Fujian Publishes Full Text of Second-Revised Water Resources Regulation: Centralised Sewage Treatment and Higher Reclaimed-Water Reuse Rates for Industry

The Fujian Provincial People’s Government portal has published the full text of the Fujian Provincial Water Resources Regulation (second revision) under its government-information / laws-and-regulations / local-regulations section, with the page dated 24 October 2026. The regulation was originally adopted on 21 July 2017 at the 30th session of the 12th Fujian Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee, first amended on 23 November 2023, and has now been revised for the second time pursuant to the decision adopted on 24 July 2026 at the 23rd session of the 14th Standing Committee to amend fifteen local regulations including the provincial ecological-environment protection regulation.

Provisions bearing directly on industrial water use and water reuse include:

• Allocation and conservation: water-administration departments at county level and above, jointly with relevant bodies, must prepare medium- and long-term water supply-demand plans on the principles of supply-demand coordination, ecological protection, strict conservation and rational development;
• Water-saving industries: local governments must strengthen water-saving management, develop water-saving industry, agriculture and services, promote water recycling, and build demonstration water-saving cities, irrigation districts, enterprises, public institutions and communities;
• Reclaimed water and centralised treatment: the regulation calls for centralised sewage treatment, encourages reclaimed-water use and higher wastewater reuse rates;
• Industrial reuse ratio: industry, water-intensive service sectors, and public institutions must adopt water-saving technologies, processes and equipment and raise the water reuse ratio, eliminating outdated, high-consumption processes, equipment and products;
• Water-balance testing: large water users are encouraged to conduct water-balance testing and to recycle or recover process water;
• Three-simultaneities: new, rebuilt or expanded water-use construction projects must adopt water-saving processes, equipment and fixtures, with water-saving facilities designed, built and accepted simultaneously with the main works;
• Sectoral quotas: the relevant provincial industry authorities must formulate and periodically revise sectoral water-use quotas to provide a basis for water-resource management.

The regulation also provides that emergency dispatch may be applied under a water-dispatch plan in cases of severe drought, major water-pollution incidents, threats to urban or rural drinking-water safety, or emergency ecological water transfers.

For the industrial water treatment sector, elevating reclaimed-water use, higher industrial reuse ratios and water-balance testing to provincial statutory requirements means that water-intensive industries in Fujian — steel, chemicals, dyeing and finishing, papermaking — will face clearer conservation and reclaimed-water allocation constraints both in retrofits of existing capacity and in approvals of new projects, while also generating demand for centralised industrial-park treatment, separated water-supply systems and reclaimed-water distribution networks.