Project: Recommendations for design, management and monitoring of constructed wetlands in Haihe watershed

AFD – FEXTE – International Office for Water

Access to water is a major concern for China, which has only 7% of the world’s water resources for one-fifth of the world’s population.
The location of these resources is also uneven: abundant in the south, water is scarce in the west and north. Finally, its quality is threatened by pollution from industrial, urban and agricultural waste.
In north-east China, the Hai river basin, or Hai he, covers an area of 318,000 km² with a population of 130 million, and is one of the country’s most developed economic areas, with Beijing and Tianjin in particular.

Along with two other rivers (Zhou and Luan), this basin was selected as a pilot sector for strengthening IWRM (Integrated Water Resources Management & Protection) skills under the cooperation agreement signed on 29 December 2009.
INRAE’s participation in the expertise on ecological engineering follows Julien Tournebize’s involvement in a training course for the Hai He delegation in 2014 on behalf of IOWater. This Chinese delegation was received by INRAE in October 2018.

This extension testifies to the quality of the relations established and shows a real desire to go further in Franco-Chinese cooperation on IWRM. The project has also been selected to receive the Chinese Government Friendship Award, presented by the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Ma Kai, on the occasion of the Chinese National Day.

This phase covers adaptation and resilience to climate change, the fight against point-source and diffuse pollution, the management of aquatic ecosystems, the restoration of environments, monitoring networks, information systems, the management of reservoir lakes and master plans for wastewater treatment. An economic component financed by FEXTE1 and implemented by AFD provides for additional expertise and the testing of French water management technologies.
The “economic” component proposed is the “preparatory study for the review of biodiversity monitoring and purification efficiency (capacity to eliminate pollutants) in the project to develop artificial wetlands in the Hai river basin”. This document presents the technical aspects of this project.
The activities financed under the FEXTE project provide additional assistance and expertise to the French parties to identify future investment needs related to watershed management and to develop technical specifications for the actions included in the programmed measures. It also helps to identify relevant technologies or skills in France. This could be of interest to the Chinese partners.

Following the appraisal mission in April 2014, the one in September 2017 was joint with Biotope and commissioned by IOWater.
With this organisation, an expert report had been produced on the regulation of diffuse pollution and biodiversity, in particular of the artificial wetland on the Juqiao reservoir. The report was submitted to IOWater, the commissioning organisation.