Fuzhou, a city of more than 7 million people in southeast China’s Fujian province, is criss-crossed by rivers and canals. For many decades, some of those inner-city rivers were stagnant, turning black and smelly. Due to the influence of the tidal top of the Minjiang River and the shape of the inland river, the bottom elevations of the upstream rivers are very close to the downstream, thus the river flow is slow and lack of dynamics.

To get the rivers flowing again, Beijing Enterprises Water Group and local Fuzhou officials worked with Grundfos to install a series of pump gates, integrating pumps, sensors and controls into a structure over the waterway that blends in to the surrounding landscape.

“Traditional sluice gates are unpowered. They can only work as sluice-like ramps in the middle of river channels.”

“What we did was to install pumps on the sluice gates. So, at the same time as working as a sluice, the pumps move the water forward, thus creating flow. When the water is flowing, it will not turn black and smelly.” Said Song Zhiguo, Beijing Enterprises Water Group.

Grundfos brings its core products and competencies to this project in Fuzhou. The pump gates are not only moving the water, but they have a beautiful design, making it easy to integrate them into parks. Some even function as meeting and recreation areas for the residents. The technical standards, durability and viability of these products have won recognition from both Beijing Enterprises Water Group and the Fuzhou municipality. It helps to achieve an even distribution of the water resources and ensures a continuous flow of water, solved the problem of black and smelly water, created a better living environment along the populated riversides. Now the residents can walk and live comfortably along the river. It is no longer dead and smelly water.