IATP President Jim Harkness is blogging from China through June 14. (Due to internet access problems, Jim sent this blog via e-mail. I am posting it for him - Ben)
Of course, most of Shanghai’s (and China’s) water pollution is not as dramatic as a waste dump at the edge of a water source protection area. But runoff from agriculture is a major form of “non-point source” pollution. The highly intensive vegetable farming practiced here (often in plastic greenhouses, see below) exhausts the soil quickly, so huge amounts of fertilizer are used. And because appearance is so important for these crops, pesticide use is also high.
These are also thirsty crops, so irrigation is nearly universal. The state has traditionally organized irrigation. Much of the land around Shanghai was coastal marsh before being reclaimed for farming and urban development. Now it’s crisscrossed with canals. (See the Shanghai Co-op Watergate below)
Aquaculture requires even more water than vegetable production. With seafood-loving Shanghai nearby, this is a popular activity here. It's also highly polluting. 
In my field visit with WWF Shanghai staff, we met a local entrepreneur who claims he will change all that. Allen Qian (in the red shirt below) has a background in fisheries and engineering. He claims to have developed a “green” production system for shrimp and other seafood, using no artificial growth stimulants and returning clean water to the canals that drain the site of his proposed development.
There was an aquaculture expert along with us, so I confess I couldn’t follow all the details of their technical discussion of waste disposal and stocking rates and water treatment, but construction was clearly moving right along. Mr. Qian pointed out several areas that will be artificial wetlands designed to filter organic waste from water as it flows through them. His enthusiasm about developing environmentally-sound production systems (there will also be “ecological” rice production at an adjacent site) was encouraging, given the rest of what we saw that day (see a more typical Shanghai Aquaculture site below).
What surprised me the most, however, was the degree to which his costs were being covered by the government. The infrastructure had all been built and maintained by local government, including roads and of course the canal system. His financing will be with a concessionary government loan, which is technically going to a co-operative that Mr. Qian is forming with locals. The land will be rented at a very generous rate from the local village government. And as we were going down the list of costs, I eventually got to the most important factor in his production operation, the priceless substance without which agriculture and aquaculture are unimaginable.
“Water? Oh, that’s free.”
