The quality of drinking water in Shanghai will meet
European Union standard by 2010 and, a decade later, citizens in Shanghai will
drink the best water in the world. These were the goals set out
by the Shanghai Water Authority. With the city’s population expected to increase
only slightly and the economy to boom by 2020, Chen Yin, an official with the
water authority, said Shanghai’s water consumption will not increase from its
present amount. Zhang Yue, director of the Urban Construction
Division under the Ministry of Construction, said, "Shanghai is the first city
in the country to publicize these ambitions. They will not be easy to
achieve." He said water saving will help keep the sustainable
development of China’s economy. Saving one cubic meter of water
means saving the city’s infrastructure costs by 10,000 Yuan. Last year, Shanghai
saved 300 million cubic meters of water either from readjustment of industrial
structure or the employment of new technology. "The aim is to
arouse public awareness of the seriousness of water shortages," Chen said. "The
abundant surface water and amount of rain of the city are so misleading that
they result in improper use of water." Shanghai lacks drinkable
water. The Huangpu River, which supplies 80 percent of the city’s drinkable
water, is nearing exhaustion. The city, therefore, has been
exploring new sources from the Yangtze River and growing forests along it to
conserve quality water. Besides penning regulations, the
authority is popularizing technology among the public to efficiently cut the
amount of water used. At present, the city has 600,000 family
toilets, each using 13 liters of water per flush. These are to be renovated to
use only 9 liters of water per flush. The authority is
renovating the first 200 toilets for households—at a cost of 40 Yuan
each. In three years, all the toilets will be renovated, which
saves the city nearly 15 million Yuan every year in water
conservation. Another task the city is engaged in is the
treatment of sewage to improve the water environment. At
present the city can only treat 44 percent of its daily 5.04 million tons of
waste water. To meet the total demand,27 more sewage treatment factories are to
be established with an estimated investment of 18 billion Yuan. People in Shanghai get their daily water mainly from ______ now.
A. the underground
B. the rain
C. the Yangtze River
D. the Huangpu River