On September 13th, the 2022 International Water Association (IWA) World Water Conference was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference presented awards to 18 winners of the IWA Project Innovation Award (PIA), of which the most important are the three awards of gold, silver, and bronze. The "Erhai Basin Pollution Control Innovation and Regional Development Project" jointly submitted by China Water Environment Group, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the Dali government finally broke through the hurdles and won the silver award.

The IWA Project Innovation Awards (PIA) recognize outstanding contributions and remarkable innovations in water technology, management, and research. The awards are presented every two years at the IWA World Water Congress to encourage industry contributions to sustainable water development around the world. 203 applications from 52 countries were received through open nominations in six categories. The IWA expert jury independently assessed the innovation, main results, the design environment of the project, and its potential for wider impact. The Erhai Lake Project was highly recognized by the expert jury for its development of distributed submerged reclaimed water ecosystem engineering technology and its successful practice in the Erhai Lake Basin in Dali.