FY 2011 Dissemination Status of Wastewater Treatment Facilities

The Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (referred to as the "Three Ministries") compiled a report on the state of population served with wastewater treatment facilities across the nation as of the end of FY 2011 (March 31, 2012). Forty-five prefectures are covered in this report. Iwate and Fukushima prefecture are excluded, as some of the municipalities stricken by the Great East Japan Earthquake (March 11, 2011) are non-survey.
Local governments have been improving wastewater treatment facilities efficiently and effectively based on a prefectural plan that stipulates areas, methods and timeframes for improvement.
The population served with wastewater treatment facilities in Japan (except for Iwate and Fukushima) as of the end of FY 2011 is 108.11 million. The dissemination rate, which is the ratio of the number of people covered by wastewater treatment facilities to the total population (except for Iwate and Fukushima), is 87.6%. (86.9% as of the end of FY 2010, excluding data for Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi).
However, there is a large gap between the population served with wastewater treatment facilities in big cities and medium-sized and small towns and villages. Namely, the dissemination rate is only 73.9% in small towns with a population under 50,000.
The breakdown of populations served with wastewater treatment facilities by facility type is: 93.55 million covered by sewage, 3.5 million by rural community sewerage, 10.79 million by johkasou*, and 260,000 by community wastewater treatment plants.
<<The Three Ministries agreed to adopt the population served with wastewater treatment facilities (sewage, rural community sewerage, johkasou*, and community wastewater treatment plants) as an indicator to describe the state of dissemination of wastewater treatment facilities. Data on the state of dissemination at the end of a fiscal year was first published in FY 1996.>>
* An on-site treatment system for domestic wastewater.

For Japanese

Attached File:

• FY 2011 Population Served with Wastewater Treatment Facilities by City Scale [PDF 7 KB]
• FY 2011 Population Served with Wastewater Treatment Facilities [PDF 6 KB]