by By Karen Delfau, GEDSI Advisor, Water Stewardship Asia Pacific
Understanding the full picture of wastewater
When most people hear ‘wastewater,’ they picture household sewage, the challenges of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and the related health and household impacts of improperly managed household sewage. Those concerns remain vital: millions still lack access to safe sanitation or clean water.
But another, often invisible, part of the story is industrial wastewater: the chemicals, dyes, metals, and organic matter discharged from factories, workshops and production facilities. These flows mix with household wastewater and stormwater in the rivers, aquifers and coastal ecosystems that sustain communities and biodiversity.
In recent years, attention and investment have focused on household sanitation and rural WASH, while the contribution of industrial wastewater and stormwater sources to the water-quality picture has received less visibility. This imbalance has created gaps in regulation and compliance, particularly in rapidly industrialising economies, where economic growth outpaces governance capacity. Communities living downstream, working in informal jobs, and relying on small-scale agriculture and fisheries are the first to bear the cost: contaminated water, lost livelihoods, rising health risks, and reduced resilience.
As climate change intensifies rainfall variability, flooding, and drought, these issues compound. Water scarcity, combined with poorly managed wastewater and stormwater, can amplify climate risks, spreading pollutants during floods or depleting already scarce water during dry periods. Effective regulation must therefore be not only technically robust and socially inclusive, but also climate-responsive.
Water quality as a lived reality
Technical frameworks often treat pollution as an engineering challenge: effluent standards, monitoring stations, treatment plants. But for many people, water quality is experienced, not measured. It determines the safety of drinking water, the fertility and productivity of farming lands, and the health and wellbeing of family members.
Women managing household water collection, farmers irrigating with polluted water, informal workers living near industrial zones, or people with disabilities navigating unsafe sanitation, all experience water contamination differently. These groups are often most vulnerable to water risks – yet are seldom included in decision-making.
Inclusive governance can reveal practical solutions, strengthen accountability, and build local ownership of water quality outcomes.
Indonesia: Invisible industries, visible impacts
In Indonesia, water quality challenges are tightly linked to industrial supply chains. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), many of which are home-based or semi-formal, contribute significantly to textile finishing, metal plating, and food processing. Operating outside formal wastewater networks, these enterprises often discharge untreated or partially treated wastewater into local drainage that leads directly to rivers. While Indonesia already possesses a complete legal toolbox for controlling industrial wastewater, the enforcement and technical capacity fall sharply as industries become smaller and are located farther from Java.
Vietnam: Mainstreaming inclusion across industrial growth
Vietnam’s rapid industrialization has been driven largely through the proliferation of Industrial Parks and Economic Zones, many located near peri-urban or agricultural in major catchment areas. While wastewater infrastructure has improved in some zones, enforcement and oversight of pollution sources remain uneven across the sector.
A key dimension in Vietnam is the need to mainstream equity and inclusion into water quality governance, ensuring that the understanding of diverse backgrounds and perspectives extend beyond compliance checklists and into the leadership and different decision-making levels of not only among different government departments but also for factories and industrial-park management. For example, the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) 2025 report identifies that in Vietnam’s water sector, women constitute about one-third of the workforce but hold only around 7 % of leadership roles.[1]
At the same time, Vietnam is positioning itself as a regional leader in ‘green industrial zones’, which are areas designed to model low-carbon, resource-efficient, and socially responsible growth. Although in principle these initiatives align with sustainability principles, their success will hinge on how wastewater management, climate adaptation, and social inclusion are embedded in daily practice at the site level. Unless gender, disability, and local perspectives are embedded into the day-to-day governance of water, climate, and energy systems, so-called ‘green’ industrialisation will remain superficial, improving image, but not outcomes for people or ecosystems.
Embedding inclusion in industrial policy and regulation isn’t an add-on: it is a path to sustainable industrialisation that benefits everyone. Diverse leadership and inclusive decision-making help transform wastewater management from a technical obligation into a shared social commitment.
The WSAP approach: Collaboration for equitable water stewardship
The Water Stewardship in the Asia‑Pacific (WSAP) Project (funded by the Australian Water Partnership) works in Indonesia and Vietnam to improve industrial wastewater management and strengthen institutional frameworks for water-quality regulation and practice. By building equity and inclusion into its engagement, from stakeholder mapping and training to data collection and community outreach, WSAP ensures that industrial water governance reflects the realities of those most affected.
WSAP supports locally-led solutions that emphasize collaboration among industries, regulators, and communities, shifting from reactive enforcement to collaborative stewardship, where pollution reduction and resource protection are shared responsibilities rather than imposed burdens.
Why inclusion strengthens water quality
When wastewater management incorporates lived experience and social diversity, regulations are more grounded, compliance is more realistic, and monitoring is more transparent. In other words, inclusive governance produces cleaner water, healthier communities, and climate-resilient livelihoods.
Industrial growth and environmental protection need not be opposing goals. The people most vulnerable to poor water quality, and those removed from industrial decision-making, often hold the insights to improve regulation and implementation.
A call for inclusive, climate-resilient water stewardship
The future of clean and resilient water systems depends on more than pipes, treatment plants, or regulations. It depends on whose voices shape the system, whose needs are recognised, and who is empowered to be part of solutions.
Inclusion strengthens governance. Governance protects water. And water sustains life.
WSAP invites governments, industries, and communities to join us in building water systems that are not only technically sound, but equitable, climate-resilient, and socially just.
References
Asian Development Bank. (2025). Identifying Gaps and Opportunities to Advance Gender Equality in Viet Nam’s Water Sector [Report]. https://www.adb.org/publications/gender-equality-viet-nam-water-sector
[1] https://initiatives.weforum.org/water-futures/navigator/publications/identifying-gaps-and-opportunities-to-advance-gender-equality-in-viet-nam’s-water-sector/50e9b5c510674964bea092e1690a08bb8dc41f07