Sewage Works in Osaka, Japan

Sewage Works Project Program

(4) Reconstruction and Renewal

As the city of Osaka has been constructing sewerage facilities since 1894, we now have a lot of aging sewerage facilities. Especially from 1950s, sewerage facilities were rapidly constructed and aging facilities will be rapidly increased in near future.
If we do not rehabilitate the aging facilities, decreased flowing capacity of sewers will cause odor problems and increasing infiltration to sewers. Road subsidence might be occurred.
It may also decrease the efficiency of operation and maintenance of pumping stations and sewage treatment plants and increase the O&M cost of them.
The city of Osaka has been implementing the reconstruction and renewal project of sewerage facilities in order to continue to maintain them efficiently in the future. The project includes the systematic reconstruction and renewal of aged facilities as well as making the facilities meet the new needs.
As the reconstruction and renewal project must be done without interrupting daily O&M work, the latest technology and equipment should be adopted. In addition, we have been not only maintaining the capacity but also improving durability and earthquake resistance of facilities, saving of resource and energy as well as making O&M work efficiently. At the same time, we have been promoting multiple use of sewerage resource and sewerage facilities.

Stock of aged sewerage facilities (As of the end of FY 2007)

Changes in total length of pipe installed

Aged sewer and screen

Renovation of Aged Facilities

Work Efficiency Improvement

Aiming towards more efficient and simple operation of sewage works, the city of Osaka needs to improve the efficiency of the project in various fields. We have been promoting sludge pipeline transportation system by replacing the conventional sludge transport by truck in order to convey sludge efficiently. Furthermore, we are adopting remote supervisory control system aiming at improvement of the O&M efficiency of facilities and integrating the existing monitoring stations.
In addition, we have abolished and integrated facilities and achieve more effective operation in case we reconstruct aging facilities.

Remote monitoring and control system	Integration and renewal of old facilities

Sludge pipeline transportation system

Development of the Earthquake Resistant Sewerage System

Sewerage system, together with water, electricity, and gas supply systems, is one of the most important systems to support citizen’s life, comprising a crucial urban infrastructure.
It is essential, therefore, to maintain its function even in case of disasters such as earthquake. And it is essential to try to utilize the sewerage facilities for disaster prevention to establish a disaster-proof city.
To accomplish this, buildings in sewage treatment facilities have been reinforced based on the result of seismic investigations and electric generators have been installed in each plant in order to sustain facility’s function in case an earthquake occurs.
In addition, the city of Osaka promotes construction of sewage receiving facilities to be used as provisional toilets at places of refuge and so on. Another anti-disaster plan is to supply advanced treated water for fire fighting and for miscellaneous use by installing water reuse facilities in the sewage treatment plants.

Provisional Toilets at Places of Refuge

Power Generation system

Water Reuse Facilities for Fire Fighting

Water Reuse Facilities for Miscellaneous use

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