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Background

SUZHOU CREEK, SHANGHAI - Not long ago, Shanghai's Suzhou Creek was a black, stinking river. Today, more than halfway through a $1 billion cleanup, the river is free of stench, and its color has changed to gray.

Suzhou Creek is now clean and attractive enough for people to hold wedding ceremonies on platforms over the water, for families to relax in new recreational areas along the embankment, and for small stores to open up along it.

Formerly called the Woosung, the river is closely tied to Shanghai's historical development from a fishing village to the biggest port in the land. It is affectionately dubbed the "grandmother" river because of its many tributaries, which once included the Huangpu River, though today the roles are reversed.

Suzhou Creek links Shanghai with the mighty Yangtze River, which flows the breadth of the PRC from the Himalayas. Starting from Taihu Lake in the Yangtze River Delta, much of the 125-kilometer creek flows through Shanghai, a major industrial and commercial center with a population of 13 million. Along its winding route, the river used to receive large discharges of untreated agricultural, industrial, and municipal wastewater.

This included waste from Shanghai's night soil collection system and septic tanks, which posed a major health hazard. Statistics from the Shanghai Municipal Sanitation Bureau show that the incidence of viral hepatitis and dysentery-leading water-and sanitation-related diseases-was nearly 10% higher in the project area than for Shanghai as a whole.

Fish in the Creek

All this has changed under the Suzhou Creek Rehabilitation Project, which is partly financed by a $300 million loan from ADB. "This is Shanghai's largest project that combines wastewater treatment with environmental improvement," says ADB Project Engineer In-Ho Keum.

Under a project being implemented by the Shanghai Suzhou Creek Rehabilitation and Construction Company (SSCRC), a vast system of sewers is already intercepting wastewater before it reaches the creek.

Aided by pumping stations, the wastewater is currently diverted to the Yangtze River, but soon it will be cleaned by a treatment plant with a 400,000-cubic-meter-a-day capacity that is due to be completed by the end of 2003. Flow control structures, including locks and gates, now prevent pollution from 60-odd tributaries from entering Suzhou Creek.

Factories and night soil collection wharves, major sources of contamination, have been relocated or dismantled. In addition, river traffic, once open to all-elderly people can remember the clusters of sampans permanently located around Garden Bridge-is now restricted to essential craft.

As a result of all these measures, some small fish are surviving in the rejuvenated river, and the aim is for aquatic life to be able to flourish by the project's completion in 2004.

Shanghai residents, especially those directly affected by the river, are pleased with the creek's rehabilitation.

He Mo is a 79-year-old former teacher who has been living for 45 years in a building overlooking the creek a few hundred meters from Garden Bridge.

"I remember when people used to swim there," she says, pointing from her balcony. "Then with all the factories in the 1960s, the water became polluted and there was such a bad smell that we didn't open the windows, even in summer. In the past few years, the wharves have been removed, green plants put in, and the environment has greatly improved."

Farther down Guang Fu Road in Zha Bei district, Shen Qinkang, 52, runs a small general store with his wife. Mr. Shen has lived in this area since childhood and says, "When the river was black and stinking, with lots of flies and mosquitoes, it was impossible to have a shop here. But things have improved so I opened my store in 2000."

Recreation Areas on the Bank

The task of keeping the river clean has also changed. Garbage is collected mechanically by special barges instead of being scooped out of the river manually.

During a trip on a garbage collection barge, Chen Xiuming points out that today's refuse consists largely of water hyacinths, Styrofoam boxes, and plastic bottles.

The barge pauses at Zhong-tan district, where the embankment has been rebuilt and an area turned into a grassy recreation area.

SSCRC President Cao Long Jin says that upgrading the embankments helps control floods as well as improve the environment. He points to the dilapidated wall on the other side of the creek and says that it, too, will be rehabilitated in time. Cao adds that the landscaping at Zhong-tan has helped raise property values.

The project reflects how Shanghai is dealing with the challenge of balancing development with environmental protection.

As Jiang Sixian, Secretary-General, Shanghai Municipal People's Government, says, "Shanghai's Pudong area has grown into a hub of finance, trade, and shipping in 10 years, but we have also paid great attention to the environment. We cut down on the use of coal in Shanghai, and we restructured our industrial and energy sectors, moving or shutting polluting firms and promoting cleaner enterprises. ADB has been our partner in developing Pudong by helping build the Nanpu and Yangpu bridges that link the area with the rest of Shanghai. Now ADB is assisting our environmental effort by rehabilitating Suzhou Creek."