China’s first transaction of collected rainwater was completed Monday, the China Water Exchange announced, as marketization of unconventional water resources was put into practice.
The deal was done in the high-tech industrial development zone of Changsha, capital of central China’s Hunan Province.
The Hunan Yuchuang environmental protection engineering company acquired a total of 20,000 cubic meters of rainwater from the Hunan Gaoxin property company at a price of 0.7 yuan (about 11 U.S. cents) per cubic meter.
The engineering company later sold 12,000 cubic meters of rainwater at a price of 3.85 yuan per cubic meter, about one-fifth of the local tap water price, to the gardening and environmental sanitation company of the high-tech zone.
The raindrops will be used for landscaping and regular sanitation in place of tap water.
More similar deals valued at around 1 million yuan are being considered for the coming three years, according to Liu Bo, secretary-general of Changsha sponge city ecological industry innovation strategic alliance.