Application of EPC and PPP to the Polluted River Rehabilitation in China

The urban river pollution in China is very serious, and the governmental departments have spent lots of funds to restore the polluted rivers recently. In order to improve the urban ecological environment, the Chinese central government has formulated a series of water pollution control policies and measures since 2015, and requires local governments to complete the treatment of the polluted rivers and lakes within the prescribed period. This paper introduces the water environment restoration policies and treatment goals stipulated by the Chinese central government.

The main problems in the polluted river restoration include 1) Most of the river restoration projects are invested and constructed by local governments and large state-owned enterprises, and local social capital and local private companies hardly participate in the polluted river treatment work; 2）The river rehabilitation projects have been executed without social supervision and profit. Therefore, it is necessary to work out some incentive policies and measures for social capital and private enterprises to participate in the polluted river treatment work by Engineering-Procurement–Construction (EPC) and Public-Private Partnership (PPP), and to encourage technology and management innovation, establish responsibility system, improve the public participation and promote the local economic development.

The experience and lessons of the Qingxi River rehabilitation in Dongguan, Guangdong Province by EPC mode and the Hongqiaogang River restoration in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province by PPP mode are introduced. The Chinese experience and innovative technology are helpful to the polluted river treatment in emerging market countries and developing countries which have similar development progress.