Officials at the Office of Waterworks at the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) pose for the camera with Arisu bottles. (Photos: Office of Waterworks at SMG)

The Office of Waterworks at the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG), established in 1989, is out to accomplish a vision of becoming a “tasty Arisu” beloved by 10 million Seoulites by offering satisfying services and ramping up its competitiveness on top of building world-class facilities and infrastructure.

The office has been making efforts to supply Arisu, which is clean and safe tap water, to citizens and improve public perception toward tap water. These efforts have contributed to establishing Arisu as Korea’s representative tap water.

Arisu is named after a combination of Ari, the name of the Han River in Goguryeo, which means big in Korean, and su, meaning water in a Chinese character. Arisu has been dubbed as the brand of Seoul’s tap water. The tap water is now supplied to 10 million Seoulites residing in 25 autonomous wards of Seoul as well residents in four neighboring cities – Guri, Namyangku, Hanam and Gwangymyeong.

SMG’s tap water administration policy goal is to help all Seoulites, including the economically downtrodden, receive a wide range of tap water services. World-class infrastructure management levels and the improvement of innovative public services have maxed out citizens’ satisfaction. Seoul’s tap water ranks 1st in Korea and 2nd in the world, following only Tokyo, with its revenue water ratio standing at 95.7 percent and leakage ratio amounting to 1.9 percent.

The figures stand out compared with the revenue water ratio of New York and London, the capitals of advanced countries, showing 85.6 percent and 73.9 percent, respectively.

In addition, 98.37 percent of old tap water pipelines, which had a huge impact on tap water supply and quality in the past, have been replaced since 1984, and the remainder will be substituted by 2020.

In particular, the Office of Waterworks has expanded support programs not only to the public sector, but also to the private sector to guarantee the safety of tap water.

Individuals are responsible for their management of in-house pipelines and the safety of tap water, but the office has included the private sector as beneficiaries of support programs to provide a safe drinking water to them. The step is part of the office’s efforts to level up individual residents’ – particularly the underprivileged – access to clean, safe tap water.

In the case of those in the low-income bracket, including social welfare facilities, a 100 percent financial support covering the cost of refurbishing old household pipelines is provided. Retaining world-class tap water quality is one of the office’s top priority tasks.

Seoul’s tap water is required to pass water examination in 170 categories, far exceeding the ones recommended by the World Health Organization, before being supplied.

The capital’s six Arisu water purification centers have also established advanced water treatment facilities using ozone and charcoal to always keep on supplying top-tier tap water.

The SMG’s thorough water quality management has earned the certification of the ISO221000 for all of its tap water production and supply, ranging from each Arisu water purification center, drawing water to the faucet as well as bottled water at Arisu’s production facilities.

ISO221000 is an international standard dealing with food safety. Airisu became the first ISO22000 certificate holder in Korea in terms of tap water production and supply. With the certification, Arisu has proved to be globally recognized for strict production and supply surveillance through systematic hygienic management and food safety management as a safe food. Arisu also tops public services globally.

The Arisu quality confirmation system is a project designed to raise the public’s reliability for Arisu.

Since 2001, water quality tests have been made at the request of 50,000 households every year. Under the system, which made its full-fledged debut in 2008, free water quality tests had been conducted to an accumulative 4.9 million places by 2017.

Since 2011, the project shifted a focus on universal welfare services by conducing them on households whose water supply environment needs to be refurnished, houses with children, schools, poor neighbors and “requesting” households.

The Environment Ministry and other local governments – Gwangju and Incheon metropolitan cities – benchmarked the system.

Since 2014, the system has been in place at all local governments across the nation. The NAP report issued by the U.S. NRC introduced the Arisu quality confirmation system and recognized its prominence.

The SMG is making all-out efforts to transfer abroad the excellent waterworks technologies it has so far accumulated. It is aggressively engaged in overseas waterworks support projects like the improving of antiquated tap water facilities in developing countries via the Economic Development Cooperation Fund.