_______________

By Elijah Nduhukire  

BEIJING - The UN World Water Development Report 2023 paints a stark picture of the huge gap that needs to be filled to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure all people have access to clean water and sanitation by 2030.

The report indicates that in over 45 years, 26% of the world's population doesn't have access to safe drinking water, and 46% lack access to basic sanitation.

However, with the exploration and practise of the Chinese model in river and lakes ecological management could be a beacon of hope to this water crisis globally.

Lately this April, I visited one of the Chinese dredging projects implemented by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) Tianjin Dredging Co., Ltd. They have initiated a new round of ecological dredging in the Meiliang Lake region of Binhu District, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province.

For the first time, the project employs the “Taihu Star,” the world’s inaugural ecological dredging intelligent integrated platform ship, which holds full intellectual property rights in China.

This ship amalgamates ecological dredging, sludge solidification, and tailwater treatment capabilities, setting a global benchmark for intelligent environmental dredging. It can efficiently dredge up to 5,000 cubic meters daily while also performing mud press filtration and solidification on board.

The company is committed to becoming a world-class basin management enterprise, aiming to explore and establish a new model of integrated protection and systematic management for mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands, and sands.

The company's mission is to create vivid cases in river, lake, and basin ecological management, contributing to the sustainable development and preservation of natural ecosystems.

China is 9.6 million square kilometres, with 2,800 lakes that hold more than 1km2  of water area all year round each and combine to 78,000km2 in total water area. A total of 60% of China's population lives and co-exists peacefully with water bodies and water sources and have found amazing methods of increasing the potential of these water sources.

Since 1995, the CCCC Group, through one of its engineering arms, the CCCC Tianjin Dredging Co. Ltd, has undertaken thousands of water management and rehabilitation projects across China.

The Group says it aims at becoming a world-class basin management enterprise, exploring and forming a new model of integrated protection and systematic management for mountains, waters, forests, fields, lakes, grasslands, and sands, creating a series of vivid cases in river, lake, and basin ecological management.

To date, it has implemented dozens of large-scale river, lake, and basin management projects, such as Dianchi Lake in Yunnan, West Lake in Hangzhou, Taihu Lake in Wuxi, Baiyangdian in Xiong'an New Area, and Yongding River in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, covering a basin area of 135,000 square kilometers and an economic output of over 10 trillion yuan.

With such strategies and modernization from China, many countries worldwide can learn and contract China to help with the dredging and cleaning of rivers such that people have access to clean drinking water.

CCCC Tianjin Dredging Co., Ltd. Is not new to many African countries and the world at large, it has executed various projects, such as maintenance dredging at Beira Port in Mozambique, dredging and backfilling for the expansion of Algiers Port in Algeria, construction of the Belt and Road Initiative container terminal dredging project in Ghana, West Africa, the navigational channel dredging for Dar es Salaam Port in Tanzania, and the Lake Ahémé dredging project in Benin. 

The only thing needed now is to be contracted such that they help people how to manage the rivers and lakes across the globe.