid.

On the morning of January 30 this year, the water supply activity of the Pearl River Delta Water Resources Allocation Project was held at the pumping station of Gaoxinsha Reservoir in Nansha, Guangzhou.

The Pearl River Delta Water Resources Allocation Project started in May 2019. After the start of the project, Dongguan actively promoted the construction of 10 supporting projects. Among them, two regional water plants will be built with a water supply scale of 1.6 million cubic meters per day, and raw water pipelines and supporting water supply pipe network projects will be built to ensure the timely reception of Xijiang water. After the completion of the project, it will provide Dongguan with about 330 million cubic meters of Xijiang water every year.

"System governance" is an important way to solve the water problem. On the basis of improving the water quality of rivers and lakes, Dongguan also strives to build a waterfront space to achieve the organic unity of ecological, economic and social benefits.

Promote water conservancy and remove floods. In order to solve the problem of urban waterlogging, Dongguan launched the city's waterlogging point remediation work in 2017. As of March this year, 148 of the city's 157 flood-prone points have been remediated, and the remaining nine waterlogging points are planned to be fully rectified by the end of next year. Through the continuous improvement of waterlogging points in recent years, the waterlogging situation in Dongguan has been significantly alleviated.

Due to the shortage of water resources, Dongguan strictly controls the total amount of water use, adheres to the "two-handed force", accelerates the construction of a water rights trading market, and revitalizes the limited water use indicators and improves water use efficiency through the introduction of a market-oriented trading mechanism.

On December 29, 2023, the Administrative Measures for Water Rights Trading in Dongguan City (Trial) (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures") was issued, making Dongguan the first prefecture-level city in the province to issue the Measures for Water Rights Trading.

In addition to the conventional types of regional water rights trading and water intake rights trading, the Measures innovatively propose for the first time the establishment of a municipal reserve water right trading type (Dongguan Municipal Government's reserve index of 72 million cubic meters), which is specially used to regulate the water rights trading market and ensure the construction of key projects.

According to statistics, since the "13th Five-Year Plan", Dongguan's population has increased by 26%, GDP has increased by 82%, and the total water consumption has increased by less than 3%, achieving high-speed and high-quality economic and social development with less new consumption of water resources.

Text: Rei Tian

Plate making: Lin Yun, Zou Hongxiang, Huang Yongwen