Matthew Davis

Questions

What is the history of waste in Shanghai, and what is the context? How have water and waste management changed as Shanghai has developed, and how has it in turn affected Shanghai’s growth?

Discussion

As Shanghai has grown from a tiny fishing village to one of the world’s leading cities, its water and waste management systems have developed as well, not only changing to accommodate the city’s growth but also changing to reflect the city’s changing priorities. Chinese civilization has a long history of advanced water and waste management, from evidence of water wells present in the Qin and Han Dynasties (200 BCE) to drainage systems built 900 years ago in Ganzhou that are still in use today (“900-year-old Drainage System Still in Use,” 2004). Xincheng Shen describes in his doctoral dissertation “Engineering Shanghai: Water, Sewage, and The Making of Hydraulic Modernity” the city’s water and waste history. The popularity of night soil supported the creation of an economy surrounding the collection and repurposing of human waste, and as  Shanghai grew, the lucrative industry included the entire municipality, from the “residents, coolies, [and] peasants,” to the “foremen, the contractor, and the municipal government” (Shen 2019: 22). Night soil thrived as the primary mode of waste collection until the invention of the water closet, and Shen discusses how the transition to the water closet around the turn of the twentieth century exacerbated tensions between the Chinese residents and inhabitants of the international settlement. Because Shanghai was built on an alluvial plain, the city could not dig tunnels big enough for sewers with the technology of the time. Therefore, for many centuries, Shanghai “relied on natural waterways to drain the city” (Shen 40). When European residents of the International Settlement began to build water closets in the 1800s, the Shanghai Municipal Council, the governing authority for the International Settlement, banned them because of the strain their use would place on the antiquated sewage system and the threat of polluting the Huangpu River (Shen 2019: 181). The invention of the septic system alleviated many of their concerns, but the Council levied fees to further deter their continued construction (Shen 190). The advancement of the water closet created the need for a sanitation system to support it, so over the course of subsequent years, the Shanghai Waterworks Company affiliated with the International Settlement and the Chapei Company of the Chinese government began to build a larger system of pipes. Conflict arose in 1912 when the Shanghai Waterworks Company accused the Chapei Company of building pipework near the border of the off-limits International Settlement (Shen 259). The Chapei Company was moving forward with opening a trench necessary to expand the company’s reach eastward, while the Shanghai Waterworks Company had effectively taken over this area along Sichuan Road because it was currently providing those residents with water, so both parties went to municipal court (Shen 259). The court found that neither side had sole ownership of this particular road, but the decision did not stop the companies from attempting to extend their reach as far as possible in the years to come. Even though ultimately neither side was vindicated, this dispute epitomizes the palpable tension present between the international expats and their Chinese neighbors––division that would continue to fester even after the International Settlement shut down (Shen 262).

A photograph of an old 1940 manhole from the Shanghai Waterworks Company, the water company that operated in the International Settlement. Citation: C_Ronns, “Shanghai Manholes: Shanghai, China. Former International Settlement, Water Main Manhole – Zhapu Lu Suzhou Bei Lu (乍铺路苏州北路),” Reddit, June 27, 2019. https://www.reddit.com/comments/c6300s/shanghaimanholes_shanghai_china_former/.

The birth of the water closet had cultural effects, too. With their construction in  businesses and  municipal spaces, water closets became a new form of public space, and people

imprinted their cultural and political feelings onto them as they would a street or square (Shen 337). Most notably, Shen writes, “writings on the wall [of the water closet] was the best weather vane to tell the cultural and political climate at the time,” and the “restroom literature” of the  time preserve a “record of subaltern reactions to many hot button issues” (Shen 337). By the 1930s, private toilets were prevalent, a tool for people to tout a “convenient yet luxurious lifestyle” (Shen 347). However, this device was also used to symbolize modernity and its corrupting effect on Chinese life. Toilets were described in news reports as “urban chemical pools” that needed to be replaced with “traditional waste disposal,” primarily because many still valued using human waste in agriculture (Shen 347-348). Modern waste technology became more accessible and regulated as the result of several cholera outbreaks that occurred. Although cholera had traveled to Shanghai several times during the late 1800s, a more deadly strain arrived in 1926, causing an epidemic (Shen 311). Sixty percent of the cases were in the city’s Chinese territory, leading to an investigation of the Chapei Company’s water sources (Shen 312). It was found that Suzhou Creek, where Chapei received water, was heavily polluted with debris and human waste, creating the perfect breeding ground for cholera (Shen 313). This cholera epidemic was an impetus for change, and the Chinese government bought land outside of Shanghai to develop water plants away from pollutants and created a health department to oversee water treatment and sanitation (Shen 314, 316).

As the city began to grow exponentially, the old sewage systems became overwhelmed, impacted by outdated technology and a lack of cohesive central management. Chang Jiang writes in his Master’s thesis “A General Investigation of Shanghai Sewerage Treatment System” of how the sewer system transformed with the city’s growth. During the 1950s and 60s, as residential areas expanded beyond the city core, sewage treatment plants were created to supplement the city’s sewers (Jiang 2011: 26). In the 1970s, “trunk lines were built to be sewage conveyance routes,” taking waste away from water sources that served residential areas, instead discharging it into the Yangtze River (Jiang 26-27). Beginning in the 1980s, Shanghai actively worked to overhaul the technology of its sanitation systems, and these efforts reflect larger goals within China of modernization and integration into the international community. As documented by the L.A. Times, the city sent engineers to California in 1988 to work with American companies and researchers to develop a new sewage system for the city targeted at reducing contamination of Suzhou Creek, one of the largest sources for the city’s water (Hudson: 1988). Another goal of the new sewage system was to unify the separate sewers that had been developed by the  international settlements into one central Shanghai sanitation system (Hudson). Part of the success of Shanghai’s efforts was due to its collaboration with the World Bank, which began in  the 1980s and continues into the present. As discussed in the World Bank’s project appraisal document for the Shanghai Urban Environment Project, Shanghai was able to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from 2003 to 2011 for sanitation improvements (Read 2003: 6). Shanghai was able to secure this beneficial grant in part because the city has a long history of interacting with supranational organizations like the World Bank, so these urban environmental reforms “are likely to have major demonstration effects on urban areas throughout the country and the region” (Read 4). Working with the World Bank, the municipal government developed long-term, sustainable water management, specifically modernizing and centralizing the sewers and water treatment systems (Cho: 2018). Efforts have centered on addressing the contamination of the city’s primary water sources. During the 1980s, seventy percent of Shanghai’s sewage and wastewater was discharged into the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River which the city proper straddles (Zhang 1997: 290). While reducing the pollution of the Huangpu was recognized as a long-term goal, the city prioritized moving the city’s source of water supply from the polluted parts in the city upriver to where the water was purer (Zhang 301).

Map showing the confluence of the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek. This map shows the centrality of the two water sources, highlighting how they are easily polluted by the city. “10 Quick Facts About the Mother River of Shanghai,” Culture Shock Tours, February 17, 2019, http://www.culture-shock-tours.com/blog/10-quick-facts-about-the-mother-river-of-shanghai.

Robert Ward’s Geographic Review article “Shanghai Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal” discusses how the Chinese government worked with the Australian government to develop new sewer lines in 1988. One line diverted waste from Suzhou Creek to the mouth of the Yangtze River so that “objectionable floating materials and solids” would not contaminate the water collection sources in the Suzhou. (Ward 1995: 151). Although some waste was entering  the Yangtze, the Yangtze would be polluted less severely than the Suzhou because it is larger and has a faster moving current. Furthermore, it was concluded by wastewater specialists that “because actual discharge would occur 1.5 kilometers from shore and at a depth of fifteen  meters, the sewage would be diluted within one to six kilometers,” not causing serious issues (Ward  151). More recently, the city built the Qingcaosha Reservoir on Changxing Island in the mouth of the Yangtze River in 2010 (Voiland: 2017). The reservoir contains twenty-seven square miles of water that is protected from the pollutants of the Yangtze, supplying seventy percent of the city’s drinking water (Voiland). The city consumes such a high volume of water, so each year, it has to source drinking water and water used for agriculture and industry from across China. Xu Zhao’s article “Burden shifting of water quantity and quality stress from megacity Shanghai” analyzes where Shanghai’s water comes from, showing that in 2007, of the 11.6 billion m³ of water “consumed to support Shanghai’s consumption of goods and services,” 79% came from outside of Shanghai (Zhao 2016: 7). The provinces with the highest relative percentage of water diverted to Shanghai are Xinjiang and Heilongjiang, regions that are not only distant from Shanghai but also suffer from water scarcity, reflecting a growing need for Shanghai to promote sustainable local water development so as to not stress the resources of poorer provinces (Zhao 9).

Voiland’s photos showing the building of the reservoir in the Yangtze River. The photo on the left was taken on July 20, 2016, and the photo on the right was taken on April 23, 1984. Voiland, “Fresh Water for Shanghai,” NASA Earth Observatory, April 11, 2017. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89996/fresh-water-for-shanghai.

Although the systems need to be continually expanded to keep pace with the city’s sustained rapid development for the foreseeable future, the implementation of a unified plan for addressing water and waste management in the city has relieved many of the issues plaguing Shanghai over the last several decades and is gradually improving the water and environment quality for Shanghai residents.

Sources

1. Cho, Sing. “30 Years of Working Together to Solve Shanghai’s Most Pressing Water Problems,” The World Bank Group, Aug. 2018, https://blogs.worldbank.org/water/30-

 years-working -together-solve-shanghai-s-most-pressing-water-problems.

2. Hudson, Berkley. “Foul Shanghai Sewage System Redesigned in Pasadena,” Los Angeles Times, 04 Sep. 1988, https://www.latimes.com/archives

 /la-xpm-1988-09-04-me-2201-story.html.

3. Jiang, Chang. “A General Investigation of Shanghai Sewerage Treatment System,” Master’s thesis. Halmstad University, Spring 2011,

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:427129/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

4. Read, Geoffrey. “Project Appraisal Document on a Proposed Adaptable Program Loan in the Amount of US $200 Million to the People’s Republic of China for the Shanghai Urban Environment Project in Support of the First Phase of the Shanghai Urban Environment Program,” The World Bank, 20 May 2003,

 http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/522441468746357967/pdf/23567.pdf.

5. Shen, Xincheng. “Engineering Shanghai: Water, Sewage, and The Making of Hydraulic Modernity,” PhD diss. Georgia Institute of Technology, May 2019.

 http://hdl.handle.net/1853/61700.

6. Voiland, Adam. “Fresh Water for Shanghai,” NASA Earth Observatory, 11 April 2017,

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/89996/fresh-water-for-shanghai.

7. Ward, Robert M., and Wen Liang. “Shanghai Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal.”

Geographical Review, vol. 85, no. 2, 1995, pp. 141–156. 

8. Zhao, Xu, et. al. “Burden Shifting of Water Quantity and Quality Stress From Megacity Shanghai,” Water Resources Research, August 25, 2016, h ttps://www.researchgate.net/

 figure/Shanghais-location-water-sources-and-reserviors_fig1_306920689.

9. Zhang, Chonghua. “Case Study II – Shanghai Huangpu River, China,” Water Pollution Control

– A Guide to the Use of Water Quality Management Principles, United Nations Environment Programme, 1997, https://www.who.int/water_sanitation

 _health/resourcesquality/watpolcontrol.pdf.

10. “900-year-old Drainage System Still in Use,” Archaeology in China, Xinhua News Agency, 18 Nov. 2004, http://www.china.org.cn/english/culture/112522.htm.