The Ministry of Ecology and Environment and eight departments jointly issued the Notice on Further Strengthening Industrial and Other Wastewater Pollution Risk Prevention and Safeguarding Agricultural Irrigation Water Safety, building a full-chain defense across spatial layout, discharge control, water quality assurance, and law enforcement supervision, as the regulatory logic of industrial wastewater governance shifts decisively toward ex-ante prevention.

Recently, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment joined forces with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Supreme People's Court, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate — eight departments in total — to jointly issue the Notice on Further Strengthening Industrial and Other Wastewater Pollution Risk Prevention and Safeguarding Agricultural Irrigation Water Safety (the "Notice"). As a key supporting institutional document to the Action Plan for the Protection and Treatment of Water Bodies Around Communities, the Notice marks a further upgrade of China's industrial wastewater governance and regulatory system, and charts new priorities for water environment and aquatic ecosystem protection during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.

Highest-Level Joint Release Targeting Prominent Environmental Issues

The Notice was issued jointly by eight departments, including administrative authorities in the fields of ecology and environment, industry, and water resources, as well as regulators in natural resources, agriculture, and rural affairs — and, unusually, the two judicial bodies of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, forming the highest-level combination of "administrative regulation + judicial safeguard".

The Notice is problem-oriented and systemic in approach, targeting three prominent issues in current water environment protection:

• Unreasonable spatial layout — the siting of industrial enterprises, industrial parks, and livestock and poultry farms conflicts sharply with the water environment around farmland;
• Incomplete discharge control requirements — gaps remain in the control of characteristic pollutants;
• Inadequate water quality assurance mechanisms — agricultural irrigation water safety lacks systematic institutional safeguards.

In response to these weaknesses, the Notice sets out concrete measures across four fronts — optimizing spatial layout, strengthening wastewater discharge control, reinforcing agricultural irrigation water quality assurance, and enhancing environmental law enforcement and publicity and training — to build a cross-department, full-lifecycle risk prevention and control system.

Four Major Measures Building a Full-Lifecycle Defense

On spatial layout, the Notice makes clear that in territorial spatial planning controls, ecological and environmental zoning management, and environmental impact assessment of construction projects, admission requirements will be further tightened for projects in higher-risk areas such as those around farmland and in karst landforms, and for projects discharging characteristic pollutants including total dissolved salts, heavy metals, and toxic and hazardous pollutants, so as to forestall the environmental risks of chemical industrial park relocation. This means industrial relocation must no longer become pollution relocation, and the environmental admission threshold will be firmly held at the planning source.

On discharge control, the Notice calls for advancing the upgrade and renovation of centralized wastewater treatment facilities in industrial parks around farmland, and for investigating and rectifying water-related issues in industry and livestock and poultry farming. Where characteristic pollutants discharged by industrial enterprises may affect downstream agricultural irrigation water safety, local water pollutant discharge standards will be developed or revised to strengthen discharge control requirements. This echoes the previously issued Technical Guideline for the Formulation of Water Pollutant Discharge Standards for Centralized Wastewater Treatment Facilities in Industrial Parks (HJ 945.4—2026), making the differentiated "one park, one policy" control approach increasingly clear.

On water quality assurance, the Notice proposes further consolidating the primary responsibility of enterprises for self-monitoring, issuing technical guidelines for monitoring agricultural irrigation water quality, guiding local authorities to formulate agricultural irrigation water quality monitoring plans suited to local conditions, strengthening coordination in irrigation water quality monitoring, and clarifying requirements for information notification, data sharing, and emergency response. Agricultural irrigation water safety is thus formally incorporated into the institutional framework for industrial wastewater control.

On law enforcement supervision, the Notice requires intensified on-site enforcement, with a focus on cracking down on illegal discharge of industrial wastewater and livestock and poultry manure through karst caves, seepage pits, and fissures; strengthening enforcement-judicial coordination and information sharing; improving the linkage between administrative enforcement and criminal justice; and resolutely combating environmental crimes. It also calls for stronger policy interpretation and publicity and training to raise enterprises' compliance awareness and grassroots capacity to perform their duties.

From "End-of-Pipe Treatment" to "Source Prevention": A Profound Industry Transformation

Industry observers note that the release and implementation of the Notice will help further close the gaps in industrial and other wastewater pollution discharge control and accelerate the resolution of pressing water environment problems around communities. More noteworthy is the policy signal it sends: the regulatory logic of industrial wastewater governance is shifting comprehensively from "after-the-fact rectification" to "ex-ante prevention", and the compliance focus of corporate environmental management is moving from "remedy after problems occur" to "advance inspection, pre-rectification, and traceable management".

For industrial parks and polluting enterprises, proactive compliance is becoming markedly more cost-effective — against the institutional backdrop of eight-department joint enforcement and administrative-criminal linkage, the environmental damage compensation and criminal liability costs facing illegal acts such as concealed-pipe discharge and direct seepage-pit discharge are no longer what they used to be. Advancing cleaner production at the source and reducing the generation of characteristic pollutants is far more economical than end-of-pipe treatment and fines.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment stated that the next step will be to work with relevant departments to intensify publicity and training, strengthen follow-up guidance and support, and promote local implementation of the Notice so as to hold firm the baseline of agricultural irrigation water safety.

As a technology company deeply engaged in wastewater treatment and water reuse, TIANYI TECH Co., Ltd. will continue to track policy implementation progress and provide industrial parks and polluting enterprises with systematic solutions for wastewater treatment and water resource recycling, helping the industry achieve green compliance and high-quality development under the new regulatory framework.

(This article is compiled from publicly released information by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other departments.)