Tokyo Metro Government assisting Southeast Asian cities with water and sewage development

(Construction) - The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is working on water and sewage development projects and the deployment of technology and know-how in Southeast Asia.

Tokyo Metro Government assisting Southeast Asian cities with water and sewage development.

The municipality is applying the technology it has cultivated in the overcrowded city of Tokyo to make sewage treatment plants more compact, and is promoting measures to prevent non-revenue water, leakage, and water loss by utilizing its advanced waterworks technology. Even though the pandemic of COVID-19 is restricting international travels, the city is making efforts to disseminate information by renewing its website for overseas.

The Sewerage Bureau of Tokyo has been participating in a project to develop a sewage treatment plant in Malaysia since 2014, and celebrated the completion of its trial operation last September. After beginning the full-scale operation, the bureau will continue to provide technical support for operation and maintenance management. Although the dispatch of engineers to the site has been suspended due to the pandemic, communication is being promoted through information sharing of operation data and the use of online conferences.

Many of the Bureau's technologies have been adopted for the sewage treatment plant. In order to improve the efficiency of maintenance and management, sewage treatment and sludge treatment are integrated. In order to secure the sewage treatment capacity even in a limited site, a deep reaction tank, which is twice as deep as a standard reaction tank, was introduced. In order to spread its advanced technology to the world, the city has also been focusing on training engineers, and in 2017 and 2018, it invited engineers from Malaysia to Tokyo for training through the Japan International Cooperation Agency's (JICA) Technical Cooperation Program.

The Waterworks Bureau of Tokyo, in cooperation with the private sector and other organizations, is developing a project to combat non-revenue water issues in Southeast Asia. They are utilizing their technology and know-how in leak surveys, replacement and repair of water pipes, and replacement and installation of water meters. In Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar, a pilot project in a part of the city reduced the non-revenue water rate from 77% to 32% and realized 24-hour water supply in 2014 , and since 2018, countermeasure work has been progressing sequentially in the Mayangone township where about 200,000 people live. (2021/04/07)