Building Gaobeidian: Developing the Environmental Infrastructure of Modern Beijing

Today, the People's Republic of China has more wastewater treatment capacity than any other country in the world.In 1949, there were roughly 6,000 kilometers of drainage pipelines in all of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and only four small water treatment plants nationwide, none of which were in Beijing. Today, the PRC has more wastewater treatment capacity than any other country on earth. In 2019, there were 4,140 operating wastewater treatment plants in the PRC, discharging more than 66 billion cubic meters of treated wastewater. The country’s wastewater treatment rate that year was 96.8% in the PRC’s urban areas and 93.6% in rural areas. Leveraging international support, the PRC developed institutions and infrastructure networks to allow for more sustainable forms of development.