Over a million residents in suburban Jiading District of Shanghai yesterday began receiving cleaner tap water from the Chenhang Reservoir on the Yangtze River.
A roughly 18-kilometer pipeline takes water from the reservoir in suburban Baoshan District and transports it to the Yongsheng, Jiading, Anting and Jiabei water plants in Jiading.
According to the Shanghai Water Authority the purity of the water is much better thanks to the stable water quality in the Yangtze. About 1.1 million people residing in an area of about 400 square kilometers in the district will benefit.
Jiading's water mainly comes from the Huating Water Factory, with the Shugou River as its source. Quality varies and supply is often inadequate to meet demand.
Some 400,000 cubic meters of cleaner water from the Yangtze will be supplied daily to Jiading from the reservoir that also supplies water to Baoshan. The plan is to increase the quantity to 770,000 cubic meters.
The Chenhang Reservoir was built in 1992 as the city's first reservoir on the Yangtze. But since the Qingcaosha Reservoir went into operation in 2011, Shanghai has been altering its water supply structure. And though local tap water quality is better than in most other Chinese provinces, it is still below international standards.
By the end of this year, 70 percent of the city's drinking water are provided by the Yangtze-linked Qingcaosha, Dongfeng Xisha and Chenhang reservoirs, while the Jinze reservoir on the upstream Huangpu River supply the rest.
Previously, the Huangpu, Shanghai's mother river, was the only water source for local residents.
