Securing Safe Drinking Water by Introducing Decentralized Water Supply System with Remote Monitoring Function
Mitsubishi Chemical Aqua Solutions Co., Ltd.
（former company name : Wellthy Corporation）
| Updated | May 24, 2022 (Posted on April 13, 2023) |
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| Publication date | January 19, 2018 |
| Sector | Water Environment / Water Resources |
Company Overview
Mitsubishi Chemical Aqua Solutions (formerly Wellthy Corporation) is a pioneer and leading company in the business of making groundwater drinkable with our ground water membrane filtration system. As of December 2021, we have delivered our system to over 1,300 locations in Japan, including hospitals, hotels, and commercial facilities. Outside Japan, we provide optimal water treatment systems that meet local needs to ensure safe drinking water, not limiting our methods to groundwater utilization or membrane filtration technology. So far, we have installed slow sand filtration system that requires no power in rural areas of Kenya and membrane filtration system in urban areas with electric supply to convert surface water into drinkable water. Our water treatment systems are equipped with our original remote monitoring system (WeLLDAS™), which helps to optimize maintenance and management operations by checking the operational status of water treatment systems installed within and outside of Japan, responding to water quality fluctuations, and utilizing accumulated data.
Climate Change Impacts
Due to the effects of climate change and other related factors, there have been many reported cases of changes in surface water quality in Southeast Asia and Africa in recent years. In the rainy season, the rainfall will increase the turbidity of the river water which increase the chances of torrential rainfalls leading to high turbidity, and in the dry season, the seawater rises to the surface water which increases its salinity. However, the development of water supply systems has not caught up with the rapid population growth in these countries, and they are unable to secure sufficient drinking water.
Adaptation Initiatives
Our decentralized water supply system is a small to medium scale independent piping system that provides water treatment and supply for each facility where it is installed, and requires less power for water distribution than the water supply piping network of a centralized water treatment plant (Fig. 1).
We are working to purify river water that is becoming saltier in order to ensure safe drinking water in the abovementioned areas. In Myanmar, we have installed a water treatment system that supports the high turbidity in the rainy season and salinization in the dry season to ensure a year-round supply of safe drinking water (Fig. 2). The system is equipped with WeLLDAS™, so that we can monitor the system operation and water quality from both Myanmar and Japan.
Effects / Expected Benefits
The efforts described above have made it possible to supply water that satisfies certain standards to areas that had not been able to supply safe drinking water.
