The city plans to increase tap water supply capacity 10 percent by 2010 to guard against any shortfall, the Shanghai Water Authority said yesterday.
The plan is based on the rapidly growing demand for water in recent years, which authorities said has exceeded former estimates.
"The city's rapid growth has already challenged our supply in some areas," said Yin Rongqiang, an official with the authority's water supply administration.
"It could exceed our supply capacity if we don't speed up water infrastructure construction, which is the key to overall economic development."
The authority has budgeted 9.5 billion yuan (US$1.14 million) on construction of nine new water plants and pump stations. Some of that money will also be used to expand capacity at 26 existing water plants.
At present the city is capable of supplying 10.6 million cubic meters of water per day. Capacity has remained essentially the same since 1998.
Since then no large water plants have been built as authorities believed it would be sufficient for a long period. They shifted attention to enhancing water quality.
But the quick growth in demand for water and cries for sufficient supplies are now a concern for officials.
Last year, peak demand reached 8.8 million cubic meters, an increase of 8.4 percent from 2002. This summer, peak demand reached 9.24 million cubic meters and remained above 9 million for more than one month during the hottest days. All water plants operated at top capacity during that period.
Still, certain areas, especially the suburbs such as Jiading, Nanhui and Songjiang districts and parts of Pudong New Area, had to depend on water distributed from other areas to cover supply shortfalls.