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Water consumption per ton of pulp in Japan (1989) is 120 tons whereas that in China is 400 tons - more than threefold the former. Even in Japan the figure was as great as 270 tons in 1970, so it can be observed that the past 20 years of efforts have attained such remarkable result. While industrialization in developing countries is naturally expected to further accelerate, the need of support for and transfer of water saving technology will increase.

 

3. Urbanization and Water Resource

 

In ancient history, cities may have evolved as bases for trading. However, real urbanization ( as measured by the rate of urban population growth) made progress only after the transition to the modern industrialized society. There has been a marked increase in the world urbanization rate, which was 30% in 1975, 40% in 1980, and 45.3% in 1995.

Whilst industrial locations vary depending on the nature of industries, e.g. raw material-oriented or consumer-oriented, etc., urbanization and industrialization have synergetic effects on each other, being so to speak two sides of the same coin. Industrialization, as an economic phenomenon and urbanization as social phenomenon are closely related.

This logic should explain the reason why the speed of urbanization in Asia was behind that in Western Europe. Urbanization in Asia has, however, speeded up increasingly since the 1970s, as shown in the attached tables, proceeding hand in hand with full-scale industrialization. The urbanization forecasts for the year 2000 by country are (apart from 100% in Singapore and Hong Kong) 87% in Japan, 79% in Korea, 30 to 50% in ASEAN countries, and 36% even in China.

Reflecting such progress in urbanization, the ratio of daily-life water consumption to total consumption in Asia was 6% in 1990, quite close to the world average of 8%. To give a few examples, the ratios are 17% in Japan, 11% in Korea, 6% in China, and 3% in India.

 

 

 

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