[Mainland China] Eight Departments Jointly Issue Document to Fortify the Defense Line for Agricultural Irrigation Water Safety

Introduction: 2026 年 10 月, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Prevention of Wastewater Pollution Risks from Industry and Other Sources and Safeguarding the Safety of Agricultural Irrigation Water". The document explicitly calls for advancing the upgrading and transformation of centralized wastewater treatment facilities in industrial parks surrounding farmland, with a focus on strengthening the emission control of total salt content, heavy metals, and toxic and hazardous pollutants and incorporating them into pollutant discharge permits, and plans to issue the technical guideline for water quality monitoring of agricultural irrigation water by the end of this year.

Eight Departments Jointly Issue: Elevating Irrigation Water to Food Security

The level of this document is noteworthy — it is led by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, with participation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Water Resources, plus the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The presence of the "Two Supremes" in a departmental document on irrigation water is uncommon; it means that the linkage between subsequent law enforcement and the judiciary has been built into the design: illegal discharge of industrial wastewater into irrigation canals is no longer merely a matter at the level of administrative penalties.

The logic is straightforward. Water is the lifeblood of agriculture, and the safety of agricultural irrigation water is directly related to food security. In reality, however, three types of problems have long persisted: unreasonable spatial layout of industrial enterprises and parks and livestock and poultry farms, incomplete wastewater discharge control requirements, and an unsound water quality safeguard mechanism for agricultural irrigation water. Incidents of industrial wastewater entering farmland through irrigation canals, seepage pits, karst caves, and other pathways occur from time to time. The document therefore establishes a cross-departmental, full-cycle risk prevention and control system of source prevention, process control, and end-of-pipe supervision.

Four Measures: A Closed Loop from "Access" to "Criminal Liability"

The document specifies concrete actions in four areas:

• Strengthen spatial control — relying on means such as land approval and project environmental impact assessment, strictly control project access in high-risk areas such as farmland surroundings and karst landforms, so as to reduce pollutants entering farmland from the project source;
• Strengthen wastewater discharge control — carry out investigations of water-related pollution sources around farmland and establish problem lists with itemized accountability, formulate remediation plans and advance rectification in accordance with laws and regulations; advance the upgrading and transformation of centralized wastewater treatment facilities in industrial parks surrounding farmland; carry out the formulation and revision of local water pollutant discharge standards, focusing on strengthening the emission control of total salt content, heavy metals, and toxic and hazardous pollutants, and incorporate them into pollutant discharge permit management in accordance with the law;
• Strengthen water quality monitoring — plan to issue the technical guideline for water quality monitoring of agricultural irrigation water by the end of this year; irrigation water around industrial parks shall in principle be monitored at least 2 times during the irrigation period (before sowing and during key crop growth periods), with monitoring points set up in the fields;
• Strengthen law enforcement and supervision — accelerate the construction of an integrated "space-air-ground" monitoring network, strengthen the supervision of discharge outlets and rainwater outlets of industrial parks, cluster areas, and livestock and poultry farming enterprises, and focus on rectifying illegal discharge of industrial wastewater, livestock and poultry manure, and other substances through karst caves, seepage pits, and fissures.

Three Direct Demands on the Water Treatment Industry

In this document, two statements are clear order signals for the wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse industry.

The first is "upgrading and transformation of centralized wastewater treatment facilities in industrial parks." In the past, the task of centralized wastewater stations in parks was mainly "connection — pretreatment — compliant discharge," with effluent typically going to municipal wastewater plants or environmental water bodies. When the effluent may be used for farmland irrigation, or when the discharge outlet is located upstream of water systems around farmland, the assessment indicators change — total salt content becomes a hard constraint. Conventional biological treatment plus secondary sedimentation processes have almost no ability to remove salt; to control total salt content, advanced treatment and desalination units (membrane separation, evaporation crystallization, or fractional salt crystallization) must be deployed, along with supporting brine disposal. This highly overlaps with the technical route of "near-zero discharge" of industrial wastewater in recent years and represents an existing retrofit market that can be directly addressed.

The second is "incorporating the control of heavy metals and toxic and hazardous pollutants into pollutant discharge permits." Pollutant discharge permits are the basis for law enforcement. Once characteristic pollutants are included in the permitted items, enterprises must deploy corresponding online monitoring, sampling records, and ledger management. In conjunction with HJ 1480—2026 "Technical Requirements for the Construction and Networking of Video Monitoring Systems for Self-Monitoring of Pollutant Discharging Units," which came into effect on 2026 年 10 月 1 日, monitoring points at centralized wastewater stations in parks must also be equipped with video monitoring that meets anti-tampering and 90 天 storage requirements and be networked, extending the retrofit scope from the process side to the monitoring and compliance side.

The third item is "monitoring capacity building." The technical guideline for irrigation water quality monitoring to be issued before the end of the year will drive the construction of a batch of monitoring points in the fields; the monitoring frequency of at least 2 times per year during the irrigation period around industrial parks means that this is a long-term, repetitive service demand, rather than a one-off project. For enterprises with third-party testing and Smart Water platform capabilities, this is a business that can be turned into annual service contracts.

Reclaimed Water Entering Farmland: Constraints and Opportunities Emerge Simultaneously

The document also has a side impact that is easily overlooked: the threshold for agricultural use of Reclaimed Water will be raised.

Many places in China have already used Reclaimed Water for farmland irrigation, which is one of the important destinations for Reclaimed Water consumption. However, the total salt content of Reclaimed Water itself is usually higher than that of surface water, and long-term irrigation carries risks of soil salinization and heavy metal accumulation. As total salt content and heavy metals are included in key control and incorporated into pollutant discharge permits, the water quality thresholds, monitoring frequency, and definition of responsibilities for Reclaimed Water used for irrigation will all be refined.

• For the supply side — Reclaimed Water plants need to set clearer water quality grading according to irrigation purposes, and add desalination or advanced treatment units when necessary;
• For the use side — irrigation districts need to establish irrigation water quality ledgers and bring monitoring data down to the field level;
• For the regulatory side — the integrated "space-air-ground" monitoring network provides cross-regional and cross-departmental evidence-gathering capability, significantly increasing the cost of violations.

From another perspective, higher thresholds also mean greater bargaining space for standardized projects. When "meeting standards" becomes a capability possessed by only a few suppliers, Reclaimed Water irrigation is no longer just a low-priced alternative water source, but a water resource product with technical content that can be priced.

Three Time Nodes Enterprises Should Watch

• Before the end of 2026 年 — the technical guideline for agricultural irrigation water quality monitoring will be issued, and monitoring methods, frequency, and evaluation criteria will be unified; this is a key window for undertaking monitoring-related business;
• The local standard formulation and revision cycle — discharge limits for total salt content and heavy metals will be undertaken by local standards, with varying progress across provinces; it is necessary to track the draft standards for comments from the local ecology and environment departments;
• The pollutant discharge permit renewal/change cycle — after characteristic pollutants are included in permits, enterprises will be required to equip supporting treatment and monitoring facilities when renewing or changing permits; this is the node where upgrade and retrofit orders are most concentrated.

Conclusion

This notice from eight departments essentially compacts all responsibilities along the chain of "Industrial Wastewater — irrigation canals — farmland — dining table." For the water treatment industry, it is not a principled document far removed from the market: upgrade and retrofit point to processes and equipment, inclusion of characteristic pollutants in permits points to monitoring and compliance, and the annual monitoring guideline points to long-term services. The three directions each correspond to different capability combinations, but the common prerequisite is — first truly solve the two issues of total salt content and heavy metals.

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Source: Farmers' Daily (reprinted by Anhui Science and Technology News), "Eight Departments Issue Document: Building a Strong Defense Line for Agricultural Irrigation Water Safety" (2026 年 10 月 9 日), compiled based on public content of the Notice on Further Strengthening the Prevention of Pollution Risks from Industrial and Other Wastewater and Safeguarding Agricultural Irrigation Water Safety issued by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and seven other departments.