[Chinese Mainland] Shandong Issues Action Plan for Water Conservation Institutional and Policy System: Province-Wide Urban Reclaimed Water Utilization Rate to Reach 60% by 2030

Shandong Province issued the "Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water-Saving Institutional and Policy System (2026–2030年)", which explicitly incorporates the development and utilization of unconventional water into the unified allocation of water resources and the layout of modern water network construction, and proposes two mandatory targets: by 2030年, the province's urban reclaimed water utilization rate shall reach 60%, and the province's unconventional water utilization volume shall reach 25亿 cubic meters or more. The plan also requires promoting close alignment between the upgrading of wastewater treatment plants and the allocation and utilization of reclaimed water.

I. 60% and 25亿 Cubic Meters: The Weight Behind Two Targets

The "Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water-Saving Institutional and Policy System in Shandong Province (2026–2030年)" was recently issued by the relevant authorities. In the section "Improving the Unconventional Water Utilization System," the plan sets out clear quantitative targets:

• Reclaimed water utilization rate — by 2030年, the province's urban reclaimed water utilization rate shall reach 60%.
• Total unconventional water volume — by 2030年, the province's unconventional water utilization volume shall reach 25亿 cubic meters or more.
• Seawater desalination coordination — issue the "Implementation Plan for the Development of the Seawater Desalination and Comprehensive Utilization Industry in Shandong Province," advance the allocation and utilization of desalinated seawater in coastal industrial parks, and encourage coastal steel, petrochemical and chemical enterprises and parks to increase direct seawater utilization.
• Mine water utilization — implement the mine water development and utilization action in the Yellow River Basin, promote rainwater harvesting irrigation technology according to local conditions, and steadily develop brackish water irrigation.

As a major industrial province and a major population province, Shandong is also a typical water-scarce region. Elevating unconventional water from a "supplementary means" to a formal water source included in unified allocation means that reclaimed water has now entered a rigid scheduling sequence.

II. Production-Transmission Alignment: Solving the Longstanding Problem of "Water That Cannot Be Delivered"

A key formulation in the plan is "promoting close alignment between the upgrading of wastewater treatment plants and the allocation and utilization of reclaimed water, and improving production and transmission facilities." This points to a pain point that has long plagued the industry: many wastewater treatment plants equipped with reclaimed water facilities have actual reuse rates far below design capacity, and the bottleneck is often not at the production end but at the end of the transmission and distribution network.

To this end, the plan requires establishing a reserve bank of key projects for the development and utilization of unconventional water, and clearly identifies key consumption directions:

• Industrial scenarios — increase the allocation of reclaimed water in chemical industrial parks and high water-consuming enterprises.
• Municipal scenarios — give priority to the use of reclaimed water meeting standards for urban greening, municipal miscellaneous use, and ecological landscapes.
• Pricing mechanism — promote the principle of "high quality at a high price" for unconventional water, with pricing negotiated between supply and demand parties under government coordination.
• Technical support — compile technical guidelines for reclaimed water utilization, advance the construction of an unconventional water metering and monitoring system, and establish a reclaimed water monitoring information sharing mechanism.

III. Four Sets of Institutional Tools: More Than Just "Building More Facilities"

The systematic nature of the plan is reflected in how it breaks water conservation into four interlocking sets of institutional tools:

3.1 Water Budget Management Pilot

Issue documents such as the "Measures for Water Budget Management in Shandong Province (Trial)" to promote the realization of water budget management across all regions, all water sources, all industries, and all users, build a provincial water budget management information platform, and explore water volume storage, water rights trading, and water-saving incentive mechanisms.

3.2 Water Pricing and Water Resource Tax Reform

Implement tiered residential water pricing and progressive surcharge regulations for non-residential water use exceeding quotas (or plans); implement differentiated water resource tax rate policies, and apply water resource tax reduction policies to taxpayers whose industrial water use efficiency reaches the advanced value of the national water use quota.

3.3 Contracted Water-Saving Management

Promote it across all scenarios, including water supply network leakage control, water-saving retrofits of public institutions, industrial water recycling, agricultural water-saving irrigation, and the development and utilization of unconventional water; implement models such as "contracted water-saving management + agricultural water price reform" and "contracted water-saving management + water rights trading", and explore new business models such as steward-style services.

3.4 Building a Water-Saving Society

Support regions with the necessary conditions in carrying out high-quality pilot initiatives to build a water-saving society, and actively apply for national pilot programs.

IV. National Context: Reclaimed Water Is Moving from Advocacy to Rigidity

Shandong's plan is not an isolated case, but a microcosm of the nationwide reclaimed water policy entering a period of intensive implementation:

• National level — According to the Ministry of Water Resources, the total volume of Reclaimed Water utilization nationwide has exceeded 256亿 cubic meters; Beijing's Reclaimed Water utilization volume last year reached 14.5亿 cubic meters, accounting for about one-third of the city's total annual water consumption. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, water consumption per 10,000 yuan of GDP and water consumption per 10,000 yuan of industrial value added will each decrease by 10% on the basis of 42.4 cubic meters and 22.9 cubic meters at the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan".
• Institutional level — The "Regulations on Urban Drainage and Sewage Treatment" were revised in accordance with 2026年8月8日 the "Decision of the State Council on Amending and Repealing Certain Administrative Regulations", explicitly promoting the Reclaimed Water Reuse of sewage.
• Pilot level — The National Water Conservation Office recently released typical cases of Reclaimed Water utilization allocation pilots. Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, through "distributed allocation + water rights trading", increased the Reclaimed Water utilization rate from 18% to 26.2%, and the utilization volume from 2.81亿 cubic meters to 3.96亿 cubic meters.
• Standards level — The amendment to the "Discharge Standard of Pollutants for Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants" (GB 18918—2002) came into effect on 2026年3月1日, adjusting the Grade A limit for fecal coliforms in effluent not intended for reuse to 10000 MPN/L, reducing the excessive disinfection burden in the Reclaimed Water pretreatment stage.

V. Industry Observation: Market Opportunities Concentrated in Three Ports

Once the targets are quantified, the implementation chain will be tightened. For wastewater treatment and Reclaimed Water Reuse enterprises, the opportunities indicated by the Shandong plan are concentrated in three ports:

• Water production port — upgrading standards and advanced treatment. For Reclaimed Water to be truly used in water-quality-sensitive industrial scenarios, the engineering capability and operation and maintenance level of processes such as Ultrafiltration, Reverse Osmosis, and CDRO become thresholds, and electricity consumption per ton of water and chemical costs become core competitive indicators.
• Transmission and distribution port — pipe network and scheduling. "Improving production and transmission facilities" means that the construction of Reclaimed Water trunk pipe networks, branch connections, and pressurized storage facilities will be put on the agenda, and service providers with pipe network design and system integration capabilities will be more favored.
• Operation port — metering and service models. After the establishment of "high quality, high price" negotiated pricing and water rights trading mechanisms, third-party entrusted operation, contract-based water conservation management, and benefit-sharing projects will accelerate implementation, converting one-time engineering revenue into long-term service revenue.

Industry analysis suggests that from "encouraging use" to "quota constraints", and then to "tradable water rights", the value realization path of Reclaimed Water is being opened up. Whoever can simultaneously deliver answers in the three dimensions of stable water quality, controllable costs, and traceable metering will gain the upper hand in this round of provincial action plans.

TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. (TIANYI LIMITED) has long been deeply engaged in the fields of wastewater treatment and Reclaimed Water Reuse. For urban Reclaimed Water system construction and Industrial Park Reclaimed Water substitution scenarios, it provides integrated services including advanced treatment process integration, transmission and distribution pipe network construction, smart metering, and third-party entrusted operation. With the core goals of "stable compliance, energy saving and consumption reduction, and resource recycling", the company helps customers transform water conservation indicators into executable, assessable, and tradable engineering results.

Source: Public text of the "Shandong Province Action Plan for Comprehensively Building a Water Conservation Institutional and Policy System (2026—2030年)" (forwarded by the Rongcheng Municipal People's Government portal), compiled from publicly released content by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Water Conservation Office.