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Water supply and sanitation in China is undergoing a massive transition while facing numerous challenges such as rapid urbanization, a widening gap between rich and poor as well as urban and rural areas. Water scarcity, contamination, and pollution in China also pose great challenges.〔BBC News. (China to clean up polluted lake ). 27 October 2007.〕 Much has been achieved during the past decades in terms of increased access to services, increased municipal wastewater treatment, the creation of water and wastewater utilities that are legally and financially separated from local governments, and increasing cost recovery as part of the transformation of the Chinese economy to a more market-oriented system. The government quadrupled investments in the sector during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2006–10). Nevertheless, much remains to be achieved.〔 According to survey data analyzed by the Joint Monitoring Program for Water and Sanitation of WHO and UNICEF, about 100 million Chinese still did not have access to an improved water source in 2008, and about 460 million did not have access to improved sanitation. Progress in rural areas appears to lag behind what has been achieved in urban areas.〔 According to data presented by the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation of WHO and UNICEF in 2015, about 64% of the rural population in China still did not have access to improved sanitation. == Access == Access to an improved water source and improved sanitation has increased significantly in China over the past two decades in parallel with economic growth. Between 1990 and 2008 alone more than 450 million Chinese gained access to an improved water source, based on estimates by the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation of the WHO and UNICEF that are based on household survey data. Access to an improved water source was 89% and access to improved sanitation was 55% in 2008. Having access to an improved water source, however, is not the same as having access to safe water. Many of those who have access to adequate infrastructure suffer from poor water quality due to fecal contamination; high levels of naturally occurring fluoride, arsenic, or salts; and growing industrial and agricultural chemical pollution. Furthermore, seasonal water shortages occur.〔(World Bank: Fourth Rural Water Supply And Sanitation Project, Project Appraisal Document, 1999, p. 3-5 )〕 Source: (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water and Sanitation 2010 estimates for China ) According to these figures, about 120 million Chinese did not have access to an improved source of water supply, and about 477 million did not have access to improved sanitation. Moreover, as in many other developing countries, there is a significant gap between urban and rural areas. For example, in urban areas of China 95% have access to piped water supply, while the share in rural areas is only 45%.〔Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation:(Estimates for the use of Improved Sanitation Facilities, updated March 2010, China ) and (Estimates for the use of Improved Water Facilities, updated March 2010, China )〕 The magazine ''The Economist'' described the urban-rural gap in the following stark terms: "The reforms that Deng Xiaoping first launched in China's countryside 30 years ago have now left its peasants in the ditch." It also observed that "the income disparity between China's richest few and poorest many would make many a modern capitalist blush." 〔"China, beware", The Economist, October 13–19, 2007, p. 15〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Water supply and sanitation in China」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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