GB 47946-2026Discharge standard of main water pollutants (total antimony, total molybdenum and others) in the Danjiangkou reservoir area and its upper reaches (on trial) (English PDF)

Foreword

This document was issued on 1 June 2026 by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the PRC, jointly with the State Administration for Market Regulation and takes effect on 1 September 2026.

It is a GB standard without the /T suffix: compliance is mandatory in China.

It is classified under ICS 13.060.30 and Chinese classification Z 60.

The document runs to 12 pages. The identification, the dates, the classification and the table of contents on this page are taken from the cover and the printed contents of the standard itself.

This standard was drafted to give effect to the Ecological and Environmental Code of the People's Republic of China and the related laws and regulations, to prevent and control pollution, to improve the quality of the ecological environment, and to promote the protection of the ecological environment and the high quality development of the Danjiangkou reservoir area and its upper reaches.

This standard specifies the control requirements, the monitoring requirements and the supervision and management requirements for the discharge of the main water pollutants, total antimony, total molybdenum and others, in the Danjiangkou reservoir area and its upper reaches.

It sets out the basic control requirements for the main point sources in that area, that is the municipal wastewater treatment facilities, the industrial pollutant discharging units and the centralised industrial wastewater treatment facilities, and for diffuse source discharges. Where a rainstorm occurs, or where abnormal water quality is detected at a section upstream of the Danjiangkou reservoir, emergency treatment and the related measures shall also be initiated in accordance with the national or local emergency management provisions. Where water is abstracted from a watercourse within the basin for domestic drinking, the abstraction shall meet the requirements applying to a drinking water source.

This standard is issued for the first time.

New pollutant discharging units in the Danjiangkou reservoir area and its upper reaches shall comply with it from 1 September 2026, and existing units from 1 January 2028; their discharges of other water pollutants remain subject to the water pollutant discharge standard applicable to their industry.

Annex A is normative and defines the extent of the area covered.

1 Scope

GB 47946-2026 is the discharge standard protecting the Danjiangkou reservoir, the source of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project's middle route and therefore the drinking water of Beijing, Tianjin and much of the North China Plain. That is what makes an otherwise local standard a national one, and why it names two pollutants that no ordinary discharge standard controls: total antimony and total molybdenum, which come from the antimony and molybdenum mining and smelting in the upper Han River basin and which conventional treatment does not remove. The standard sets the discharge control requirements for the main point sources, municipal wastewater treatment works, industrial dischargers and centralised industrial treatment facilities, together with control requirements for diffuse sources, the monitoring requirements, the specification of the discharge outlet itself and the rules for implementation and supervision. A normative annex defines exactly which counties fall inside the area. New dischargers comply from 1 September 2026 and existing ones from 1 January 2028. It is issued on trial, the first standard of its kind.